Voices In The Night

Although I’d been on countless trains in Russia but for some reason I was just nervous! Maybe it had to do with the fact I was leaving at nearly 11 pm and had waited all day for my midnight train or possibly just a simple case of the usual anxiety before a big trip. I had two days in front of me before I would reach Ulan Ude in the Republic of Buryatia near Mongolia. Compared to the long haul of Vladivostok to Moscow, which is about six days, this was a relatively small ride, a blip on the radar screen really.

When I entered my cabin everything was nicely arranged with lots of reading material in Russian and a TV with a whopping three channels to choose from! I was expecting a smooth journey……until I lay down to sleep. That’s when I could hear my neighbor playing his TV at what seemed like full volume. I tried to ignore it, but it was a bit hard to.  Eventually after putting in earplugs and awakening at least three times throughout the night the feel of the train jerking back and forth lulled me to sleep.

The two days went by rather slowly. The scenery was pretty much the same with plenty of beautiful birch trees, grassy plains, foothills, and small villages scattered throughout the countryside. The biggest highlight of my day always was the longer stops along the way where we’d get anywhere from 5-30 minutes to get off the train and stretch. I always used my time wisely trying to get in the most exercise before it was time get back on the train. Most Russian passengers though were content just standing around smoking a few cigarettes while looking at their cell phone and then eventually making their way over to the small local store located at every railway station to grab some alcohol, more cigarettes and snacks. I always made sure to get back way before the train left. I knew that if it pulled away out without me I’d be as we say “up shit creek without a paddle”.

Because I bought out the compartment (what can I say I’m a typical American I like my privacy plus I’m an only child) I was entitled to one meal on each ticket I bought. This meant I could choose one breakfast and one dinner for my time on the train. Usually at the start of the journey food services would come by and discuss with me my options. Sure enough about five minutes after I boarded there was a knock on the door. In walked a rather large and muscular Russian woman, with a few missing teeth. She was a no nonsense type of woman and the type who looked as if she could easily wrestle three drunken hooligans at once right to the ground! No way was she going to take any crap! My choices for breakfast were actually quite plentiful and I chose the bliny (thin pancakes) with jam and for dinner the choices were chicken or beef. I chose beef. I honestly don’t understand how anyone who is a vegetarian could survive Russia! In Russia it’s all about meat!!

After 48 hours, several Cokes, two time zones, thousands of kilometers, countless hours of watching awful Russian TV and two deep fried potato pirsoshkies later we pulled up to Ulan Ude! We had arrived!!! As I exited the train there was the usual gathering of taxi touts spread out around the station trying to lure unsuspecting train lagged passengers into their cabs where they’d suck you dry of a couple hundred rubles if you were lucky. Since I couldn’t get the car service “Maxim” to work I called my hotel to arrange for a pickup. They sent out a taxi but unfortunately there had been some disconnect between them and the driver leaving me to wait in the bitter howling Siberian wind. Well I thought, I’m in Siberia what else would you expect, balmy weather? Eventually the driver and I did connect but not without drama.

I’d been to Ulan Ude last year and just like the previous time I noticed a real difference between it and the rest of Russia. Suddenly it was as if I had entered a foreign country, people looked more Mongolian, and there just was a different feel than in a regular Russian city. Rightfully so since Ulan Ude sits only a few hours away from the Mongolian border and the Buryatian people have nearly the same culture.

I reached my hotel with a minimum amount of drama luckily. It was interesting to talk to the driver about the past winter’s weather. He explained to me that they received a lot of snow and had experienced extremely cold temperatures, many times around -39°C, which is where centigrade and Fahrenheit start to come together. I guess that’s pretty average, after all it is SIBERIA and Siberia is not known for mild weather during winter.

When I walked into my beautiful large room with a king bed, a feeling of bliss came over me! I was happy to be out of the small train compartment and overjoyed that I would not have to endure another sleepless night at the hands of my noisy neighbor.

As I was lying there I heard something strange, loud echoing voices. I knew they couldn’t be coming from inside the hall or even below my hotel. The voices kept getting louder, stranger, and more eerie coming from all different directions. They had a spooky sound to them and the echoes of them would reverberate against the cluster of buildings that butt up against the train tracks and train yards. Sometimes I’d just hear a man’s voice, other times I would hear a woman’s voice and then they all would come together as one as if they were arguing with one another. The pitch would go higher, then lower, and then other times it’d be a happy medium and most of the time I just really could not understand anything because they were so muffled. 

Eventually after listening for a while and figuring out where the hotel was located in relation to the train station and train yards, I figured out that I was indeed not suffering from a psychological disorder and that the noise was coming from the across the street! It seemed the announcements would go on all night, which was odd because it wasn’t as if elektrichkas (electric trains) would be arriving each minute. Plus I knew the distinctive sound played over the loudspeakers when trains arrive in Russian railway stations. Furthermore, during the day the sounds were nearly non-existent. I never did figure out exactly the point of all the announcements, but didn’t matter, it only added to the allure and luster of this mid-size Soviet like Buryatian town.

Service With a Snarl and Frown

Although, the Soviet Union is only a memory, the Soviet attitude of “Don’t bother me, go to hell, I’ve got better things to do than help you” attitude still lives on in its full glory. I like to affectionately call this….“service with a snarl and a frown”! You’d think after 25 years of traveling extensively throughout Russia and the ex-Soviet republics I’d become accustomed to this. However, whenever I stumble upon it and get discouraged, I still have to tell myself “it’s not personal, it’s just the Soviet/Russian way”.

