And, Oh No, the Post-Toi

No one told me there were going to be more parties after the pre-parties and the big party, but I sucked it up and went to the mountains with everyone for one last celebration of gluttony.

There was meat, meat, more meat, baijiu, beer, and more baijiu.... I couldn't very well refuse on my last day with most of these people (being a guest among Kazakhs is not something to be taken lightly). Can you find the bottle of liquor in this photograph? It was the last of many bottles that day, and from it I downed the final of many toasts, hoping this one would actually be my last taste of baijiu for a while.

I went home pretty toasty that day and slept off the previous week, thankfully in a mostly empty house as the guests started returning home, one by one.

Sadly, my time for leaving was also coming up as I had a housing crisis to deal with in Urumqi and two guests from the States coming.

So I bid farewell to grandma, baby, and my little semi-idyllic slice of life with the "real" Kazakhs to return to city madness.