Day 12

Day 12 was the busiest day of the trip and be prepared for lots of photos below. Having landed early in the morning the plan was to make my way to the hotel, drop my luggage off and then explore the city.

In the evening I had a ticket for the World Expo so that would be the second part of the day.

The first problem was that I had an issue with the hotel that I'd booked, the Hotel Bon Mary. It was a brand new hotel when I booked it and had good initial feedback. It was in an excellent location in the heart of the city and by all accounts looked like a good hit. However in the weeks leading up to the trip I checked for more recent reviews and a number of negative ones had started to appear with comments that it wasn't a hotel but a series of apartments with a desk that wasn't manned all the time. Coupled with accusations of extra payments being requested during checkout, I was no longer convinced that this was a good place to go, so whilst at the airport I cancelled it and went for the slightly safer Best Western. They were great when I dropped my luggage off and I was told I could check in at midday. When I returned at that time and checked in they tried to charge me extra for early check-in now citing the time was 2pm. Eurgh! So I left and went to the Khan Shatyr to pass the time before heading back and finally getting my room. 

The morning walk went on much longer than I'd have anticipated but it did get me around a great deal of the city. This part of the city was very very quiet first thing and I had a lot of the main boulevard that runs from the palace to the Khan Shatyr mall to myself which was great but I was tired and dragging myself around whilst I tried to wake up/catch a second wind. The plan was to visit as many of the rollercoasters that we knew about in the city today. As with any trip the months leading up to the trip often feature friends and me doing our best to find as many new coasters as we can. I'd found one down near the site of the Expo, and a friend, Thomas had found one in the north-east of the city. Thomas and Tal had beaten me to Astana having visited in July but did find another one in the Khan Shatyr, which I was always going to visit anyway. So I had a good number to find, which would inevitably lead to a lot of sightseeing along the way. Astana doesn't have a metro but does have a good bus network

The drive from the airport to the hotel had a couple of hitches. Firstly the country is currency closed and so I couldn't bring any money in and had to get it from a cashpoint, which only gave me notes. The bus, which happened to be the first of the day, needed cash so I gaijin thumped (played the dumb tourist) to the conductor who fortunately let me ride for free. The second was that the bus stops immediately outside the airport aren't the pickup ones, and I thought the taxi drivers telling me this were just trying to get me into their taxis. It wasn't until one pointed where I should be going when I concluded they were genuinely trying to help. So to help, here's where things were on my trip. Note, there were some works going on and this could change.

That's the Presidential palace close to my new hotel. It would mark the eastern most point in my walking tour. The first hour or so would be spent heading west to the Khan Shatyr mall 2 miles away.

The first marker off in the distance is the Bayterek Tower, just over half a mile away, although it doesn't look it. Big buildings can be deceptive, something I learned from trying to walk around Vegas.

That's a concert hall. There's quite a bit of cool architecture in this part of the city.

The theme for the expo was around new energy and the mascots represent a different source. Saule represents the sun, Kuat the earth and Moldir the water. During the day this area would come alive which is why the stage was in place.

There was a load of art installations along the central boulevard and the stand out pieces in my opinion were these mirrored animals. They did repeat as I made my way along, I suspect they didn't expect people to walk all the way from one end to the other like I'd done.

  

My original "hotel" would have been near the top of the central tower. My new hotel, whilst safer, didn't offer anything like the view I'd have gotten from here.

An interesting interactive art piece that clearly wasn't being maintained.

Each country that was at the expo was represented by a statue holding a sphere. In amongst the group I was able to pick out the three countries I was visiting on this trip. I did struggle to find the UK however and I had to walk through the installation 4 times before I found it. I guess I'm so used to things being UK and Europe centric that they would have a prominent position, but they didn't.

That's a huuuge building off in the background. I'd be headed that way in a bit.

The Khan Shatyr mall was designed by Norman Foster, the same guy that designed the wobbly bridge in London, and my office :) The theme for this construction is that it should look like a traditional Kazakh tent. It was opened in 2010 but doesn't open until 1000 so I was too early to go and check it right now, I'd come back later in the day.

Later in the day I'd guess this would be covered with people wanting photos.

Astana's main opera house is a huge building and was completed recently, 2013 in fact. It's apparently got some of the best acoustics in the world.

This is an even more recent building that has popped up across the main road from the opera house. I couldn't tell if it was a theme park or not but I couldn't see anything above the wall that would indicate so. It's well themed though.

There is a good mix of art all over the place, some of it pretty, some of it weird.

These buildings were all themed to specific countries, like a mini expo. I think they were all restaurants though.

There are a number of malls around the city, it's not just the Shatyr one. Some are old communist style malls but the majority are newer western style. They're a good place to eat or if you need a reminder of western shops.

Ailand is a new amusement park that was announced in the month leading to the trip. It's primarily an oceanarium (the one furthest from the oceans apparently), dinosaur park and water park with a go-kart track and new big wheel outside. As I approached this I was very aware that there were a lot of people walking around with ear pieces in, some smartly dressed, most casually. I can only assume there was someone important in the area, and as a tourist who couldn't figure out the best way past the building (I wasn't going in but needed to get beyond it) and who kept turning back on where he was going, I'm surprised I didn't trigger any alerts.

A short walk north and I found my way to the Central Park, my intended first destination. The big circuit I could see in researching turned out to be a dry skiing circuit where they make their way around on skis with wheels, something we don't have in the UK at all. I suspect when it snows conventional skis are used.

