Is Almaty, Kazakhstan worth visiting? Here's a one-day tour guide

Let's start with the conclusion: Unless you're like us, just transiting and happen to have time, or coming from Yining by bus to take a look, or aiming for some special tourism, I think it's OK, but it's really not worth a special trip. As someone who has been to Xinjiang 3 times each time for more than a week, I think its natural scenery is too inferior. Almaty has two lines, one is the city's Ascension Cathedral + Big Almaty scenic area (currently temporarily closed) The other line is the Kaindy Lake and Kolsai Lakes line, which is what we took. There are three ways to go this line, charter, rent a car, join a group. Joining a group is the cheapest, only over a hundred, but you have to leave the city at more than five in the morning, and you won't return until more than ten in the evening, and it's very unsafe, we witnessed a group had a car fire, the scene was very tragic. We left the airport at around seven in the morning and returned to the airport at more than eight in the evening. The main reason for this trip was to go to Kaindy Lake, because many trees on both sides of the previous landslide broke and entered the lake, surprisingly becoming the magical 'upside-down trees', this view is very rare. Riding a horse in Kaindy Lake is 5000 Tenge per person, if you can ride a horse you can ride faster which is very good. At Kolsai Lakes, you must interact with the golden eagle, it feels very good to touch! Taking a photo with the golden eagle is 2000 Tenge per photo, you can change into local ethnic costumes, in the end we two bargained with him for 10000 Tenge and got all the photos. Also, when you come to Kazakhstan, you must try the local big skewers, super big! And very cheap 10 to 15 per skewer, the taste is completely different from Xinjiang barbecue but also very delicious, although it's big it's very flavorful!