Amusement #2: Chinese restaurant menus

A second source of amusement that I have found here springs from a more mundane experience: dining at a Chinese restaurant. I've concluded that one rule that all restaurateurs here have to abide by if they wish to open an authentic Chinese eatery is: Thou shalt have menus with ridiculous English translations of dish names. Shaolin, the particular restaurant whose menu these pictures give you a taste of, is the epitome of this rule. They probably established it. Some special favourites of mine are: Hot Rabbit Piece of Tingle, Special Safe Fish, and the Towards Type Turn Over the Sand Dasheen. None of these names has any obvious relation either to the Russian or to the Chinese dish names.

[P.S. I found out after writing this post that apparently at least one of the dishes - the Towards Type Turn Over the Sand Dasheen - does have some basis in the Chinese names, if one allows a somewhat misguided and poetic interpretation. I quote, "The name of this particular dish in Chinese literally means “Korean style stir fry dasheen”, but the word for Korean sounds similar to “towards”, and the poetic way of saying ‘stir fry’ does literally mean ‘turn over the sand’. So it’s actually logical, and hilariously so!"]

Amusement #1: Wiggling sheep butts

It occurred to me that there are some amusements associated with life in Bishkek that I have not hitherto shared with my faithful blog readers. One of these is wiggling sheep butts. On the roads in between Bishkek and the rest of the country, one is treated to bucolic sights of free-ranging cows and sheep, Kyrgyz boys and men on donkeys and horses, and, of course, vaguely grassy mountains in the background. Trouble comes when the aforementioned animals decide to venture onto the road, as they frequently do (ah, the free-ranging life). Hence this picture taken from a marshrutka; we were stuck behind the sheep indefinitely, it seemed, but to everyone's relief, the sheep soon veered off the road into greener pastures.