Central Park is the oldest and main park in the city of Astana. The rides are predominantly kiddy ones but there are a number that are suitable for us oldies and despite it being early (around 10am) the rides were beginning to open up as I got there.

I hadn't seen these robot rides before.

TIR attractions are quite popular in this part of the world. They're basically shooting ranges.

It was always known that the park had one large coaster, but it wasn't until Tal and Thomas checked the park in the Summer that it was confirmed there was a second, which was tree covered, which is why it couldn't be seen as easily. The smaller, more embarrassing coaster was the first one I rode. The second one needed a bit of staff nudging to get opened up and I had to wait for some other kids to come along before they'd let us ride.

4D rides are popular but I've seen some variations that open up even more dimensions. This park had a 7 and a 12. The extra Ds usually refer to effects for those that aren't aware.

Close to the park is this new arena which was again surrounded by security officials. A number of people, mostly wearing red then made their way towards it and were later heard singing national songs, I'll assume to someone important enough to warrant the secret service type folk.

The building matches the design for a reworking of the Central Park which if it completes will look like this. A definite reason to go back.

From the eastern exit of the park on a main bridge I grabbed lunch and then jumped a bus to amusement park number 2. Zheruyyq Park; a park that must score really well in Scrabble.

When I got there the train was sitting on the lift hill, a clear sign that it wasn't open and there was no signs of anyone around to operate it. The only other attraction, a bouncy castle, was open and unmanned and being used. I hung around til well past the opening time in the hope it would open up but it didn't. C'est la vie! This coaster was the one that Thomas had found in researching his trip.

On the way back to the hotel I accidentally jumped on the wrong bus. They have conventional buses that charge a small amount for a single journey and where you pay a conductor. But there are also express buses that are more expensive but don't stop so often. With these you have to pay the driver, but I didn't know that. So I jumped on and was expecting a conductor to come to me and when I got off having not paid the bus driver then honked his horn and berated me until I got back on and paid for the journey. Oops!

The Khan Shatyr Mall is a 6-storey shopping mall that looks smaller on the inside than the outside; like the opposite of a Tardis. The entire top floor is the amusement park called FameCity and there's an ok selection of rides and an upcharge dinosaur park.

This is the coaster that Tal found on his visit, a small figure-8 thing that the staff were reluctant to let me ride but I'd ridden a similar ride in Indonesia and was able to convince them to let me ride if I could show I could get the bar down. Now I've put on a bit of weight since that trip but I was able to squeeze in and got my ride. Having done this it was time to finally check into the hotel before heading down to the Expo site.

The Mega Silkway is the largest mall in the country and serves as one of the entrances into the Expo site. The bus conveniently stops outside.

The mall is vast and has some really cool pieces of art themed around speed and flight.

Happylon is a Russian chain of indoor amusement parks and they had announced they would open one of their largest parks in this mall, and I'd wagered on them including a rollercoaster, which was confirmed once photos of it's opening were posted online. The ride in question is a spinning coaster which are becoming more and more common all over the world. A lot of the indoor parks rely on you buying a card which you charge up with points. I'm not sure what happened but I ended up buying a card with way more points than I needed so I gave it away when I'd ridden the only ride I was interested in.

The expo site itself was huge and consisted of a number of large pavilion buildings around a central spherical structure. The pavilions contained displays and presentations from different countries all themed to Future Energy. Some were more popular than others but it was a great way to see the world in a single place.

The central pavilion was the Kazakh one. It's only right they have centre stage.

One of the pavilions was a dedicated stage for an exclusive Cirque show called Reflekt that would run on most of the Expo days. I did of course get a ticket #CirqueNerd.

There were also shows and stands from each country. America for example brought Nathan's over as one of the food stands. France flew in David Guetta the day before I landed for a gig (I'd have liked to have gone to that). Spain brought in this singer who I believe to be famous but I've no idea who she was, sorry! So as well as the pavilions there was just plenty going on around the complex.

This is behind the main stage. The girls are chatting to part of a Kazakh band that would be playing later that night. They were quite excited but then pissed off as he came through the fence and walked off blanking them. Haha!

The UK's display was pretty fancy. It featured a central tent made of poles surrounded by a screen showing a vista. As you touched the poles, they'd light up and change something on the screen. A simple way of indicating that we're all responsible for what we do with the planet. I also found a rocket car that I think was one of ours and weeks later I discovered this is the Bloodhound car that may be the first to reach 1000mph. Nuts!

This was pretty cool.

The end of my day was the Cirque Show which was spectacular with a catwalk layout, the audience being on both sides of a long central stage. The theme fitted with the expo theme on renewable energy but I couldn't quite make that out in the show. What we had was a number of pretty cool acts, some new and some I'd seen before. My favourite was the fire juggler, which was new.

Expos only run for a few months at considerable expense and so should have a long term plan, similar to Olympic sites. Some become theme parks such as ones in South Korea, others become tourist attractions such as Brussels Atomium, a lot however fall into decline or are removed like the Shanghai one I visited in 2010. It'll be interesting to see what happens here. Whilst the expo was one the rules for entering the country were relaxed but will be restored soon, which is a shame. That's a sign that the expo is probably more temporary than permanent, although the mall is a permanent fixture. 

Back in the city and I took a quick walk of the city lit up. Some of the buildings were turned into huge advertisements for the country, including one opposite my hotel :)

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