My family has a four-day long weekend as our school is celebrating Lunar New Year. We are staying in Tashkent for the break and enjoying the city. I savor holidays as a time to be off the clock and have more time to devote to myself and spend time with my family. I had 5 full weeks, plus Saturdays, of working and it is an ideal time to decompress and recoup my energy and enthusiasm.
In the morning, I completed workout #63 in my Inner Dimension Power Yoga 108. It has been transformative for my body, increasing my muscle strength, flexibility, and balance. It has improved my body and I feel I am a calmer person. I do need to incorporate a better diet, mostly eating less, but overall, I feel years younger. I can’t recommend it enough. After taking Obi for a long walk, I then spent the afternoon with Ocean and Nadia.
We visited the Fine Arts Gallery of Uzbekistan. There was an exhibition of miniature paintings “Oriental Motifs” and it cost 75 cents to enter. I especially liked the video demonstrating how an artist copies traditional painting. They also had a display of ancient coins from the time of Alexander the Great and Tamerlane. We walked around the many parks in the area, enjoying the 64F (18C) spring-like weather. I dropped the girls off for a night at the InterContinental Hotel and then went to a professional hockey game.
Tashkent Humo is in second place in the Kazakhstan Professional Hockey League. They are 37-12 and 5 points below league-leading Kokshetau. They lost 1-2 in an exciting, physical game last night to fifth-place Aktobe (26-22 – 55 points). Aktobe is the fourth largest city in Kazakhstan, in the northwest near the border with Russia. There were many penalties and hard hits and both teams had lots of chances for goals. I would say overall, Humo deserved the win, but the goalie for Aktobe was good. In the third period, Aktobe scored to go up by a goal. Humo put on a flurry of pressure at the end, but couldn’t get the equalizer. The bottom tier of the stadium was full and it was a vibrant atmosphere. I put together some footage below of the game. The Humo have a nice uniform and logo and I bought Nadia a jersey. Oliver came with his girlfriend and it was a good night out.
I saw many signs of Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko and Belarussian flags all over the city. He is here in Tashkent on an official state visit. Uzbekistan really tries to be a good host, celebrating the visiting leader and the relationship of the country with Uzbekistan. I don’t know how many countries would celebrate the visit of Lukashenko and I wonder what benefit Uzbekistan gets through its relationship with Belarus. Security has been tighter around the city with police posted everywhere. The president and his delegation visited the Amirsoy Ski Resort and hockey game and there have been restrictions on the gondola and tighter searches entering the stadium.
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