Irkutsk and Lake Baikal

We've been in Russia for a couple days now after crossing the border from Mongolia.  We've been learning the Cyrillic alphabet and trying our best to learn some Russian words as we've found little English so far.

Irkutsk is the capital of Eastern Siberia, and known as the "Paris of Siberia." It will celebrate it's 350th year as a city this summer.  It is a beautiful town filled with old wooden buildings, European architecture, restaurants, shops and even a great veg Indian restaurant that we've now eaten at twice.

One of the buildings downtown

We love the Russian Orthodox church architecture

We only stayed one night in Irkutsk then headed to Lake Baikal, the deepest freshwater lake in the world.  We initially wanted to head to the most popular tourist town about 70km from Irkutsk, but after our extremely helpful hostel manager found out, many of the rooms were already booked.  The hostel manager, Dmitri, then told us about his friend's hostel located further south on the lake in a tiny village of about 7 houses.  We said sure, so the next day Dmitri accompanied us to the hostel, which involved taking two trains.  It was beautiful.

The main building of the hostel

Siberian Friskey

View from the water

Jeff and Dmitri

Still ice at the lake's edge

View from behind the hostel

Train coming through town

View from a hike we took

We had an incredible experience staying there not only because it was beautiful, but also because staying at the hostel was like a homestay.  The hostel also serves as a summer camp for kids, so we ate meals with the staff, hung out with the great cats, and spent a few days just relaxing.

I've got a cat companion. Don't be jealous Spooky!

Terelj National Park and Ger Camping

The last two days we went camping in a ger in the Mongolian National Park Terelj.  The Mongolians are historically a nomadic society and for generations lived in gers, which are circular tents. We spent two nights in the ger with a Canadian couple from Halifax.

Gers usually have a 20 foot diameter

The family we stayed with setting up the fire inside our ger

The dogs made sure the cows didn't come too close to the gers

The landscape

The token camel hanging out

Us at the top of a short hike

 On the first day we were allowed a 2 hour horse riding allotment.  Unbeknownst to us, our "guide" was the son in the family (who seemed to let the boy do all the chores).  I thought he was about 10 but turns out he was 15.  He berated us the entire time we were trying to ride the horses as none of us had any clue how to ride one.  The horses also kicked each other and were unresponsive to us, probably because we had no idea what we were doing!  The "guide" even left us halfway through to find our way back.  It was not exactly the best horse riding experience.

I should have known before we were in for it!

Our guard dog we nicknamed Bear.

The second day we were lucky enough to see a representation of the Naadam Festival that occurs during mid-July.  There was a large group of German tourists who were bused in for the day and we walked over to see the show.  The Naadam Festival is something like the Mongolian Olympics with a type of wrestling, horse races, archery, and other events.

The wrestlers

The first night and all through the second day we got one of the few rainstorms the area will see.  It was quite cold during the rain, but when the sun came out late in the afternoon on our second night, it was absolutely beautiful.  The highs were the upper 50s, lows in the 30s.  We are also so far north that the sun sets around 9pm and rises around 5am.

Another view of the landscape

Turtle Rock

We had a wonderful few days staying in the ger.  Tonight we take the train to Irkutsk, Siberia.  We will arrive in 2 days.

Trans-Mongolian Railway and last few weeks of our trip

Saturday morning we boarded a train out of Beijing headed for Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.  The last 16 days of our 5 and a half month journey we decided to take the Trans-Mongolian Railway from Beijing to Moscow.  The railway is most commonly known as the Transsiberian Railway, which runs from Moscow to Vladivostok, the most eastern part of Russia (almost at Japan) and covers 6000 miles. (Note: if you haven't watched the film Transsiberian, with Woody Harrelson and Emily Mortimer, we highly recommend it.  Great thriller.)

We're cutting through Mongolia

Train before departing from Beijing

Our compartment (4 beds total)

We chose the Trans-Mongolian route, which covers 5000 miles and would take 5 days of continuous train travel.  We are stopping at 3 places between Beijing and Moscow, our first being Ulaanbaatar, where we are now.  It is the capital of Mongolia with a population of over a million (the country only has a population of under 3 million), it feels more like Russia than Asia.  Especially since they use the Cyrillic alphabet (same as Russian) and has more of a soviet style communism feel.

