On this trip we seem to have four general categories of days. 1) transit 2) rest & recharge 3) tourist attraction 4) rambling through a city. It’s been a long time since we’ve had a #4 day, so it felt extra sweet today.

We had an excellent morning. Millie woke up without nightmares, crawled into our bed at 7am, and then slept with us until 9. What a gift! We got up refreshed and ready to face the day.

We headed out for a long walk to Amir Temur square. I loved the Soviet architecture and block-long apartment buildings. We made it about 30 minutes before the whining set in.

Nick and I hadn’t eaten breakfast so we stopped at a pizza place in a park. The pizza was perfect Neapolitan style and the weather was just shy of too hot. It felt like we were in Europe.

Once we refueled we walked on. After a couple of blocks we found a photography museum that Millie wanted to walk through.

We got to the main square and took our photo with Temur.

We walked through a pedestrian area that seemed like it might turn into a fairground at night.

There is no Uber here so I downloaded YandexGo and called a rideshare taxi. Yandex is a massive Russian company who has probably now hacked into my phone and data. We got a ride over to Magic City.

In my head I kept calling Magic City “poor man’s Disney World”. I loved it. It had a giant fountain show, lots of shops & cafes, people zip lining overhead, an Aquarium, fair games, and more.

Two things that made me laugh: this man’s stance while playing a “pop the balloon to win a stuffed animal” game, and this old lady’s shirt.

We went into the “magic museum” which was the Uzbek version of Ripley’s Believe it or Not (kind of). It was right on the edge of offensive and had absolutely no common thread or cohesion. I also loved this.

Uitni Xyuston.

Millie rode the “ferry-go-round” as she still calls it.

We took a break at a cafe to hydrate. This is Pepsi country and I had a Pepsi Zero for the first time in my life. Millie drew as always.

We hopped in another YandexGo for our final stop of the day: Charsu market. Giant food markets give me the same pleasure that I get from foreign grocery stores. I could walk around staring at all the different shades of honey, questionable cuts of meat, and rainbow of produce all day long. This market had a central dome where people sold mostly meat, spices, and pickles. Then it had spokes coming out from there with anything you could think of: plants, clothes, toys, fruit, etc.

We discerningly chose fruit for our train ride tomorrow. We went with pears, peaches, and grapes. By this point in the day we had walked miles and everyone was wiped out.

I called our last Yandex of the day and we headed home. I stopped in at the grocery store downstairs to make my trip specialty of boring pasta for dinner. Millie and Nick watched yet another movie together: Inside Out.