Tag Archives: russia

Russia in Review

Here it is, my last podcast about Russia! I talk about our final week in the country, then Katie joins me to discuss the good, bad and simply interesting facets of our journey.

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Lake Baikal Dreams

Katie and I (especially Katie) have been dreaming of coming to Lake Baikal for quite some time. Now we are here! How did we arrive? Listen to this week's episode to find out.

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Trans-Siberian Travels

In this episode, I'll fill you in on what we've been up to in the last week. Katie and I have been traveling across Russia on the Trans-Siberian Train. We started the week in Suzdal, a little village near Moscow. We ended it in Krasnoyarsk, around 4000 KM to the east.

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Trans-Siberian Tips

Katie and I met Jari and Nadezhda during our stay in Helsinki,. All of us used to live in Beijing, so we had a lot in common. We swapped many China stories, and I found out that they had taken the Trans-Siberian train from Vladivostok to Helsinki.

Katie and I are at the beginning of our own Trans-Siberian experience. Currently we are in St. Petersburg and plan to head east to Lake Baikal, then south to Mongolia. On this podcast, Jari and Nadezhda gave me some great tips on riding this famous train across Russia.

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Manzhouli's Cabbage Bazaar

One day while walking through Manzhouli, I stumbled upon an outdoor bazaar. Like most markets in China, this was a vibrant place, with a wide variety of fruits and vegetables for sale. It was also crowded, with hordes of people and vehicles jockeying for position in the street. I love walking through bazaars; they give me a sense of day-to-day existence in faraway places. Cultural differences can put up barriers between me and the local people, but markets also help me connect me with others in this shared journey through life.

Here are a few photos I took in the Mazhouli market.

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Blood Moon Train to Beijing

After the sun had set, I tried to explain a special event that was about to take place: a total lunar eclipse, where the sun's rays would be refracted upon hitting the Earth, turning the moon red. I took out my phone and showed my new friends the Chinese character for “eclipse.” Then I showed them the character for “blood,” since this type of eclipse is known as a “blood moon” in English. One of the men immediately understood and explained it to his friends. Some people sitting near us overheard the discussion and started making comments about the eclipse. Soon everyone in our car was looking for the blood moon.

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Manzhouli: Land of Matryoshka Dreams

The hotel’s front desk was on the third floor. The manager, a middle-aged man with a comb-over and a leather jacket, held a cigarette between the index and middle fingers of his right hand while clicking his ancient computer’s mouse. He was playing solitaire. When he saw me walk up with my huge backpack, he took one last drag from his cigarette and stubbed it out in an ashtray, next to its brethren. To my relief, he told me that there were vacancies, and rooms were only 50 rmb. I had been prepared to spend many times that amount on this holiday weekend.

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