Medeo

While Madeline was visiting in Almaty over Thanksgiving we drove up to Chimbuluk for the afternoon. Chimuluk is the local ski resort and is currently under intense construction trying to get ready for the Asian Games being hosted in January. We stopped to check out the Medeo skating rink - largest outdoor skating rink in the world apparently. Former Soviet athletes used to come here to train. You can see the rink below us in the photo (that's turned the wrong way) below:

We were there on a Friday afternoon and as you can see there were not alot of people on the ice. You can also see how big it is considering that at the near end there is a full hockey rink.

Chevron has a cabin up at Chimbuluk and that weekend was our turn to use the cabin. We stayed overnight without much to do since the ski resort is not open yet. Next day we took the girls skating at Medeo. What a difference a day makes! It was sooo crowded.

Emily and Marcy still had a good time skating. It seems to be the new thing we do. Skate where we can. Marcy did say she was a bit scared by all the people on the ice who did not know how to skate. Olivia, Frank and I planned to skate but there were lines to pay, lines to get skates, lines to return skates, and lines to collect your skate deposit. We gave up. Olivia will get her own skates for Christmas so we don't run into this problem anymore. It seems we skate enough these days.

Madeline and I stopped for a closer look at Medeo when we were there. We spied the sign below inside the gates. We are open to any explantion anyone can give about what this sign might mean. I can only guess that it's a really bad English translation.