This attitude was on full display when I tried to load my bag “up” onto the train from Vladivostok to Khabarovsk. I used the preposition “up” because the train’s wagon is a good six or so feet from the actual platform. There are stairs, but they are nearly vertical and don’t exactly enable one to easily get luggage on board. But this wasn’t going to get in my way, plus if I got into trouble there was a steward standing right next to me, ready to at least give me hand? He wouldn’t let me fail? Right!?! Wrong!

Much like the famous Greek myth of Sisyphus, where the man rolls the boulder up the hill, only to have it fall back each time, I was in a similar dilemma.  I spent what felt like an eternity, but in reality probably was only 5 minutes wrestling with the bag only to fail until I finally got it up!! Once I finally got into the wagon I was scolded by the stewardess for dragging my bag and causing the carpet to do all sorts of contortions. I just couldn't win!

But the mother of all Soviet “service with a snarl and a frown” was still to come. After suffering through trying to manage my bag I knew I could not travel this way all the way across the nation, not with eleven pounds of books weighing me down. My stubborn self kept saying to me “you can do this, after all it’s good exercise”, but eventually my practical side won out!! I had no other choice, either I sent them home or probably wind up injured.

The next step would be to find a service to send them home. I seriously thought about Russian Post as an option, after all it would be cheaper but that came with real risks! First of all it would for sure be slower, but the real worry was these very special books may end up stolen or in some remote Far Eastern outpost sitting for months waiting to be shipped. Therefore it’d have to be DHL! I knew it wouldn’t be cheap, but it was the safest, quickest and easiest option………so I thought. Never assume anything in Russia….especially in regards to something being easy!!!

I packed up my bag with the eleven pounds or 5.5 kgs worth of books and head to DHL. The office buried deep inside a rather rundown building that shared an office with a travel agency. This was not exactly the local UPS store or Kinko’s/FedEx, but whatever worked!! I walked up to the counter and told the girl I needed to send these books. She weighed them and snarled back, “it’ll be expensive”. I knew that but told her I needed to send these books and was willing to pay. At this point it seemed she didn’t want my business telling me to go to UPS about six blocks away and that they’d be a bit cheaper. I appreciated her telling about UPS, but still felt she would rather not help me. So I figured I better try UPS and set out looking for them.

After getting lost at least four times (Google maps always seems to frustrates me) I found the building. I asked the security officer if he knew where UPS was. He looked at me like I was smoking crack. He instructed me to go into the building and look. I walked in and the doors were painted the kinda light brown color of UPS. I thought maybe this was a good sign, but as luck had it there was no UPS and in all likely hood it went out of business. Therefore my only option now was either go back and face “Miss Snarl” or carry them home! So….I swallowed my pride knowing that no way was I going to carry these across Russia. When she saw me walk back in the building her eyes about rolled out of her sockets. She probably thought, “not this guy again”.

I told her UPS was gone and I had no other options but to send it through them. She replied kind of surly, “but there ARE other options!” and called another UPS store a couple of kilometers away. But they didn’t answer either, forcing her to deal with me, albeit grudgingly. She started the process by printing out three pages of paperwork I’d need to fill out and then asked me if I knew how to write in Russian. I said yes I knew how to write in Russian. She replied, “but do you know how to write cursive Russian”??? I said yes. Quickly she pointed out all the different lines and gave me instructions.

I started to fill out the first line and she scolded me saying I wasn’t writing it correctly. I was perplexed to why. She told firmly and kind of angrily “you NEED to write the date out in cursive”. So, instead of writing it out simply as 16 апреля (16^th April), I had to write out шестнадцатого апреля or shest’natstovo aprelya or sixteenth of April. I crossed out what I’d written and tried to correct it. She was NOT happy, and took the sheet from me throwing it away, basically saying try again! To think I was still on line number 1 and had another ten or so to go plus two more pages after that. Looked like I’d be there a while!

I tried again but couldn’t fit the month, the date and the year plus the city and province into just one small line. And to add insult to injury, I accidentally made a small penmanship error writing out the date, the sixteenth. At this point she was nearly enraged. She printed another sheet and instructed me to do it again!!

I was discouraged and apologized saying I didn't know the Russian system. She answered, “well this is the system we have here in Russia”. I knew we weren’t getting anywhere and asked her if she would do it out for me. She was not amused sternly telling me that the “sender must write it out themselves…that’s the rule”. I told if I wrote it out, we’d be there all day.

Unsurprisingly this attitude is nothing new, one that can be traced back to well before the Soviet Union to Tsarist times when such writers as Nikolai Gogol’ or Chekhov wrote about just this type of pettiness and the bureaucratic ways of the nation. So in a way you could simply say she was a “victim of the system” and couldn’t help herself.

Finally, finally we finished everything and just as I was ready to whip out my credit card to pay she asked for my passport. Wait. What?! A passport?? WTF? She said in order to complete the transaction she needed my passport. This would be no simple matter since my passport was back at the hotel and she went on lunch break in five minutes.

