plov, mutton ribs, railroad men and belly dancing

friday night was the first day of our week long fall break from school and also our first night out on the town with some of our co-workers who are from bishkek (yuliya, aliya) and a couple of other teachers from bis (erin and karl). also joining us were our friends yassi and simon (who works at the german embassy).

after checking out several local places (all of which were already full by 630pm)... we ended up at stari gorad... which translate to "old city".

typical kyrgyz restaurant - slow service but great atmosphere. lots of meat on the menu (almost impossible to be a vegetarian here) along with pickled salads.

we ordered plov (a wonderful rice dish with mystery meat, carrots, onion, garlic, and seasoning) and mutton ribs. so, so good!

the restaurant has live entertainment - two guys and a girl singing karaoke. really fun music to dance to as they sang a combination of local pop songs and cheesy american love songs. for the first part of the night, the only people dancing were a group of older, well dressed, kyrgyz business men. the band let everyone know that it was "bishkek railroad men" night.

after a while we joined them on the dance floor which was such good comedy as the girls in our group had to dodge the railroad men while dancing. the railroad men would move in... the girls would turn and dance away. sometimes i would try to step in between but the railroad men would just perform a nifty little spin move around me and keep pursuing the girls.

the highlight of the night was the two belly dancers that appeared out of no where and began dancing across the floor. really amazing and cool to see them dance especially as it inspired other folks (including a group of guys who looked like there were from turkey or georgia) to get out and do their own traditional dance.

jennifer and i tore up the rug a bit as well when the singers broke out the 1950s american song "rock around the clock". lots of fun all around!