Tashkent Japanese Garden

The cleanest, greenest, most lovely park in Tashkent is the Japanese garden. Of course it is, it's modeled after Japan. And it charges admission.

Ahh, lush lawn, meandering walk, stone lantern. Relaxing.

A little brook with arched wood bridge. Plenty of shaded meadow for a Sunday picnic.

Water features are important.

More little architectural elements that evoke Japan.

A nod to summer programming, an outdoor screening area. Gotta have something for the peeps bored by nature.

Getting Local History At The Almaty Museum

Almaty has a cute museum, dedicated to a somewhat random mix of local history, culture, cool things. It's worth a visit to get a small idea of what was happening in the Almaty area way back and not so far back when.

Fittingly, the museum is housed in a vernacular, rural, folk-like wood building.

Let's start a while ago, when men wore big hats and women showed off their embroidery work. Jumping forward in time, a view of a typical Tsar, Soviet-era urban apartment of a family with a bit of money.

Honoring the backbone of the village, the women busy spinning and sewing all day.

Twentieth century objects. Sewing machine with pattern book. Make your child dapper. Post office cancellation stamps.

Fun stuff. An exhibition on the Kazakh film industry. Lots of objects on display related to the Central Asia equivalent of the Sword and Sandal movie genre. Think Silk and Yurt epics.