valerie

October 20, 2025 - Taiwan is so controversial that this boba shop removed “Taiwan” from their decor. (To be fair, it’s not uncommon for Chinese people to come to Kyrgyzstan for work, and I assume most of those people are from the mainland, where Taiwan is known as ‘Taiwan province’)

White boba tea counter with black letters affixed to it: "I'm from ... where are you from?". Outline of "Taiwan" visible after "I'm from", but no letters there, just the residue of letters which were there before

October 19, 2025 - our first strudel attempt. The dough was too thick, but oh well. We’ll try again another time

One and a half strudels on a baking pan with a piece of baking paper on it

October 18, 2025 - a street of houses on the way from our apartment building to a supermarket nearby

green and red Vines hanging down a fence in front of a house

October 17, 2025 - intricate picture drawn by one of my students, but apparently not important enough to take home from school

picture of what seems to be a whole camp or amusement park with various parts enclosed inside a fence. There are a few monsters outside of the fence

October 16, 2025 - someone brought a shopping cart into our apartment building. I assume they were moving something, but it was kind of strange to see, considering there are very few supermarkets with shopping carts this big in Bishkek

Shopping cart next to an elevator

October 15, 2025 - fall

tree with yellow leaves, tree with orange leaves, and trees with green and orange leaves near a road

October 14, 2025 - simple, satisfying meal for our Sunday night family dinner. My lovely fiancé did all of the hard work 😊
(a cafe near us offers discounted Sunday meals for ‘families’. We were told that day that we don’t qualify as a family bc we don’t have kids…hence my salty stress on family)

Two plates of spaghetti and a bowl of salad

October 13, 2025 - even my Russian fiancé has no idea what these Snickers bars are referring to…must be about an event or group or joke that we are just out of the loop on?

Display of Snicker bars, some with Snickers changed to another word, like Snickers is doing a promotion

October 12, 2025 - last of the Teachers’ Day gifts that I received

Ala-Too brand Kyrgyz chocolate bar, a white paper bag with the store name Vegas Beauty Bar written on it in teal, a small plastic container of hand moisturizer, and a tall, teal can of shower gel

October 11, 2025 - small stream of water near an end of the line bus stop, where we were waiting for a bus after eating Georgian food (which I didn’t take a picture of 😭 but it was so good)

Small stream of water in a rocky riverbed

October 10, 2025 - 4th grade life 🙃

small trash can overflowing with scraps of paper

October 9, 2025 - same cat I posted a picture of at the beginning of September, this time sleeping next to food that someone left it 😁

Orange cat lying on the ground with a pile of cat food not far away

October 8, 2025 - across the street from Ala-Too Square on the 14k race day in late September

square-like area with fountains

October 7, 2025 - was shocked to see Tampax brand tampons, which I have not seen in Kyrgyzstan before. Most of all, was shocked to see tampons with plastic applicators…all other tampons I’ve seen are without them

Tampax tampon boxes on a grocery store shelf

October 6, 2025 - cookies I made last week. They were very good, but almost too sickly sweet, because we didn’t have many plain oats left. I compromised by using two packets of instant oatmeal (with sugar) along with the original amount of sugar noted in the recipe ……

brown chocolate oat cookies on a clear, plastic sheet on a white table

October 5, 2025 - one of my favorite Cats of Bishkek that I’ve seen so far. Such a cute face

Cat with big face and slightly slanted eyes closer together than usual sitting under a bush

October 4, 2025 - foggy and kind of depressing-looking morning in Bishkek today

foggy sunrise over a city

October 3, 2025 - my school treated teachers to dinner for Teacher’s Day. The sushi, soup, and dessert that we got were great. Unfortunately, I don’t like lasagna, even though a lot of people seem to. I texted my fiancé saying that I was bringing lasagna home…turns out he doesn’t like it either 😂😭

Bread and piece of lasagna with one small bite taken out of it in a foil to-go container

October 2, 2025 - a student gave me this for Teacher’s Day 🙂

Albeni chocolate bar with caramel filling in its wrapper

October 1, 2025 - another Cat of Bishkek that I saw last week. It also had a few friends that I didn’t get in the picture

light tan cat with blue/green eyes

September 30, 2025 - back to the 14k I ran last week. This was the start and finish line at Ala-Too Square (at least for the marathon, half marathon, and 14k. The 5k started in a different place but also finished here)

tents and fences set up at Ala-Too Square with a sculpture and the Kyrgyz flag in the background

September 29, 2025 - new electric buses (that are not trolleybuses) slowly being rolled into Bishkek’s bus fleet

green bus driving down a road, approaching the foreground

September 28, 2025 - a cat sitting outside of a pet store which refused treats that we bought from said pet store

black and white cat mid-lick, with its pink tongue on its nose

September 27, 2025 - free pizza!!

slice of pizza in a black, styrofoam to-go box without a top, left on the first step of an outdoor stairwell

September 26, 2025 - pool building wall not far from my house. I assume it’s public, but I’m not 100% sure. You can’t see it from the picture, but there’s no water in the pool anymore because it’s fall and most people would consider it too cold to swim

Small building with "pool" painted on the walls (in Russian - so it's бассейн)