At this point I had no other choice, the books were wrapped up and ready to go. So I quickly ran back to my hotel grabbed my passport and came back with it in hand. She made about three pages worth of copies, had me sign and date each page in English and Russian. Not only that but I had to write out the city I was sending it from on all my passport copies. Finally the drama really was over! I couldn’t believe it!!! What I thought would only be a quick twenty-minute transaction turned into an all day ordeal. You would truly think that by now I would learn that nothing and I do mean nothing comes easily in Russia!!!

After a long, torturous day at the hands of DHL, I was extremely hungry for dinner! I’d passed by an Italian pizza joint on my way to DHL and decided this would be a great place to refuel! As I walked in the door, Russian guys dressed as Italian jokers and clowns greeted me. Rather fitting after a long day of shenanigans that I’d end my day with clowns and jokers!!! 

Back In The Saddle Part II

Instead of meeting with Inna’s class, today I would be teaching two classes for her colleague, Svetlana. Since I had to meet her at 8 AM, I’d need to get up early, grab breakfast downstairs and meet her out in front. Just as I was about to really dig into my breakfast I got a message over WhatsApp from Svetlana saying she was ready for and waiting outside the hotel. So, I quickly scarfed down my food, grabbed my backpack with my laptop and hurried out to the front.

Today’s lesson was similar to the day before, a discussion about where I was from, American schools and then a PowerPoint presentation. Unfortunately just like the day before, I’d need to do the PowerPoint with only my laptop and no projection. I introduced myself and as I always like to do when I’m teaching in Russia I asked if students had heard of a company called Starbucks Coffee. Everyone’s hand went up immediately. I then asked if they’d heard of Boeing, some students raised their hands others were rather silent. It never ceases to amaze me how students can be clueless about Boeing airplanes, but always click in on Starbucks. Howard Schultz and the Starbucks board would be proud!

Both classes were rather shy! When I asked students questions about the text, or exercise most preferred to stay silent but luckily there were a few who actually did put their heads on the line and attempt to answer the question. I was happy for this, as I hate when I’m in front of a classroom or even online and basically just doing a monologue! Once we finished the lessons I took some time to go around the room and have students introduce themselves. 

My next destination would be my friend Helen’s school, a private school about 30 minutes outside the center. I originally planned to take a bus, but after teaching two classes at FEFU (Far Eastern Federal University) I decided to simply take a taxi. When I asked my friend Helen or Alyona as she is known in Russian, who to call, she told me to go with Maxim. Great I thought! She must have a personal taxi driver named Maxim she likes. I asked how could get a hold of this guy. Neither did I know that Maxim was not a person, but a car hire service like Ubber. However, I’m sure there must be at least a few Maxims there!

Svetlana's class and me

When I arrived at the school Helen was standing right there and ready to pick up my taxi tab. I insisted I should pay myself but she felt because I was their guest she should be the one to pay. I eventually gave in and let her pay. I was surprised as the school was not much of a school, in terms of an actual stand-alone building. Instead it was at the bottom of a block of flats with a small sign on the front that read “New Millennium School”.

I was excited to teach at her school because one of my online students, Alex, attends the school. And as luck would have it the first person I saw was my beloved star student, Alex and he really is a star, the kid speaks excellent English!! It was awesome to see him in 3D and not have to put up with dropped connections and/or fuzzy pictures, which tend to go with teaching over Skype.

Helen brought me into her classroom, which consisted of only about 10 or so kids, mostly middle school age except for Alex who was what we’d call a sophomore in America or 10^th grade or literally Big Man on Campus as he towered over all the other students! I once again started the lesson with a little bit about American life and our schools. Just like I had done with other classes I asked if anyone had heard of Starbucks or Boeing. And again everyone knew of Starbucks and hardly anyone really knew of Boeing. I wasn’t going to try Amazon since it really hasn’t reached Russia yet…….emphasis on yet.

After our little icebreaker we launched into the lesson about the dreaded and evil articles. And once again there was no multi-media option, but since the class was so small I had the students just huddle around my desk to watch the presentation on my 13” macbook watching my power point presentation. I was pretty satisfied with students’ understanding of the lesson and figured it was safe to move onto something else.

Helen's class

I always like to know a little bit about the students I’m teaching so I asked the students to introduce themselves. It was fun to hear who they were and what they were interested in. One student was into cheerleading (something that has just started to catch on in Russia), her sister who sat right next to her said she actually wrote books, another was an artist, and most of the boys liked to do typical boy like things such as riding dirt bikes and playing computer games. Although they were pretty shy (and who isn’t at that age, especially when you’re speaking in a foreign language to a native speaker), they really did an excellent job.

After a full two hours of lessons, introductions and an outline of American teenage life it was time for a group photo. My student Alex who is a budding photographer wanted the whole class to pose for a group photo. However, this wasn’t any group photo, this had to be the most perfect photo ever. Eventually after about ten minutes of trying to get things just right, he finally got everything lined up to his liking, but not without a lot of grumbling and complaints by the rest of us. And with that, my flurry of teaching in Russia was over! I felt a bit sad that it was over, but was grateful I got a chance to teach since it's not every day you get to step inside a Russian classroom and conduct a lesson!

My student Alex and me

DETOUR

Do you ever get the feeling that something is not meant to be, that maybe it’d be best to cut bait and do something else? I got this feeling after innocently emailing a hotel in the small city of Tynda, up in the northern part of The Amur Region to confirm a hotel reservation that I thought I had made a few weeks ago.

