My trip to Vladivostok was enjoyable, but brief. It began in Khabarovsk, where I boarded the train and was joined by a very Dutch-looking Russian. If anyone’s seen the Austin Powers film, Goldmember, he was a bit like that. Unfortunately, as had been the case the further East I went in Russia, he spoke the least English out of everybody I had shared a carriage with. He made up for it however with wine, nuts and a lot of gestures and sign-language. He was 60 and lived in Khabarovsk, going to Vladivostok for work. I didn’t find out what the work was, but he had forgotten his glasses, so hopefully it wasn’t anything involving minute detail, as he hadn’t been able to read the Russian/English dictionary I had with me and we both ended up getting the carriage attendant (Provodnitza) to read it for us. After a slightly uncomfortable night in the most up-to-date and shiney Russian train I had travelled on, we arrived in Vladivostok and my fellow passenger and I went our separate ways. I sat in the waiting room for about an hour as, from previous experience, it was easier finding things in the light and my hostel wasn’t expecting me. After a bit of looking around, I eventually found it and checked-in.

As far as I could tell, I was the only one who didn’t speak Russian in my hostel. Even so, I got some handy hints from an older bloke in the kitchen on how to prepare my noodles and where things were in the kitchen. The morning (and most of the day) was spent catching up on emails, ordering Mandarin and Korean phrasebooks and getting my ferry ticket printed. As far as I can remember, I had a walk around and found somewhere to eat and then went to bed. The next day was spent looking around the S-56 submarine museum (which was great) and travelling on the funicular railway, which was also very good. Half the journey, however, was spent speaking to the carriage attendant and trying to get her to explain how much the fare was. As the journey is only about 40 seconds long, this meant that I was looking at her for about 20 seconds of it, which meant that only 20 seconds was spent looking out of the window. I encountered my first clearly English people on that journey and spent the rest of the trip trying to avoid them.

After the difficulty of trying to find somewhere to eat on the first night, I opted to follow the guide book for recommendations, so I didn’t have to walk around for about an hour and a half before finding anywhere good. I regretted this, as even though I only ate in a cafe on the first night, the experience was far more enjoyable and the service in the second place wasn’t nearly as good. As it was my last night in Russia, in order to try and restore some of the feeling of satisfaction, I found a cafe which looked somewhat alternative. They had a film playing, some good music that I hadn’t heard before and a load of books against the walls, with people playing cards at one end. I used my best Russian on the woman behind the bar, but she instantly started speaking English and sold me a very expensive beer.