Right everyone. This is actually now my third day here, but the first time I've managed t find an internet cafe. Though the place I'm in isn't exactly and internet cafe. But it's free which is good, and uses Mac's which is good too.
So on to more important things, like the weather. If I had found this place this morning I could tell you how beutifully sunny it was and how good the weather had been since I got here. But then it started to rain, though it has stopped again now, amazingly this is only the second day in my entire trip that it has rained.
Even more importanly you might all like to know what I have been up to. On the 29th I flew from Vladivostok to Toyama, leaving at 9:30 and getting in at around 11:30 (both local times). This was all fairly uneventfull except for the rather sceptical Japanese immigration officer who didn't quite seem to believe I'd really be here for 90 days (I'd never expected to have more trouble at Japanese immigration than Russian, which was just a case of repeatedly handing over my passport). I didn't have any problems with the Russian customs either which I had been somewhat nervous about. Unfortuantly I did have one slight problem as there was no exchange office in Vladivostok and the Toyama one was shut. Thus I was now at Toyama airport, with money in three different currencies, but none valid in this country. Cue one rather long walk into the centre of Toyama. Other than the rather heavy rucksack I was carrying it was actually quite a pleasant walk, on a ncie sunny day. I got onto a track by the river and followed that till I saw the railway bridge then followed the railway to the train station, from where I could find the post office and, joy of joys, a cash machine! So, now in Toyama with money I wondered around a bit before the very helpfull tourist information service helped me get a bus to my hotel. I stayed there for the next two nights and explored Toyama a bit more, but didn't do anything much.
And on to yet more important things like where I actually am. Today I caught a train from Toyama to Kanazawa which took about two hours (only one on the train though, the other was working out which train I was getting). In the end I got the Limited Express "Thunderbird" which was a very pleasant ride, including some nice views of snow-capped mountains in the distance. I'm going to be here in Kanazawa for the next few days (I've got three nights in a Japanese Ryokan), so if anyone knows anything interesting about the place your welcome to let me know. I've got a few ideas for what I'm going to be doing with the time I have here and when I move on but your just going to have to wait and see. Kanazawa is obviously a more tourist friendly city, as denoted by the fact that I've already bumped into a few groups of english and american tourists in my hours here compared to my none in Toyama. This is probably a good thing overall at this stage of my trip but I'm not sure that I prefer it.
Oh, I suppose you'll be wanting to know what I think of Japan in general and how the whole langauge barrier problem is working out. Well I like it here. The language barrier is not proving to be a great problem, you'd be amazed at how much is written in english. And a lot of people know enough english for me to manage what I want.
Well I think this will be a good point to finish what is probably my longest entry yet and I'll get back to you all again in a day or two.
Right, this will be my last post from Russia. I'm in Vladivostok now and have been for a couple of days and I fly out tommorow to Toyama in Japan.
There isn't a whole lot to do here in Vladivostok but It's a nice enough place on the coast and having finally gotten used to things here strangly probably the easiest time I've had as well. It's really been the standard run of museums and the like here but being right on the coast somehow gives everything a nicer atmosphere.
The train journey to get here was just a train Journey. There isn't a whole lot to say about it but I did meet some more interesting people. I'd guess my final comment on the Tran-Siberian is that the stops are far more interesting than the journey. But it is nice to be able to say I've done it.
As I said I'm flying to Japan tommorow so with any luck the next posting will be from Toyama, a city I don't actually know a great deal about. I'm staying there for two nights and then plan to start down the coast to Kanazawa.
See you in Japan!
In case anyuone is worrying I am indeed still alive, and in Irkutsk now. For the last few days I've been in a small village on the shore of Lake Baikal and as such out of touch (I was on the train before then as you know).
It's Saturday today (rather been losing track) which means I arrived in Listvyanka (I think that was the name of the village) on Wednesday where I've been staying in a small house. I met up with Mat and Andy again (having originally bumped into them in Moscow) the first day and we had a guide show us around the village and the lake museum and went out walking on the lake (it's covered with over a metre of ice). On Thursday we went snowmobiling on the ice and looked around a bit more. Most of Friday we spent doing cross-country skiing through the forest above the village. All in all it was an incredible three days. I havn't done much in Irkustk, I'm basically just stopping over here before getting the train in the morning (at 3 AM more or less).
I'll fill in some more details and maybe extend this entry a bit if I've got the time while I'm here. Otherwise the next you will here will be from Vladivostok.