I emailed the hotel and received a standard response of, “What day are you coming”. I answered with my dates. The Hotel Safari subsequently asked for my surname. When I didn’t get back to them within two minutes, they fired back saying “we’ll just put it under no surname”. Concerned this may jeopardize my reservation I wrote back with seconds that my surname was Borgford.

When I got an email back, I expected a kind message saying, “your reservation has been confirmed, thank you and we will see you then”. Instead of this, I get a one-sentence terse response saying, “are you a foreigner?”. I said yes I was a foreigner and why does it matter. They answered “sorry we don’t deal with foreigners!!”.

Wow……….I was shocked and even a bit hurt. Here I wrote in all Russian, trying my best to use perfect grammar and they say they won’t take me because I’m of a different nationality. I’m not sure why I was shocked, after all as I wrote in my last article one should never assume anything will ever be easy when you are dealing with Russia!

I started looking for other hotels in the city, but came up with hardly anything except an old run down Soviet hotel that had reviews with such words as: DON’T GO and AVOID at all costs written in it with pictures to prove it. Without being able to stay in Tynda, I knew my BAM (Baikal Amur Mainline) itinerary would not work! So I decided it’d be best to cancel my route and blaze a new trail to Moscow.

So here I am in Wagon 7, in seats 5/6 (I bought out the cabin as I prefer privacy over having someone literally breathing down my neck) on the Rossiya number 1 train to Moscow, except I am not going to Moscow I am heading west to the Burytian town of Ulan Ude near the Mongolian border.

My ultimate goal is to get to the city of Krasnoyarsk, about a day or so west of Ulan Ude where I may either go north to Tomsk, a university town known for its wooden architecture or head south toward the town of Chelyabinsk, where a giant meteor unexpectedly hit outside town in 2013 causing lots of rattled nerves and broken windows. I will keep you updated as I move west!

Back In The Saddle

In Inna's office readying for our lesson

With the exception of a quick one hour lesson about American life last year with the same class I was about to teach, it’d been nearly four years since I’d stepped off the computer screen and into a real live 3D classroom. I enjoy online teaching, but it’s always fun to return to the real classroom from time to time.

My hostess Inna Viktrovna, the Deputy Director for FEFU (Far Eastern Federal University) pre-university study, had a big day in store for me. First up in the order of events would be my teaching a lesson to the students about articles (as in “a, an, the”), then I’d help them prepare for the national exam the ЕГЭ (Unified State Exam), and finally we’d wrap things up with a “tea ceremony”.

We arrived in her office to discuss the day and review what the students were studying. Inna though had one big question for me regarding a prompt in the middle of the book, which showed a simple black and white picture of Big Ben and London with the directions “describe what is going on in the picture”. Usually the words “what’s going on” queues you into the fact there must be an action occurring. However there was nothing happening at all, no action, just a picture of Big Ben and The Thames. She was stumped to what to say, as was I, answering maybe it’d be best just to make something up. In general I found the textbook to be poorly written with ambiguous directions and poorly worded questions.

While we were discussing the ins and outs of the state exam and the meaning of usage of articles, one of Inna’s English colleagues walked into her office to return a book (nice indefinite article there) when she heard us talking. She kind of stopped for a second, looked at us and said, “Can I have him tomorrow morning to teach the same lesson, at 8 AM”. Inna looked at me and I said I’d love to. Inna was very kind and asked me if I was sure I wanted to teach a lesson since after all I was on holiday. I said yes that it’d fun to teach in another classroom. As I indicated in my last article I’m not one to like to sit around on the couch when I’m on the road!

The first bell rang and it was action time! I picked up my laptop and we walked down the hallway into her classroom. As we walked in the students all stood up like a judge was entering the room! In Russia the students always stand when the teachers enter the room, which is a nice gesture! In the United States students usually are too busy to be bothered or interrupted by something as important as their teacher walking in the room. And rightfully so when you have important texting to take care of or gaming to master!

As soon as I walked into the classroom there was a big smile on everyone’s face like an old friend had just returned. The students were expecting me, ready to dive head first into articles, which is no doubt the bane of Russian’s existence. I had prepared a power point presentation but due to technical difficulties with the TV and file format I’d have to improvise and wing it with my laptop. Luckily there were no problems, the students were great, unlike when I used to substitute in the public school back home where any technical glitch was like blood in the water for these hormonal sharks.

Our tea ceremony/roundtable

Thankfully the power point presentation in its diminished form went off without a hitch and I felt good about the students’ understanding. Now that we were pau hana (done with work in Hawaiian) it was time for us to enjoy each others company with a “tea ceremony.” The last time I took part in anything related to tea I was in a small house in old Shanghai being presented with a 400 RMB/$61 bill for a two hour “tea festival” with two Chinese scammers. So you can understand my connotation wasn’t the best!

Inna and I went back to her office for a bit to put away our books and take a quick rest. When we returned to the classroom the students had put all the tables together, put out a nice tablecloth out with tea, locally made sweets and other Russian chocolates. I was beyond humbled that these kids would be kind enough to organize an event for me.

