Friday, September 26th tokyo - fushiki
Say goodbye to akane at shibuya, doesn't at all feel like am leaving for good. will take a few months to sink in i imagine.
After some searching manage to find a few english language magazines at tokyo station. we'll see how moscow will be in that regard, will be interesting to compare the life of an expat in tokyo .vs. moscow.
Shinkansen, then local express train, then city bus finally a fifteen minute walk and i arrive at my boat.

Was wandering why there were two weekly trips between Japan and Vladivostok, seemed just too strange. As soon as I arrived at the ship all became clear! The ship carries used Japanese cars to Russia. Ofcourse just filling the car dock is not enough, every open space is stacked with cars. Took me a moment to figure out how could possibly cars get onto the top deck, 5 stories up... A large construction crane is used to hoist the cars there! Ahhh... The beauty of 3rd world ingeniuity! Bet it'd never occur to the Japanese to do it this way! Niech zyje improwizacja!


Am proud of the polish stockyards that built this ship, am sure they did not have carrying 100 cars above deck in the design spec and yet the ship is fine.
Last sunset over japan is splendid.
Saturday, September 25th sea of Japan
Boat trip quietly pleasant. weather perfect: enough clouds in the sky to make for beautiful scenery, not so much it feels grey or depressing. water flat as a pancake, hardly feels we're on the open sea.

Spend the day sleeping, wandering around the ship getting anywhere off the main path involves clambering over the tightly packed cars, lounging, reading the economist (There is no doubt anymore, we're in for a major fall in the US dollar over the next few years. what to do with all those dollar savings?!), making a 1/4 hearted attempt at learning the russian alphabet. slowly my internal clock adjusts to a pace about 1/10 the speed of tokyo. food typical communist cafeteria fare with some amusing touches: who ever heard of olives in borshch? i live on bread and butter just like when i was a kid.
Sunday, September 28th Vladivostok, 9289 km to Moscow
Beautiful morning going into the Golden Horn.

Takes two and a half hours from when we dock till when my foot finally sets on russian soil. I snap a picture of the remanants of the Pacific fleet, thinking how 25 years ago this would have surely gotten me long jail time on spy charges, had I even been allowed into Vladivostok which was a closed city then.

I notice that Akane's hairdo is popular here too..

They make us foreigners get off last. The passport check takes forever. Like there are really endless crowds of Canadians trying to get to Russia illegally. Just a form of keeping some more people off the unemployment rolls, me thinks. Still the wait gives me a chance to talk to the two Japanese guys who are on the boat. The only two non-russians on the boat besides myself. One is going to take the trans-siberian to moscow and then go onto Europe, the other is doing graduate studies in Russian in Vladivostok. When I ask `Why Vladivostok?' he replies `I hate planes'. Says there are actually twenty Japanese studying in Vladivostok together with a bunch of Americans, Chinese, etc. We reflect on how it only takes an hour and a half to fly from niigata to vladivostok while it takes us two hours before we're allowed off the boat. I take the trouble to declare the money that I'm bringing in as Anatol said this would make it easier to open a bank account later, the customs clerk takes my form and waves me through... giving me no receipt! what a waste of 5 minutes of my life, oh well, at least I tried...


Change money, fortunately even though it's a Sunday the bank is open, long live capitalism! ATMs also seem to be 24/7, will wonders never cease... As I turn to head for the first hotel on Lonely Planet's list, I hear `Nihongo wakarimasuka?'. A very young looking Japanese girl and a local-russian-looking guy. Turns out he's helping her look for a hotel. The place I was about to go to, as are most hotels around town they say, all booked up, full of Korean and Chinese tour groups, high-season it seems. Since the place the two are heading to is the second one on my target list anyways I follow. It is immediately obvious that they've just met, am puzzled at what the relationship is, figure it must be a local guy hoping to get a tip, or practice his Japanese. His Japanese is quite good actually, more then enough to carry a simple conversation, it makes for so much more of a human city!

A fair number of chinese/korean tourists around town, a little more development and I think could get the Japanese to flock here too. Without a doubt this is the most eastern piece of Europe.

At first I thought that here was a homeless woman living in a toilet, but further walking around town made me realise that in the socialist tradition every toilet must have a toilet-lady watching over it, this includes porta-poties, this one is just sleeping on the job!