Well, it's the morning of my last day in Moscow, 11:30 here and I'm in yet another Internet Cafe. I'm going to go do a little shopping shortly to get last minute things for the train but I'm basically passing the time till 3:15 when I get picked up from my hotel to go catch the first leg of the Trans-Siberian to Irkurtsk.
I've missed a couple of days entries so here's what I've been up to. On Thursday I went to a couple of museams, the Pushkin Museam which contains primarily western art and the Tretyakov Gallery which is made up of russian art. Not the most exciting way to spend a day but I didn't want to do too much as I was trying to give my feet a bit of a rest. I managed to find one of Simon's vegetarian places and had quite a good meal there.
Yesterday was a beautifull day, sunny and warm, it also snowed in the morning covering everything with a nice clean white layer. I went around the Kremlin Armoury collection, which houses the Tsars treasures, including coaches, gowns, thrones and all sorts of amazing things. Later I went out to the New Maiden Convent, though I didn't go into any of the churches there it was nice to just walk around the ground for a while in the sun. I went looking for the Pantheon of Fallen Heroes in the evening, a park filled with old soviet-era statues. I'm not quite sure if I found it since the statues in the park I found didn't look especially soviet but it was quite a nice place to sit and had some lovely deep undisturbed snow. I also found a couple of the places my guide showed me again in the afternoon, including the English bookstore where I bought a couple of books to read while I'm travelling.
I'm in Moscow. So far haven't done a lot in Moscow, but I am here and that's the main thing.
The train journey was fairly pleasent, had a sleeping compartment with four bunks in which to pass the night, slept reasonably though I think I woke up a few times during the night. Arrived here in Moscow around 8am and was driven to the hotel. Hotel looks a lot nicer than the Neva in St Petersburg but it's also a lot further out, gonna have to use the metro a lot by the looks of it. I went up to the Kremlin today and looked at the cathedrals up there before meeting my guide in Red Square who then showed me round a lot of the city, to the extent that my feet now ache. Now in an Internet cafe called NetCity, not as nice as the Quo Vadis in St Petersburg but it serves for the moment. I've been considering whether or not to go to Lenin's Mausoleum while I'm here. Since it doesn't exactly seem like my favourite choice of how to spend a day. Oh well. I'll see what happens. Anyway I'm going to leave this soon and see if I can go find somewhere for a good meal before I head back to the Hotel. Possibly try on of the vegetarian places Simon E-mailed me about.
Another couple of days have passed and I'm back in the Quo Vadis internet cafe here in St Petersburg doing this entry before I go to get my bag from the hotel, to go to the station (one of them anyway) and catch my train to Moscow.
Yesterday was a fairly good day, I visited the Russian Museum first which is a gallery of Russian art and was worth visiting, if you like art galleries. I had intended to go visit the Church of Spilt Blood next but in the end went straight on to the St Isaac Cathedral which is an incredible building. I tried to take a few photo's of the interior but none came out especially well, I'll try to upload something when I get a chance though. I had intended to go up onto the collonade and take a few pictures out over the city but it had already closed by the time I got there, I had thought about trying again today but the weather wasn't great so I decided against it. By the end of the day I wasn't feeling up to much and headed back to my hotel and lounged there for the evening.
Today went well, other than some rather dreary weather, with it raining on and off for most of the day. I visited the Hermitage and spent most of my day wondering around there. The whole place is amazing, both the rooms themselves and the sheer quantity of stuff there, again I tried to take a few pictures but they really don't do the place justice. The thing that amazed me the most is how it just seems to keep going and going. I was going around fairly quickly and I kept finding whole areas I hadn't realised where there. After that I wondered back onto Nevsky Prospect to get some more money before going to Cafe Idiot for supper. It turns out that the place I had thought was it infact wasn't and I probably could have gone there the first time I tried after all. Oh well. It was nice enough anyway and it's nice to know there are good places to eat around here, even if you don't know the langauge, if a slight shame to find out on my last day.
Right, I am now in St Petersburg an Internet Cafe called Quo Vadis (little plug there, very nice place it's on Nevsky Prospect, the main street here). Actually it's just about the end of my second day here and it's scary. I don't know three words of the language (I think I can just about manage "hello" and "thank you" now) and it is incredibly confusing trying to do most anything. Things are improving though since unlike yesterday I actually kinda enjoyed things today.