During our tea ceremony round table we discussed their personal goals, introduced ourselves, talked about their post-high school, where I had visited in the world, my impressions of their city and anything else that came to their brilliant young minds. It was a lot of fun to listen to the students talk about who they were, their goals and interests. Much like their peers back home they all had different goals. Some wanted to be lawyers, another wanted to be a teacher of Russian as a Foreign Language, another a translator, a few expressed a desire to continue their athletic careers beyond high school, one wanted to continue her dancing and many others were not that sure.

The class and guest teacher for the day, Stepan Richardovich

As soon as we finished it was time for us to return to Inna’s office for me to meet my tour guide for the day, Kristina, one of Inna’s English all-star students! Last year I had been matched up with Victoria, who you can read about in these two article entries, “Triple Header” and “Sightseeing with An English All-Star”. The plan was to show me some of the sights of Vladivostok, but due to bad weather we decided it’d be better to go out to a coffee house and talk story (chat in Hawaiian pidgen) there instead of dodging the cold pelting mid-spring rain.

We spent a good two hours talking in both Russian and English about everything. Considering Kristina had only studied English for a year and a half it was amazing how well she spoke!! Her primary foreign language was Chinese. Due to Vladivostok’s proximity to China, a great many students prefer to study Chinese as their second language. It’s no wonder as Chinese investment and tourism in Vladivostok is increasing at a rapid pace.

Kristina and me

Last year when I visited Vladivostok I saw Chinese tourists and a few scattered signs in Chinese, however this year on the other hand was starkly different!! This year Chinese were everywhere, on the streets shopping, at all the tourist attractions and at my hotel who just recently joined the international association called “World Without Borders” which certifies companies, hotels and tourist sights as “Chinese friendly” meaning the quality is what they would expect if they were traveling domestically in China.

After a late lunch over coffee and pelmeni, Kristina had to get home to prepare for the big state exams coming up in late spring, the dreaded and enemy of every Russian 11^th grader, the ЕГЭ or the Unified State Exams. For some reason the name loses its punch when it’s translated into English. It was a blast to be back in the saddle and I was thrilled that another day of teaching and interacting with students awaited me tomorrow.

Triple Header

There’s a great saying in English, “hit the ground running”, which seems to be the only word that describes my trips and especially my first day in Russia. Many will take a few days to rest, take it easy, do some light activity and just be quiet. Not me!!! I decided it’d be better to skip the couch and meet with three separate set of friends and walk 20 kilometers or for those metrically challenged, about 12 miles!

Lima restaurant

My first order of business was to meet a friend I’d been communicating with for over a year. We had a great walk together around Vladivostok’s center up and down the city’s hills, which if you’re not in good shape will really pose a huge challenge. I’d hate to think of the trials Vladivostok natives must face each winter when you actually have to drive these treacherous hills. After our workout we took a much-needed rest and ate a nice early lunch at a Mexican food restaurant!! Who would ever think there would be a Mexican restaurant out in this Far Eastern Asian post known as Vladivostok? But there is! According to my friend the owner lived in the United States, loved the Mexican food there, and therefore decided to open a Mexican food restaurant when he moved back to The Far East. The restaurant is called Lima and can be found on Океанский Проспект Okisansky Prospect across from Pharmacy 33.  

After finishing up my delicious chili we headed to the chilly waterfront embankment for a walk along the Sea of Japan. Although the temperature was probably hovering somewhere around 10° C or about 50 F, you would have thought it was 20°C or around 70 degrees due to all the people out wandering the promenade. Nothing like a cold, long Russian winter to bring people out!! Shortly after our walk it was time for a quick 5-minute pit stop and get ready for round 2!

Left to right, Katerina (Vika's girlfriend, Vika and boyfriend)

Round 2! This entailed meeting my friend Victoria who I’d met last year when my teacher friend Inna had her show me around Vladivostok. You can read about our adventures last year entitled “Sightseeing with An EnglishAll-Star”. I was excited to see her as it had been a year and now she was studying Chinese at Far Eastern Federal University, the biggest university in the region if not the nation. It was amazing how in only a year (as I used to notice when I taught high school) she had gone from a simple school girl to a sophisticated nice young lady. Tagging along with her was her kind, but very shy boyfriend who was studying engineering at the same university. Our goal for the day was to go over to Russkiy Island where the new campus for Far Eastern Federal University is now located. Before the 2012 APEC summit, the university used to be located on the mainland in the city’s downtown core. 

Central hall view

As is the case in Vladivostok and seems like the entire world, heavy, grinding, traffic delayed us thus setting off a domino effect where I had to delay dinner with my third friend Inna and her friends. Luckily Inna was flexible so we were able to enjoy Russkiy Island to the maximum!

After nearly 60 minutes of lurching through town in horrible traffic, two long suspension bridges that connect Russkiy Island to the mainland we arrived at Russkiy Island and were ready to get out and stretch our legs! I arrived on the island thinking I had seen everything…………….until…….we walked into the central hall. As we walked in we were treated to a magnificent view of the sea none like I’ve ever seen at any other college campus or really anywhere in the world for that matter! Everything was done in such grandiose fashion; it’s hard to even put words to it!

The campus of FEFU or Far Eastern Federal University is an amazing one! It is the size of some small nations even and likely has a population to match that. And one of the hardest things to believe is that this expansive campus will only grow bigger in coming years, a second phase is currently being built and will be ready sometime around the early 2020s.

