Vladivostok

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Well the first hurdle was that my BRAND NEW big toothpaste was dismissively thrown in the bin at Tullamarine airport. Oh crap, why didn't I remember that old liquid/gel restriction thing.

The flight in cattle class to Soeul, Korea was comfy - not. In-flight entertainment took a dive back to the cave age with no personal consoles, just one big ol' screen up front. Only one decent movie was shown, the second one I had grit-eye too bad to watch and the third one was a Korean movie with english subtitles too small to read< plus I had a melon-head in front of me so couldn't see past.

The stop-over was first class though. I was put up in the Hyatt Hotel near the airport and got a free dinner in their restaurat. Also enjoyed the hotel room, cable TV and bathtub - the last taste of luxury for a month! In the morning I used my free breakfast voucher at the designated airport cafe. Oh yeah, the restriction on the voucher of 10,000 (whatever - Korean money) was a cracker. Had to toss up between a drink or a sandwich as it didn't cover both - tight arses! A girl who had been studying in Sydney for 3 years spoke to me in Russian and told me she had thought I looked Russian, so hopefully I will fit in.

Next leg was to Vladivostok and only took a couple of hours. The pilot kindly told us to 'de-plane' (disembark?)- I hadn't realised I had ever 'planed' in the first place! First impressions of Vladivostok airport was it reminded me of somewhere in Africa of all places. Like a scraping had been made out of the middle of the jungle, it was so green and jungly all around. Oh yes and a few karki-clad men with weapons just so I wasn't disappointed.

We were all hearded into the tiny airport where, if you missed the toilet at immigration - well too bad it was your only chance. No smiles at immigration and no surprise! Went outside to tackle the taxi touts and was offered a wonderful deal of two thousand roubles for the fifty km trip to town _ that"s about three times what it should cost> I finally got them down to eight hundred and were just about to take off when another old guy jumps in > when i start to protest i"m told its the taxi driver"s grandfather> yeah right> its someone getting a free ride with the dumb tourist> oh well> . Then when we arrived at the hotel he decided that I had agreed to 900, and made a big song and dance. I stuck to my guns though and he stalked off.

My room has a small balcony overlooking the bay so that is pretty nice. Pity it is so misty and raining though. I ventured out to try to find the train station but got a bit lost - as the street names on my map are in roman but the actual signs are in cyrillic - makes it double hard. I ran into a couple of jolly cops who dispelled by paranoia about Russian cops as they were so nice and tried to help me find the station with some sign language/charades.

My first Russian meal was digusting, some soggy role with suspicious looking meat in it I got from the mini-market. I can already confirm their chocolate is good though.

I did learn from my taxi friend that it is the Vladivostok 150 years birthday celebration tomorrow and the president is making the trip for it. So all night was loud music from the rock band coming from the esplanade. It is almost like white nights as it was still lightish at 10pm.

DAY2: Complimentary breakfast at the big soviet style hotel was actually not bad - bread, cold meat, yoghurt, porridge, cakes?? Found the train station this time - I had been sooo close yesterday. Changed my e-tickets for real ones which was a relief. So far people have been fine with helping me, otherwise I would never have managed it. While there I checked out the bronze market for the Trans-siberian terminus (reads 9288km) and took some photos and was not arrested which was a bonus.

Spend the rest of the day wandering around the beach front where there are stalls, games, sand-castle competitions and all sorts of things for their celebration. Also a small craft market, bands, traditional dancing etc. in the main shopping throughfares. Also managed to find the funicular and made it up to the look out which would have been much more spectacular if the weather had been fine. I also saw Yul Brynner's house (I think?!)< big lenin statue which i"m sure i will see many more of< s-56 submarine , war memorial, GUM (big soviet style department store which reminded me of similar in Slovakia).

That's all for today, sorry about the bad writing but just need to get this all down in limited time, so no fancy formatting. Need to try to catch my first train now...

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