Yesterday I flew in, which involved two planes and three airports, which wasn't actually as bad as I had expected I actually quite enjoyed the flights, meals were suprisingly good too (at least breakfast on the first flight was, lunch on the second wasn't up to much but not as bad as everyone says). The airports were alright too though not exactly exciting but no trouble either. Stockholm airport also introduced me to a novelty, the push button toilet which flushes for as long as you hold the button, not particularly exciting but it interested me. It all kinda went downhill upon arrival in St Petersburg however, though it looked beutiful from the air, white and glisening it didn't really live up to it once on the ground. The airport set the tone, grey grubby and tatty round the edges, though a beutifull sunny day with a blue sky. I got to my hotel to find it somewhat below what I had hoped for, next time someone make me go for a RENOVATED room, even if it costs a little more.
Today on the other hand I had a guide show me around a lot of the city and stuck my foot in the Neva (unintentionally, serves me right for trying to walk on water, even if it was frozen) on the whole enjoyed myself enourmously, even if both my feet hurt (and one is damp). I would like to point out that the weather forecast for St Petersburg is rubbish, overcast HA!, it's been beutifully sunny, though still rather cold, but nowhere near as bad as the forecast suggested. The guide also showed me to and got me a ticket for this rather strange folk show in one of the old palaces (St Petersburg must have the highest concentration of palaces I've ever seen, where Oxford has colleges, St Petersburg has palaces), including Russian champagne and vodka in the interval (Caviar too but I didn't have that for obvious reasons). After that I went looking for and think I found the Cafe Idiot which was reccommended in my Russia Experience guide as the best vegetarian place around. Unfortunatly as far as I could work out there was a concert there tonight and so I couldn't get in. I'll have to check the place out again tommorow, actually it looks like a lot of places were closed today, it not only being sunday but the day after women's day (apparently a major event here). I guess that isn't too bad since being shown around I wasn't going into anything much anyway, but I'll be going back to several places over the next couple of days to have a look inside. I'll try to keep you up to date on what I'm doing but I think this entry is plenty long enough and I havn't actually had any food since breakfast so I'm going.
Right, packed and ready to go. About to get coach to airport from whence I fly to St Petersburg via Stockholm. Warm clothes obviously working, feeling somewhat excessivly warm. Next post will (barring real problems) be from St Petersburg.
Wish me luck.
Right, yet more shopping today (or actually yesterday now since it's past midnight as I post this), the main thing being that I got three rail-passes for Japan. I got a 21-day rail-pass covering the whole of Japan, a 10-day Japan east pass and an 8-day west rail-pass. I was thinking I might have to get my parents to pick these up and mail them out to me since STA innitially suggested it would take about a week to get them, but in the end it looks like I should be able to pick them up tommorow. I just hope I use the trains enough to make them worth the cost.
The extra batteries for my digital camera also turned up this morning, hopefully the four I now have will be enough to keep me going between oportunities to recharge them. That's about it for today really, exciting no?
I went to London again today for yet another shopping spree (This is becomming a somewhat worrying habit) and I nearly have everything I need for this trip now. The major purchase of the day were some very nice and rather expensive sunglasses which look really cool, though I somewhat suspect I ruin the effect. You are allowed to comment on this if I at any time post a photo in which I'm actually wearing them.
Also for anyone who doesn't know (or keeps forgetting like some that will remain nameless) this is the itinetary as it currently stands:
Departing at 6:45 on March 8th I fly from London Heathrow to St Petersburg via Stockholm. I then have 3 nights in St Petersburg before taking an overnight train on the 11th to Moscow. I have three nights in Mosocow, leaving in the afternoon of the 15th on the Trans-Siberian to Irkutsk where I arrive 3 days later on the 19th. After another three nights in Irkustk and around Lake Baikal I get back on the Trans-Sibenian on the 22nd... Or actually the 23rd since it's about 3 in the morning when I leave. 3 days later I arrive in Vladivostok on the 26th for my last three nights in Russia leaving on the 29th by plane to Toyama in Japan. I've booked two nights in Toyama which basically finishes off March.
If you want any infromation about what I'm doing between the end of March and my flight home from Tokyo on the 25th of June your just going to have to wait and read this log since I don't know myself, I'll just be exploring Japan as things take me.
There are now six days until I go. It's all getting rather exciting. I've still got lots of little things to do before I'm ready but all the major stuff is out of the way. I was watching this Comic Relief / DIY S.O.S. program earlier and was feeling kinda guilty. There are all these really worthwhile projects that people go on during their gap years and here I am going to Russia and Japan. I have resolved to do something more worthwhile after Uni.