Day 2 - Irkutsk

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We arrived to Irkutsk at around 6 am local time.

The train station was the same as a train station in any other city - throngs of loud taxi drivers, some drunk and homeless people, dodgy characters, travelers with various items of luggage.

We found a taxi which would take us to our Couchsurfing host - a girl called Lena.
Now, Mike had couchsurfed before, when he'd needed to a place to stay in Moscow. I, on the other hand, despite hosting around 40 people myself have never been a guest. And I have to say, my first experience was wonderful.

Our host didn't mind us waking her up at the crack of dawn and even offered us some breakfast. She talked to us in turn while the other was taking a shower (after 30 hours on a train we needed one).

After showers, and tea, and plans for the day were taken care of, we took a short nap, and then were off into the city. Our host lives in suburbs of Irkutsk, in a residential area, and a bus ride takes about 30 minutes. We had a brief hold up when I had a mini-tantrum when I realized that camera case which Mike forced me to throw away (it has been peed on by my parent's cat and as it turned out even 3 days-worth marinating in vinegar and soda didn't do any good, never mind washing it with a regular soap) contained a spare battery for the camera, which I had to search the entire city to buy. After blaming Michael for the incident and thus calming down, we all proceeded to the bus and into the city centre.

Lena dropped us off in the centre, which looks like pre-revolution Russia and is very cosy. But we were to cranky and hungry to admire architecture, so instead we looked for a place to eat. We found a sushi place and proceeded to eat half the thing on the menu.

Now, full of sushi and significantly more cheerful we were in the mood for exploring the city. We spend couple of hours aimlessly walking around, holding hands, getting lost and then seeing familiar streets again.

Our next stop was Nerpa aquarium. Nerpa is a Baikal seal, and there is a place in the city where they live and perform for public. When we walked in the room with the swimming pool, it seemed small, but the second we saw nerpas we forgot where we were! Fat, shiny and cute, they were bobbing in water and waiting for instructions. They jumped. They danced. They played horns and saxophones (blowing air out of their noses). There were two of them - Tito and Nessy, and after each trick their caretaker would give them some fish. Sometimes one of them would get greedy and take the other's fish, but getting a slap instead) They were hilarious, adorable and beautiful and half an hour passed unnoticed.

But when marine fun was over, we suddenly remember our weariness from the train and decided that we wanted to sit down for a while. Suddenly we spotted the cinema, and as it turned out, Ice Age-3 in 3D was just started, so we grabbed the 3d glasses and went in.

We felt much better after the movie, which was quite funny, so we took the bus back to the centre, walked to the embankment (see the video), and then went looking for dinner. The London pub caught our eye, but since it was attached to the biggest and the most expensive hotel, it was pretty upmarket, so we decided to have some pre-dinner ale, after which we found a Russian-style restaurant and had a dinner of oven-baked omul (more on omul in the next post).

It was then time to meet our host Lena, who turned out to have a pretty unusual hobby - fire-juggling! She invited us along to watch her and her fellow fire-jugglers practise. Unfortunately, it wasn't fire they were juggling just then, but rather tennis balls, since it was too light out yet, but it looked interesting nonetheless. That is until our dinner beer caught up with us, and then all we were interested in was the nearest toilet. Lena casually pointed to the end of the promenade, saying it was only a few minutes away. Few minutes turned out to be 40 minutes! It was the longest walk I have ever taken to find a toilet. The time it took us to go there and come back was the time it took Lena to finish her practice, so we went back to her place, stopping to pick up some food for the next day.

We spent the evening repacking backpacks, reserving a hotel for when we came back and generally preparing for the trip. Even though we were exhausted, we couldn't sleep, so we twisted and turned in the summer heat, untill finally drifting off....

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Photos

Dom byta
Dom byta, or consumer service centre, is a Soviet invention, created as a part of female emancipation in order to enable them to work by taking household chores off their hands. You could bring your clothes here for washing, mending, ironing and dry-cleaning. Here they would repair and service household appliances etc. There is a Dom Byta in every city, but nowadays they are hosts to numerous little businesses, from flower-sellers and watch-repairs to hairdressers and pawnshops.

Wedding tradition
As we found out, Irkutsk has it's own wedding tradition - newly weds come to the embankment and place a padlock on the railing, often with their name engraved or simply written with a marker

A restaurant
called The London pub. Situated in the largest hotel is town, it is terribly fancy and obviously targets tourists and visiting businessmen. We had some Newcaslte Brown ale and left quite happy.

Egg!
They have to post a guard by this egg every Easter because it inevitably gets spray-painted.

Fire-jugglers
Our host Lena is to the left in a dress