Teambuilding at Ak Bulak

One bright sunny mid-December Sunday all of the teachers and some of the staff at the two language centers piled into a car and a van. The destination was Ak Bulak. A ski resort about an hour East of Almaty. All we knew was that it was an outing and we would be team building.

We arrived at the resort to find fairly modern looking ski lifts, including an express gondola. Up to this point the season had been rather dry. Even though it was mid-December only one of the local ski resorts was actually operational. We rode on both of the lifts the ski resort had to get to the top. The second half of the journey was on a typical open air 2-person ski lift. It was good to be in the high crisp mountain air. The journey up the mountain was fairly painless too.

Gina and I posed at the top for a quick picture.

One group picture with all of the foreign language teachers and our director.


Going down the mountain provided a good shot of the valley. It was a beautiful day.
I had fun getting people's attention and then snapping a shot or two.
We all had a lot of fun.
If anyone wants a promo poster I can provide this in much higher resolution!

It turns out that most of our team building that day comprised of short epic snow battles and group photos. It was a little different than I expected but I would say at the end of the day we did feel a little bit more like a team. We finished the day with an enjoyable lunch celebrating the many different cultures represented among our group.