Following our walks around the campus and along the campus promenade which was full of families, students and just ordinary Vladivostok residents taking advantage of the beautiful early spring day, it was time to head back to town. Luckily this time the trip home was a lot, lot faster due to little traffic! Upon returning to the hotel I bid a fond farewell to Victoria and her wonderful boyfriend Arthur and headed up to my room for a quick pit stop to get ready for round 3!

Round 3! Mission: to see my friend Inna and her friends, Zhenya and Olesya for a nice dinner to catch up. The restaurant we were meeting at was just outside the city and served traditional Russian food. When I walked into the restaurant I absolutely loved it!!! It was decorated to reflect an Old Russian house with decorations such as, traditional samovars, birch wood and Russian wooden tables plus all sorts of other decorations to give you that feel that you had stepped back in time to Old Russia. The ambience was picture perfect and I highly recommend it for anyone who would like to celebrate or just would like a special night out. For those of you Военное Шоссе 5А or Voennoe Shosse 5A northeast of the city center.

who are interested, the name of the restaurant is: Околица or Okolitsa located on

Over dinner my friends were recollecting to me about how they had given up driving in the past few months. I wondered why, after all the public transit system in Vladivostok is not exactly like Moscow where they have an efficient Metro system. Inna told me about an incident where a drunk driver hit her car causing serious damage. The other friend though had a story that trumped them all and probably makes you grateful for your insurance company if you aren’t already.

In Russia there are such things as illegal parking lots, basically large blocks of pavement that people will park their cars on. Not sure really what the formal definition of a parking lot legal or not is but as far as I know it’d be any place where cars are parked. My friend had the unfortunate luck to park her car in one of these and lost her car to fire. It all happened as a result of some moron who was trying to light his car on fire for insurance fraud purposes. However, as luck would have it all the other cars in the parking lot ended up torched also. Logic would dictate that this horrible incident would be covered by insurance. But………..in the crazy world of Russian insurance, the insurance company refused to pay for it claiming that because it was parked in an illegal parking lot her claim is invalid! So……at this point she either has to suffer through a two hour ride on the bus every day or pony up some money for a new car. Crazy and horrific!!!

After a long day I was thoroughly and utterly exhausted!!! I looked at my steps counter and it read that I had walked 12 miles or about 20 kilometers that day. A wonder why I was barely able to stand or think. My next stop was bed to refuel for another crazy few days ahead of me.

RUSSIA X

Ten! That’s the number of times I’ve now visited Russia! Not only that, but this summer will mark the 25^th anniversary of my first visit to Russia (or the USSR at the time). Like all big number anniversaries you always have to do something special! So, I decided to blow out the lights and take several weeks to travel across Russia by train with my ultimate destination being Helsinki, Finland.

My arrival today in Vladivostok marks my first stop. Vladivostok is an incredible city and home to Russia’s Pacific fleet and is set to become a major player on the Asia-Pacific stage. It is known as the San Francisco of Russia due to its many hills, fog and thanks to the recent APEC summit in 2012 two brand new suspension bridges, the longest in Russia. Recently the city/region has started to pivot toward more economic association with the big three Asian economies, China, Korea and Japan resulting in the setup of the city as a free port meaning visa free travel for some nationalities and other types of implications on trade.

I arrived in Vladivostok with little drama enjoying a great flight where I was the only person in my class, business class. I was served by beautiful women and fed great food. What more could I ask for? Once I arrived on the ground I was greeted by the usual taxi touts but headed straight for the official taxi booth where I could order a taxi. I paid my money, given a voucher to present to the driver and found him with little trouble.  

It seemed everything was in great order until he did not get back in the car instead standing outside and after he popped his hood. I knew this couldn’t be good as he was staring into the engine and all the insides very intently. When I heard him yell out the Russian word блядь (meaning fuck) in a typical Russian voice I knew we’d be a while.  His friend came over and opened the door asking me to wait a bit. So I waited and waited and waited some more till finally a parking official arrived with some jumper cables. Luckily he was able to get the car going within seconds and we were off.

Russian drivers never cease to amaze me with their great bravado, weaving in and out of traffic tailgating other cars while going at about 100kmh or around 60 mph. At times all I could do was close my eyes and hope things would turn out ok. And then after seeing him pull some pretty tight moves in traffic combined with the drama at the airport parking lot I had believed I’d seen it all………that is until I noticed his gas tank needle buried at empty! I thought for sure we’d run out of gas and be stranded out in the middle of nowhere. But as luck had it he got me to my hotel in one piece and even with some fumes in his gas tank to spare I guess.

Check in was generally painless. The front desk clerk, Elizaveta, was absolutely gorgeous as all Russian women are! She gave me my key, told me all the info I needed to know as if she was just reading from a script. I arrived at my room and found that I had two twin beds and not a queen or double bed like I’d requested. Since I was going to be staying for about six nights I immediately returned demanding a better room. The girl agreed to change me to another room and swapped out keys. I got to the second room and it was awful too. There was only one small couch, cold hardwood floors and barely any other furniture, it was as if someone started to furnish the room but forgot to finish……. Again I returned to the front desk, but this time with my laptop to show her the room I stayed in last year that I wanted again. I can only imagine her thinking “what the hell now”!!

