Adventurous Kate

For my final day in Almaty, I was originally supposed to do a day trip to Big Almaty Lake. But between the fact that it’s still frozen and the area is covered with snow, and the fact that it required a pickup at 6:00 AM, 20 minutes from my hotel, and I decided to skip it.

(Funny enough, my Singaporean friends for the tour saw snow for the first time in real life at Big Almaty Lake!)

So instead, I spent the morning walking around the city, and the afternoon on a tour with Walking Almaty.

Now — if you go to Almaty, you MUST book a tour with Dennis of Walking Almaty!! Dennis is a fascinating guy — he’s from California and decided to study abroad in Kazakhstan for a summer in high school. He then studied Russian, moved to Almaty to study Kazakh, has lived here since, and today has translated some important Kazakh works into English for the first time.

Dennis’s tour around the Golden Quarter was awesome and full of interesting facts about Kazakh culture. And a private tour for one is something I rarely indulge in, but this cost $50 USD — a much more affordable price point than you’d find in, say, Italy.

(FYI: Dennis comped my tour, but I was planning to pay had no idea he was going to comp me until the end of the tour. I made sure to tip him well.)

And that was the end of my time in lovely Almaty. I MUST return.

More details in the captions.

One of my favorite details about Artemis II’s voyage to the moon is that the astronauts took photography classes.

The arts are SO important. STEM deserves to be STEAM.

I am loving every glorious update from THE MOON! THE MOON.

I made it to the greatest buffet restaurant in the world: Les Grands Buffets in Narbonne, France.

For the price of 65.90 euros ($76 USD), you get to eat the finest classic French dishes, all prepared immaculately.

But what sets this place apart is the unlimited access to luxury products.

All-you-can-eat lobsters.

All-you-can-eat oysters.

All-you-can-eat snow crab legs.

All-you-can-eat foie gras.

All-you-can-eat truffles.

ALL-YOU-CAN-EAT CAVIAR. (Yes, seriously.)

Les Grands Buffets is a whirlwind experience. I can't believe those four hours went by so quickly. Perhaps it was the champagne, which happens to be the same champagne they served on the Titanic (!), and they price their wines at cellar price, so it was just 25 euros per bottle.

You may not have heard of Narbonne, France, but it's actually super easy to reach from Barcelona, Girona, Toulouse, Montpellier, or Marseille.

If any this piques your interest...

I wrote a whole blog post with an extremely detailed review, and tons of photos of what they serve.

This is a once-in-a-lifetime experience if you enjoy traveling for food.

The link is in the comments.