Update: Sun 21:30

Life continues apace in old Bishkek town...not.

Wandering back last night I stopped to observe life in Ala-Too Square (the main son et lumiere plaza) partly because the beer was off in the restaurant and I needed to stop to recover and partly to wonder why they were still using pneumatic drills on the top of the plinth where the Freedom Statue was until a few days ago. They've been at it for days. All day and (at the time) well after ten, several blokes on the 2x4m plinth, 20m up jack-hammering away at goodness knows what. The LP suggests that this isn't the first time they've replaced the statue (with another Freedom Statue) in which case you would think they'd come up with an easier mechanism with which to transist. (If that's a word.)

Otherwise the usual plasticky tat for sale include some battery lit hand-pulled helicopter rotor jobbies which whizz up into the air and fall away crashing onto the head of some unsuspecting soul. They look quite fun! No room in the bag, unfortunately.

Another popular pastime is the punching (bag) machine where punters attempt to thump the bejeezus out of a bag attached to a machine at thumping height which will then report some satisfying number. No-one appears to thump the vendors at any rate. I think they would go down very well at bike rallies where drunk arseholes would overplay their hand and get a free trip to casualty to patch up their wrists.

The department store model is slightly different in that it's a big building but all the vendors are individual with the nett effect of that of a market but in classier surrounds. Unlike a Western department store where you can stagger about with your potential purchases from any point and pay at another, here you're in and out of individual shops. The side-effect is that the depth of collection is limited to what any individual can supply not a function of the floorspace devoted to "fashion", "electricals", "books" etc.. The flip side is that the ground floor is a mesmerising warren of mobile phones, a gazillion of them, I'm sure.

One the way back to the guest house last night I wandered past the White House (I think it is -- too lazy to look at the LP inches from my hand) which had a small "list of the fallen" (I'm sure there's a more concise terminology other than memorial which suggests a separate structure rather than some plaques) of the lives lost in last year's revolution. It is extraordinarily hard to believe that there was "regime change" here just a year ago. It is such an easy going cosmopolitan city to wander around.

Very little vandalism -- I noticed that the open tent structures (I forget their name) of the next door restaurant and the diaphanous curtains of mine remained remarkably unmolested by the local wastrel youth. I did notice that some graffiti and tags (very rare) were in Roman script if not English. I've been unnerved walking through poorly or unlit parts of town only to pass lone women walking their dog going in the other direction. No gangs of youths (indeed, very few youths at all).

In a revelation likely to shock you I've done nothing today. I am eating at my favourite restaurant which normally has precisely one table in operation (me). I think I've said before it sells the best food, maybe more expensive than elsewhere, certainly on the wrong side of the street for many. Today though, there's a lone woman tourist sat in front of me and four blokes (UK, Aussie and Europeans) who are all acting in the overseas service mode of large companies. "Do you remember the office we were in in Tashkent because here was full?" "I lived in Oz for a few years." etc.. I thought initially they were foreign office employees but they kept discussing MDs and other corporate issues. They are all in their fifties and well versed in overseas life (and I guess the tax-free, expenses lifestyle).