I thought I was going to miss Japlish, but reading the menu at a restaurant today and then this delightful piece in the hotel brochure and I see I will have many oportunties for myrth in russia too!
Monday, September 29th 9289-8600 km to Moscow
Wake up realizing I've slept 9 hours, this trip my internal clock has adjusted so I sleep 9, 10 or even more hours a day, strange, hope will be able to adjust it back when work starts! Check out, outside the hotel run into Tomoko.
She's going to meet Alexei again, as we chat and take pictures he shows up. Seeing me asks me if I've registered my visa yet, I say no, I figure I have 30 minutes or so until noon when the office helpfully closes for the day, so should be able to saunter over there and all'll be ok. He gets a panicked look on his face, says we must go now, and fast walking takes us up and over the hill to the visa office at the police station. Suddenly am glad he is with us because the place is down a shady alley and there is little chance I would have found it myself. He goes about trying to figure out what is needed to register the visa, I stand in the corridor overhearing a foreigner tell a story to a police officer, the story turns exciting when there is knocking at the door as he is `exercising' with the girl (his phrasing) the knocking turns out to be the girl's husband... I don't hear the end of the story as Alexei has figured out that we must pay for the registration by bank deposit, and since there is now only 30 minutes left this involves half running to the nearby bank. I feel bad that we are wasting Tomo-chan's time, but shikataganai. The fee is 20 rubles (31 rubles = 1 US$). Alexei is disturbed we will not make it in time, I'm stoic yet glad someone is taking my visa registration seriously. On paying we run back to the visa office, 15 minutes left before it closes for the day. The woman looks at my visa and begins a long explanation in Russian, I catch only bits, but enough to understand that she can't register my visa, this need a representative of the company that issued my invitation letter, or perhaps I could try in Irkutsk where they are hooked up to the Moscow-Novosybirsk-Irkutsk computer system. However as long as I stay less then three days at each place along the way I do not need a registration, so I should be ok. We eat pierogies with Alexei and Tomo, and say goodbye again.
Lenin is still very present in every Russian town, the main street often called `Leninsky prospekt'. Spend the remaining few hours wandering around town, highlight being when I try to buy some nice looking ham for sandwitches but am told it's not possible because no price is affixed thus the woman has no idea how much it might be... ahh... old habits die hard!
Katyusha was the name of the Russian multi-rocket launcher that helped Russia so much in WWII, perhaps someone is hoping that the souvenirs will sell as fast?
I really do like the stylized social-realist sculpture, the way it's somehow... surreal.
Many buildings even after decades of neglect are still so grand. Again the question, why does/did no-one build like this in Japan?!
I spend a few hours at two Internet cafe's but both seem to have FTP blocked so can't upload anything :( both are run by chicks thus have no hope to express my need for ftp to them, try to look for a cafe run by some geeky guys, no luck. putting up this diary will have to wait, hoefully not so long that my laptop is stolen. Btw. the IBM 240X is a perfect travellers tool, damn pity it only has 64Mb, is slow, even slower to boot up. still the form-factor is perfect, and built to last, way to go IBM!
As I leave the internet place go to board the train the foreigner I saw earlier telling stories at the police station shows up again. says he wants to take pictures of the Trans-Siberian, so can he follow me. Am not sure what he's on about but seems harmless enough. He's Swiss, an IBM hardware repairman/post-sales guy, proves useful when I try to buy some last provisions in a supermarket, his Russian is better then mine (not saying much that).
Time to go, one last glance at the pretty Vladivostok train station. Trans-Siberian here I come!
For the first while just me and a woman in the compartment, we don't speak. two stations later the line to China meets up and two guys get into our four person compartment. They are talkative ask my name, where I'm from, where I'm coming from, etc. As they chat with the woman I catch bits and pieces of their descriptions of China, overall they seem impressed with the level of development, quality of the roads, etc.
The train station in the capital of what was for a while was the Jewish district has the train station name in Hebrew. Not much remaining of the Jews here besides that sign, according to the guide book.
Outside the windows endlesses stretches of nothingness.
Tuesday, September 30th Train 8600-7500 km to Moscow
sleep, half heartedly attempt to learn the russian alphabet, sleep, go looking for masayuki the japanese guy from the boat who I is also supposed to be on this train.
Drink bottle of nice french wine over dinner with Masayuki. Beautifull sunset.

The moon hangs impossibly big over the horizon shrouded in misty clouds. The witches are out tonight for sure.