I felt like goldilocks who just couldn’t find the right bed to sleep until the third time. And sure enough to my delight third time was indeed the charm!! I’m sure the front desk girl was relieved also not to have to deal with me for the fourth time in an hour! Even with all the drama surrounding the room and the taxi it’s good to be back in Russia!! But what would Russia be without a little bit of drama??

Share The Skies

If anyone has ever watched Gilligan’s Island and listened to the show’s theme song the song goes that a small group of tourists were going out on a boat for just a three hour tour, a three hour tour. But then the weather started getting rough and the tiny ship was tossed and if not for the fearless crew the minnow would be lost! Well in a way that is how I felt about my day on Asiana Airlines!

The day started off innocent enough, I left the hotel in good time, survived the cluster fuck that is the metro without much troubles and arrived in the airport with a good amount of time to relax. As I walked away from the ticket counter I saw a Chinese guy that had a t-shirt on that said “super proud of myself, always look up”. In a way that’s how I felt about myself, I’d (with the exception of the “tea festival” scam) survived the world’s largest city and lived to tell the story, damn I was good or as the Aussies say FIGJAM (fuck I’m good just ask me)! Things were looking awesome!!

And things were awesome until I saw everyone from my gate get up and suddenly leave. That was the first sign of trouble. They were not getting up to board the plane but were all leaving the gate!! WTF I thought, why was everyone getting up to leave? I walked up to the gate and the sign no longer read Asiana Flight 364 to Seoul Incheon but United Airlines to Chicago! Worst yet, there was no announcement or sign that told us what gate to go to. So I scurried toward a flight board and saw that my flight had been moved from gate 59 at the tail end of the airport to gate 223 at the other tail end of the giant mega airport. After about 10 minutes of hiking through the airport I finally arrived at the sign that said “GATE 223”, but it pointed down. So down I went with all the others to another floor, but we still had another floor to go. As we were approaching the bottom of the escalator I couldn’t help but laugh out loud at the sign above us that read “NO COLLISION”! An appropriate sign as my day was about ready to collide straight on into delays and drama!

I arrived at the gate and sat down in a smoky hall expecting the flight to be called any moment. They said there’d been a ten-minute delay in boarding. No big deal!! So after ten minutes we boarded the buses to go out to the plane on the tarmac to what they call a “standing gate”. Everything was routine until it came time to push back.

The captain came over the loud speaker announcing there had been a delay due to heavy traffic at the airport. Understandable I thought since Shanghai is the largest city in the world plus after all China is known for its legendary traffic jams on its roads, so why not in the air. So, I barely gave it a thought. The flight time was only 90 minutes so we’d still be there in plenty of time once the traffic cleared.

But then things started to really get bad, 10 minutes went by, then 20, then 30, we were not getting any update. Then at about the 30-minute mark he said we were delayed again. This started to feel suspicious as other planes were going right by us and pushing back as we were still standing there. At this point I really started to question why I took Asiana especially with their blemished safety record from three years ago when they crashed upon landing in San Francisco due to pilot error. Supposedly the pilots were not very well trained on the manual tricky like landing at SFO (San Francisco) and the co-pilots somehow knew there was a problem but in a manner that is typical in Asia did not question authority but stayed quiet, therefore crashing on the runway at SFO killing two people (although I guess they were run over by the SFO Airport fire engine, so not sure if that counts in the fatality column against Asiana).

Just when things were not looking good a ray of hope appeared when the captain came on and said he’d just gotten the clearance from the control tower to push back!!! Finally some good news………but wait a minute…….no……no way did he just say……….we’d be pushing back in 90 minutes?  Sadly it was true, we were going to have to wait another hour and a half for the plane to just push back.

I spoke with the stewardess who was of ZERO use. She just looked at me with a sad Asian anime like face, said some things in broken Engrish (Asians can’t pronounce “l”, so it comes out as an “r”) and then got up, looked out the window and looked sad again :’( and walked off.

At last we finally pushed back after 4+ hours waiting. Just as the plane was pushing back a nice young guy came up to me and told me that supposedly every day the military holds air exercises and closes off the air space over Shanghai leading to mass delays. Knowing that this will happen airlines all jockey for position to get their space in line, so they don’t have to face these steep delays. It felt as if Asiana likely just sat back and let all the airlines eat up those few slots settling for being happy to simply sit on the Shanghai Pudong Airport runway and watch all the other airlines roll right by them!

Once we landed in Seoul I expected things to go smoothly, after all Incheon Airport is ranked best in the world. Nope! Not today! I ran into an entire buzz saw of Japanese waiting to clear immigration and waited about 45 minutes to get through.

My long day ended at The Incheon Airport Best Western Premier where I’m staying in a room where if I were about 3 inches taller I would be hitting my head on the ceiling. It’s odd here in Asia; the height of ceilings seems to be lower. Maybe it’s because people are smaller here? Maybe all the architects flunked spatial reasoning? Who knows, I’m just glad to have a place to relax and rest after such a day full of drama! Tomorrow I leave South Korea and on my way to up to Vladivostok, Russia!

Teacheable Moments

The Shanghai Pearl Tower shrouded in clouds

My second day in Shanghai could be summarized in one small phrase, “a teachable moment”, a term that has gained traction as one of the most cliché sayings in America. My first lesson was that not all rain is created equally! In Seattle rain is like a drip hose where it’s a slow trickle over time, whereas here in Shanghai the rain is like a giant tropical waterfall pouring down from the heavens with a thunder and lightning show to go with it! 

