Almaty, Kazakhstan

Best Daytrip: 4,500-year-old rock carvings at Tamgaly (2.5 hour drive)

• You hail a cab as normal, but anyone can pull up to get you.
• No ATM fees!
• Grocery stores produce section are small with low-quality
  fruits and vegetables.
• Cars not only stop for pedestrians, they’ll slam on the breaks
  to let pedestrians go first.
• Huge cafe scene, sometimes three cafe’s next to each other.
• Shisha seems like the national pastime. Everywhere sells
  shisha and you can (mostly) smoke it indoors. Smoking
  e-cigarettes seems to be legal indoors, too.
• All the girls have perfectly painted nails
• Smoking indoors was outlawed only recently. However,
  many places have smoking rooms and shisha or e-cigarettes
  are smoked indoors like regular.
• Many walking streets, green spaces, parks, etc.
• For a city of 1.5 million, it feels more like a small city vibe with
  minimal street or foot traffic.
• When ordering water at any cafe or restaurant, it always comes in a glass bottle for 3x the cost...annoying.
• They have a Navy even though they’re a landlocked country.
  Indeed, it was the even less intuitively named Coast
  Guard pre ~2006.
• Some cars have steering wheels on the right side and others
  on the left.