9 days to go...

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Привет!

9 days to go so the blog is created.....

Justine and i will be venturing to china, but taking the long route- from Bangor/Devon-London-Moscow-Perm-Yekaterinburg-Krasnoyarsk-Irktskuk-Ulan Baator- Beijing before our travel around china begins. Each leg of the journey is about 30 hours on a train, we chose 3rd class of course, so shall get the ultimate Russian/Mongolian experience.... so far we know that vodka is drunk with every meal and its rude to refuse. So definitely could be some interesting journeys there. Karl Pilkington, being the role model he is describes the train as sleeping on a shelf..

we've got that experience to look forward to.

We've managed to get Russian and Mongolian visas... longest visa forms i've ever done yet!! But... Chinese visa.... they are more the mi6.... tracked me down in the chemistry department as they don't see how i'm getting into the country without flying!

Apart from that bags are packed- a couple of sets of clothes, sleeping bag, mug for our just add hot water train meals!, camera and the famous pass the pigs!!

We're not sure how we'll get by.. my 'learn Russian in six weeks' was far from successful, i soon realized its a code not a language! The mandarin dictionary may be useful, but not when were translating Chinese-English searching through a book for a certain symbol. So our general sign language an mimicking will come back in handy!

So.. the countdown begins, to meet the worlds most unfriendly people, some original mongs, and to get snap happy in china... when in china do as the Chinese do!

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Comments

[D MJ Binkley]

Hello Ellen and welcome to travel blog!
I found your blog this evening and it looks like you are about to embark on a fantastic trip. We will be reading along! I love, love, love your photo at the picnic at the foot of the mountain. Stunning. I was laughing at your comment about Russian being a code not a language. We've traveled a good bit but have not made it to any of the locations you are heading to so we are very eager to read your blogs. I hope you will add many photos. Sleeping in a yurt in Mongolia is on our bucket list. When you get back I hope you will do some blogging about Wales. We really want to visit your home country. Some day I may even tell you a funny story about when we booked a hotel in Swansee, Wales instead of Swansea, Tasmania. Whoops!

[ellen3born]

thanks, first time ive used a blog page but thought travelling stories are always good to write about!! the picture was on our journey to machu picchu last summer! I've seen you travelled in peru too! Oopps that would've been a big detour coming to swansea wales... a big culture difference!!!