I woke up looked down from my cozy room on the 21^st floor and saw a wave of colorful umbrellas moving through the streets. Obviously I knew it was raining and raining rather hard, but after all I’m from Seattle, where rain is what we’re all about. I wasn’t going to let a few raindrops get in my way.  But this cavalier, can do attitude was quickly washed away when I got out into the conditions! The rain was relentless, coming in all different directions and making my time out in the city miserable. So, after about 10 minutes of being soaked from head to toe, I threw in the towel and headed back to my room. Eventually after about an hour or two I could see the umbrellas starting to thin out. Not knowing how long this window would last I figured I better move quickly and continue my day before the rains made a return.

The Bund

The first thing I did was head down to The Bund, a walkway along the Huangpu River. It was fascinating to watch the giant tankers pass by small little boats that looked barely fit enough to float in a bathtub. From The Bund I walked a couple blocks uptown and bought a ticket on the “hop on, hop off” double decker bus. Since Pudong (the financial district) is on one side of the river and the rest of the city on the other side I’d have to get off after only a few minutes and take a ferry to the other side of the river.

Once across there was no sign of a “hop on, hop off” bus stop so I figured I’d just have to sightsee on my own two feet. I walked along the other side of The Bund (river area walk) for a bit and then turned uptown some to visit a Chinese garden. I walked around admiring the beautiful bamboo gardens and other magnificent plants until a young Chinese couple stopped and asked me if I would take their picture. They thanked me and wanted to know if they could take my picture and wanted to know where I was from. I said Seattle. Instantly they came alive! The husband was impressed and spoke about how their president visited Seattle a few months ago. I’d heard on TV and seen for myself that Seattle has become VERY, VERY popular with Chinese. They see our beautiful city as a mystical land full of enchanted green forests, blue skies and stellar schools.

Old Shanghai

The couple kept engaging me in conversation and showed me around the old part of the city. The contrast between Pudong (the financial district) and the old part was vast. The new part was nicely manicured, clean streets and laid out very nicely, whereas the old part was gritty, filthy, squalid and reminded me of India and some other Southern Asian nations I’d visited like Malaysia and Thailand. One thing that really stood out to me was the telephone and electric wires all wrapped up in extreme knots, one on top of the other as if someone just put them together so to assure a raging fire. As we toured the old part of town the man told me everything about Chinese history and gave me a very brief tutorial on Chinese numbers. I had heard about the number 8 being lucky, but it sounds as if it holds a much deeper meaning than that! For example, when Beijing held the Olympic games, the opening ceremonies were on 8-8-08 at 8:08 in the evening.

He then told me about the number 11 and how it is connected with love and commitment. When men send flowers to women they send 11 flowers to show they want to be with them forever. One of the most awkward moments of our tour was when he told me to look over at one of the many clothing stalls in the city. He said “see, ladies underwear…….very sexy being sold in old part Shanghai”. I really did not understand what that had to do with anything but whatever…………

Eventually we ended up at a rather small, old and tawdry looking two-story building in a back alley. They told me they wanted me to take part in a tea ceremony. Never one to want to miss a cultural experience I figured this would be interesting and agreed to do it. We sat down at a small table and a girl dressed in traditional Chinese clothes explained in Mandarin all about the different teas and their meanings and effects on the body. One was supposed to help with weight loss, another helped with memory, etc., etc.

It was interesting to try all the different teas, but there was something suspicious about this couple. They seemed too nice and too interested in me. The woman even complimented me about my skin saying that I must “drink a lot of milk” because my skin was so white. Eventually after about ten tea shots and an hours worth of discussing the different teas I said I had had enough and that I really needed to go back to my hotel. They agreed and then gave me a bill!!! WHOA I thought, a bill? I thought this was just sampling tea. I could see paying maybe $10 or about 60 some yuan but 400 yuan or $61…..WTF??? That was hideous, outrageous, etc.!! I was so tired and so emotionally and mentally drained that I grudgingly paid the price knowing I had no other choice. In hindsight I should’ve haggled them down but likely would not have done much good. Eventually we parted ways and it occurred to me I had been scammed.

Tea festival

I stewed about whether I’d been scammed or not and even discussed it with my mom who was certain this is what it was. I am always one to believe people have good intentions, so I wasn’t entirely sure on this one even though it was pretty obvious. Just before I wrote this latest article I googled the words “Shanghai tea ceremony scam” and came up with dozens of hits. One in particular summarized my experience exactly: If "friendly young Chinese students" ask you to take their photo, then take yours, and indulge in earnest chatting, expect this to lead to an invitation to something like a "tea festival". At the end you will be faced with a bill of hundreds to thousands of RMB. Although you will probably be able to "haggle" this down, it will still end up as a complete rip off. As you are in "their territory", there is little you can do at this stage other than pay up and get out.”

Shanghai skyline

Oh well! I can now say I’ve been scammed in the world’s two most largest nations population wise: India and China. Hopefully that $61 I wasted was tuition toward the teachable moment that taught me how to recognize a scam!! Next time I will be more akamai (Hawaiian for wise, witty)!!!!