Sunset over the Gobi desert

Central square in Ulaanbaatar

Mongolian warrior

Gers are the tent structures and some skyscrapers (not many here)

We are going to stay a total of 4 days in Mongolia.  Tomorrow we are going on a tour to go camping in the countryside in a ger.  The weather here is much cooler than China (we even saw some snow coming into town).  It is high 50s during the day and drops almost to freezing at night.

China Recap

We're back! We've crossed the border into Mongolia and are out of the China Firewall (but the internet may be slower here than it was in India, so I apologize for not having more pictures).  We spent a couple very nice weeks in China, visiting some friends and trying to understand modern China.  The country seems to rebuild everything within a couple of years, so some of the history feels lost.

Here we are practicing posing like the Chinese do in photos

Shanghai is a completely modern city with skyscrapers, fancy restaurants and a very nice metro system.  We visited my friend Alice there, who recently moved to Shanghai with her husband. It was so fun seeing her and also having a guide who speaks Chinese! We walked around parts of the city, visited the Shanghai Museum, and ate at some great veg restaurants.

The skyline from the Bund

Shanghai Museum located in People's Park

The Chinese are known for their very impressive imitation meat

After a couple days in Shanghai we boarded one of the awesome high speed trains (up to 250km/hr or 150 mph) we arrived in Beijing.  We arrived on a day with horrible pollution so our first impressions were not great.  We also found it extremely difficult to get around the city.  The city changes so fast our guidebooks were of no use.

We accidentally bought first class tickets.  Felt like an airplane!

 We somehow found our way to the public bus that took us to the Great Wall, which was amazing.  The wall has been rebuilt over the years, so what we found impressive wasn't the actual wall, but the engineering feat it took to construct it given the landscape.

We visited the wall at Badaling

We also visited the Imperial City (also called the Forbidden City) which was largely closed up due to a recent theft.  It was nice seeing the buildings, but again, with so much of it having been rebuilt, there was little sense of history there. To get to the Imperial City you walk through Tienanmen Square, which is called the center of China.  It has so much security, undercover cops (who are quite conspicuous) and surveillance cameras.

The MAOsoleum (Jeff's joke) in Tienanmen Square

Imperial City with thousands of tourists

A cool bronze statue

Jeff and I enjoyed our time in China but we would have liked to see more of the natural beauty and less of the cities. China is not the easiest country to travel in both for language and for being vegetarian and it is definitely difficult to get an understanding of how old the country is with all the new construction (a building becomes an old building within 5 years of construction) but it was very interesting and we are glad we were there for a couple weeks.

Мы идем в Россию (We go to Russia)

Success! After a week delayed in Hong Kong, and months of stress and wondering if it would work, we have secured our Russian visas.  Coolest part is definitely that they write our names in Russian! We won't actually be in Russia until the end of May.  We have another 9 days in China, then 4 in Mongolia, then onto Russia.  Four weeks from today we head home!

Note to future travelers: do not plan a trip where the last country you visit has the most arduous visa process.

P.S. Happy Birthday to our nephew Mason! He turns 5 today.

Lamma Island

With our unexpected delay in Hong Kong, Jeff and I tried to figure out what to do with the extra days here.  After a quick look through our guide book we decided to head to one of the outlying islands in Hong Kong called Lamma.  Lamma has a population of 6,000 and has no cars on the island.  We stayed here 3 nights and were able to save money on our lodgings.  We even have an ocean view! (If you count an ocean view as something through several buildings, under an awning and past someone's laundry.)

It is easily one of the weirdest places we've visited.  The island has a mix of British expats (with a bar dedicated to the Rolling Stones), a hippie/vegetarian/health food vibe, and of course Chinese. Nonetheless, it is quite relaxing and a great place to spend a couple days - despite the crazy German guy staying at our hostel who spouts weird conspiracy theory ideas about how the French caused the earthquake in Japan.

The streets are like a nature walk

Some of the beautiful foliage

Path from the north side of the island to the south

The beach

View from the roof of our hostel

Jeff cooking next to the German

Tomorrow we head back to Kowloon, and Thursday morning we hope to have our Russian visas.  Please cross your fingers for us!