Wednesday, October 1st Train
Wake up, sleep again, the endless taiga rolling before the window. Aroud noon Masayuki comes bearing 0,25 of Vodka. A bit foul, but once we start drinking the bottom of the bottle shows soon enough.
read the guidebook and all the newspapers I ave twice. finish all the chocolate I brought, making myself somewhat nosious. sleep some more.
Should have brought more reading material!! hoped bringing nothing will motivate me to learn Russian, but have no motivation for that. instead re-read the guide book, newspapers. Sleep. Deep lethargy sets in. Landscape slowly unrolls outside the window. Woodlands in the morning, a few hours later barren steppe, woodland again in the late afternoon.
Few stations along the way, towns all wooden buildings, nothing new seems to have been built in decades. Pictoresque, but how do people live here? Much less development, many less people then I expected.
In the afternoon Masayuki shows up with chips and beer. I serve him some sandwiches which he acknowledges as oishii, certainly a good break from the greasy fare of the restaurant car. Exausting entertainment opportunities offered by my compartment we head to the restaurant car, I check for electricity along the way and out of seven I find only one carrige where the socket has electricity, happily in the restaurant car there is also live socket. Yeay!
We order a bottle of russian koniak to go with our borsch. Turns out to be more drinkeable then the vodka of earlier in the day.
Eager to plug in, I skip back to the compartment to grab the laptop. along the way am stopped by two drunk russians and one drunk very drunk frenchman demanding to know why i won't drink with them. as i attempt to explain my friend is waiting for me, make vague promises of joining them later, the frenchman's girlfriend shows up. as her T-shirt helpfully points out she is from Ecuador. When I say I'm Polish she giggles. Confused I ask why, she explains her father lived in Poland for five years. The world is small.
0.5l of Russian cognack seems a lot but little by little this bottle also shows it's bottom.
Good night.
Thursday, October 2nd Ulan Ude, 5640 km to Moscow
Another beautiful sunrise, sun bursts through underneath the clouds, lighting them up from below. A show spectacular as nothing I have ever seen.

Perhaps the thing that surprises me the most about Siberia and the Russian far east, other then how much the towns remind me of Poland, is the sky, wide endless expanses of blue over which battalions of clouds rage battle. The lower legions fat rolling over the land in mountain range sized clumps, above that the airforce, long thin ribbons, unbelieveably long whisps of clouds. the skys, the sunsets, ridiculously incredibly beautiful orgies of colour. As though god is trying to make up for the monotony of the land by putting extra effort into the skies.
Ulan Ude is a pleasant town. Like Vladivostok strikes me how not-out-of-place it would be anywhere in Poland.

The difference is the people. Perhaps the main reason why I came here is to see the faces of the people, am not at all disapointed. On the streets the faces some 60-70% asian or mixed. Ulan Ude is the capital of the Buriyat region, the center of Mongols in Russia. Spend a large part of the day just looking at people's faces;

my first exposure to a large group of Mongolian-Asian faces, the addition of all the mixes makes for fascinating people watching. Wish I could take pictures of all these faces, but don't know how.
After finding a hotel and getting a ticket onto Irkutsk for the next morning get a Taxi and go out to the Buddist monastery outside of town. The Lada is old but polished to a shine, the front windshield has about 15 large cracks in it, but I calm myself repeating that it's just rocks not any indication of the drivers ability. The drive there is spectacular. When we get outside of town I can see we're in a huge flat valley, above a vast 180 degree expanse of sky. Reminds me of many parts of the American west, one of my favourite corners of the globe. Off in the distance I can see it is snowing in the mountains.

Monastery itself is underwhelming, the communists razed all old buddist temples, this one is new, was built in the 1970s. Having seen Chinese, Thai and Japanese temples it would take a lot to impress me..


As we head back I think that the drive there and back was more of a thril then seeing the monastery Next an outdoor etnographic museum, a collection of old buildings from the area. A snow flurry starts soon after I arrive, but dies down quickly.

Back in town at the historical museum it has a collectino of art taken from the regions buddhist temples on the eve of their destruction. There is a no-pictures sign, who knows why, a woman watching me, but the sculptures are too beautiful to resist, hiding the camera I snap a few shots before I get discovered and yelled at.

Until coming here I wasn't particularly sorry about the Russian revolution, not the way I was about the Chinese one and all the culture it destroyed, but russian revolution meant peasants freed, industrial progress and so on. Now as I think about all the Budshist temples that were destroyed, all the churches which are only now slowly starting to recover from being vandalized (most churches were not destroyed but had the paintings stripped and the buildings were used for other purposes)... I think how beautiful it all would be, perhaps, had the revolution not happened. Instead Ulan-Ude now bears the biggest Lenin head in all of Russia.

I struggle trying to take this picture, do I expose for the sky and loose all detail on the statue, or do I expose for the statue and have the sky become a monotone whiteness? Why can my eye see both without trouble? When will the makers of digital cameras stop trying to model the photographic camera and instead start modeling the human eye so I don't have to make choices like this?!

The brick buildings are pretty but very much like poland,
what is unique is the great number of wooden buildings, each decorated with a mass of breathtakingly beautiful carved trim.
Most now in poor condition, only the windows painted bright colours, shining gaily like the eyes of an old woman that was once beautiful.