Stuck in Hong Kong... because of Russia

On Wednesday, Claire and I arrived in Hong Kong for the first time ever!  We were both really excited about arriving in this storied city.  Ever since I can remember, but even more so since I took a Chinese cinema class at UCSB in 2009, I have been excited about seeing this city of roughly seven million people. After all, Hong Kong cinema after Hollywood is some of the most universally appealing in the world.  Performers like Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, Michelle Yeoh, Jet Li, and Chow Yun Fat are commonly known and revered names in the west.  Let's not forget directors such as Wong Kar Wai and John Woo either.

Bruce Lee statue and tourists at Kowloon's "Aveune of the Stars"

Another big influence on our excitement to visit Hong Kong was, oddly enough, the author Michael Connelly.  Connelly's modern hard-boiled L.A. detective stories a-la Raymond Chandler, have been remarkably consistent in quality and entertainment value, and when Claire and I both read his 2009 novel, 9 Dragons, it sparked a seed of interest in us both to see Hong Kong.  Yes, in a bit of a departure, Connelly took our favorite L.A. detective, Harry Bosch, to Hong Kong to look for his kidnapped daughter.  A fun, quick read and highly recommended.

Having said that, Kowloon, the area of Hong Kong where we are staying and which represented a large percentage of the locations within 9 Dragons, is a really fantastic place to stay.  Claire and I discussed yesterday how we each had a rough idea that Kowloon might be somewhat seedy and very Asian culturally after having read 9 Dragons, but in reality the part we are staying in is very cosmopolitan with many high end shops and restaurants.  It is easily the most stereotypically "western" city we have been to on our trip.  It feels very multicultural and international, and there has been no issue language wise as English is spoken everywhere.  If you are in the mood for Starbucks, McDonald's, Pizza Hut, KFC, Shakey's, Burger King, TGI Friday's, Outback Steakhouse or you just need to pick up something from 7-11 or Circle K, Hong Kong is definitely your Asian portal to the west.

Kowloon skyscrapers

Little lady... tall buildings.

 Across the bay, on Hong Kong Island, we took a walking tour and were surprised by how easy it was to get around on foot.

Raised, covered sidewalks make traversing the city of Hong Kong on foot a breeze.

Inside the sidewalks...very clean.

Breathtaking view from Victoria peak on Hong Kong Island.  That's Kowloon accross the water.

On the Victoria Peak tram.

Beautiful Hong Kong day from the Kowloon-Hong Kong Island ferry window.

You might recognize the tall building from the movie, The Dark Knight!

Fook Kiu.  That's right, you heard me.  I said Fook Kiu!  Mansion that is.  We happen to have taken up residence in the Lee Garden Guest House located on the seventh floor of the prestigious Fook Kiu Mansion building in Kowloon.  I know it is hard to believe, but it is true... just check out the pic if you don't believe me!

Sometimes captions are just inappropriate.

A sample of some of Hong Kong's many neon lit streets.

So we show up at the Russian consulate on Hong Kong island bright and early at 9:00am on Thursday in order to apply for our Russian visa's.  We have to get them in Hong Kong, before we travel back to mainland China, as all indicators through the research we have done (mainly Claire) indicates that Hong Kong is the only place in Asia where U.S. citizens can apply for and be issued a Russian visa.  And... the application process is arduous.  I won't go into detail, but Russia is not a country that actively encourages tourism for westerners, or anyone else for that matter.  I think if we had children they would have wanted a blood sample from our first born too, but as it stands we weren't subjected to that.  The short of it all is that we were very nervous that all our paperwork was in order, and that we might be turned away.  In fact, we had everything which was  a huge relief.  The curve ball was that we have to wait a whole week.  So... we are in fact stuck in Hong Kong as I said in the title of this post, and its all because of Russia!

Thankfully, Hong Kong is awesome!  For a city this large, it is beautiful, exciting and clean.  The people are helpful, and speak English, and we can get the occasional egg McMuffin (ham removed).  If we were gonna be stuck in an Asian city, Hong Kong is the place to do it.  We will be here until May 12th (Mason's birthday!) when we get our visas back, then its off to Shanghai by way of Jinhua.

Yesterday we took the tram up to Victoria peak, and it was amazing.  Tomorrow we are off the the local Island, Lama, to stay a few days out of the city, about a 20 minute ferry ride, and then we'll return to Kowloon on Wednesday.  Waylaid, but in a pretty good way it turns out!

It comes in pints and is still not owned by InBev, so...

...we celebrate the "Osama" news with the rest of America, the best way we know how!