If you know Finnish (or google translate is your best friend) do read Juho's blog (earlier mentioned as 'The Deranged Finn'. With love, of course) to get a clear picture of what life on the Trans Manchurian really was like.
Well, our train-reality was a bit more sober, and a whole lot cleaner, since we discovered the 'toilet shower' already on day two. But still, read it.
(he just came to the end of our train ride, so you'll have to scroll back a bit)
Showing posts with label Trans-Manchurian. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Trans-Manchurian. Show all posts
Nov 29, 2010
Oct 18, 2010
We are pretty badass
...or not.
But that's what sweet Lien from Belgium, who we met on the Trans Sib (yeah, we say "Trans Sib" 'cuz we're cool like that) wrote in her blogpost(wordpress is apparently not forbidden in China. Damn, we should'a chosen wordpress instead of blogspot)
Since blogger.com only barely works, even through ninjacloak, I'll just have to do it the old fashioned way:
Read Liens blog (and blogpost about our fellow, super cool, 90-year-old trainpassanger Daniel) here ->
http://lienamongtrees.wordpress.com/2010/10/17/about-thinking-youre-badass-but-getting-that-right-back-in-your-face/#comment-23
//H
But that's what sweet Lien from Belgium, who we met on the Trans Sib (yeah, we say "Trans Sib" 'cuz we're cool like that) wrote in her blogpost(wordpress is apparently not forbidden in China. Damn, we should'a chosen wordpress instead of blogspot)
Since blogger.com only barely works, even through ninjacloak, I'll just have to do it the old fashioned way:
Read Liens blog (and blogpost about our fellow, super cool, 90-year-old trainpassanger Daniel) here ->
http://lienamongtrees.wordpress.com/2010/10/17/about-thinking-youre-badass-but-getting-that-right-back-in-your-face/#comment-23
//H
Summing it up through pictures: Trans-Manchuria - Day 3-10
Sophia and Hanna posing with our beloved train. Beijing here we come!
Sophia and Ruut in our compartment, doing what we did most: looking out the window, reading, listening to music and eating, all at once. (well fine, they're drinking not eating here.)
We tried to exercise at every station, since we basically didn't use any energy while on the train... if walking to the toilet or another wagon to visit the swedes/finn/dutchmen doesn't count. Here's Sophia running up and down stairs at a train station in Russia. This was a small station... so you can probably imagine the big ones.
Buying more water at ever station. We became quite fluent:
Priviet!
Voda spassiba!
Nie gas. Litr, litr! (pointing at big bottle) da,da!
(they show price on calculator) Aha! da? (give them the wrong amount of money, they correct you) aa, da!
Spacciba, dasvidanja!
A typical meal, beans and mashed poatoes. Other days it was noodles, soup or soy pasta. We had a samovar, so we got warm water, and even had access to a microwave.
Sophia and Ruut posing in Ulan Ude. The fresch air, the superb view!
Ruut in the Chinese restaurant vagon with Tom (the brit), Yaro and Djeff (dutch).
Our comparment usually looked a bit crowded in the evenings (uh, nights) which didn't make our provodnik too happy.
Oct 15, 2010
Moscow-Beijing - Day 3 to 10
On Friday evening we stepped onboard train nr 20 on Yaroslavsky train station, Moscow, and on Friday morning one week later we exited the train on Beijing Train Station. So, what exactly kept us occupied those six and a half days?
Well, we read (a lot), we ate (a lot) and we sat (a whole lot). In between these time consuming activities we had time to socialize with our fellow passengers: two flashpack-y Swedes, one loony Brit, one deranged Finn and three cocky Dutchmen. (As you can understand, we grew very quite fond of our train companions.) Not to forget the only other girl our age, the multi-linguistic Belgian, and the 90-year-old Frenchman travelling around Asia, whilst writing a book about his love life. Beijing without them feels somehow wrong... We miss you guys!
In our compartment we actually kept a pet. I don't think you were allowed but our Friendly Neighborhood Fly wouldn't leave us alone!
I'll give you an example of a day on the train:
(Note that the time is estimated. Our minds were set on Finnish time, the train's time table on Moscow time, the restaurant wagon on local time and when you add the changing time zones to the equation you've got yourself a difficult answer to the simple question 'what time is it?')
early morning - Hanna wakes up
mid-day - Ruut&Sophia start to show signs of life
breakfast(or should it be lunch...?)
whenever the train makes a stop, we jump off and run up and down the station and all the stairs we can find before being shooed back into the train ('two minutes, two minutes!')
to pass the time we read, eat snacks, play with our magnetic cube(well, that's what it's supposed to be) and watch the changing scenery outside our window.
in the evenings we meet up with the people mentioned above (minus the 90-year-old) until our provodnik harshly tells our guests 'you, you, you - Go home!' and us 'you, you, you - Go to sleep!'. A tiny bit embaressed everyone does as he says, only to repeat the same thing the next night...
We'll try to put up pictures later, doing that on our Hostel's computer would take forever... I'll let the pictures describe the beautidul views we saw.
-Sophia
Well, we read (a lot), we ate (a lot) and we sat (a whole lot). In between these time consuming activities we had time to socialize with our fellow passengers: two flashpack-y Swedes, one loony Brit, one deranged Finn and three cocky Dutchmen. (As you can understand, we grew very quite fond of our train companions.) Not to forget the only other girl our age, the multi-linguistic Belgian, and the 90-year-old Frenchman travelling around Asia, whilst writing a book about his love life. Beijing without them feels somehow wrong... We miss you guys!
In our compartment we actually kept a pet. I don't think you were allowed but our Friendly Neighborhood Fly wouldn't leave us alone!
I'll give you an example of a day on the train:
(Note that the time is estimated. Our minds were set on Finnish time, the train's time table on Moscow time, the restaurant wagon on local time and when you add the changing time zones to the equation you've got yourself a difficult answer to the simple question 'what time is it?')
early morning - Hanna wakes up
mid-day - Ruut&Sophia start to show signs of life
breakfast(or should it be lunch...?)
whenever the train makes a stop, we jump off and run up and down the station and all the stairs we can find before being shooed back into the train ('two minutes, two minutes!')
to pass the time we read, eat snacks, play with our magnetic cube(well, that's what it's supposed to be) and watch the changing scenery outside our window.
in the evenings we meet up with the people mentioned above (minus the 90-year-old) until our provodnik harshly tells our guests 'you, you, you - Go home!' and us 'you, you, you - Go to sleep!'. A tiny bit embaressed everyone does as he says, only to repeat the same thing the next night...
We'll try to put up pictures later, doing that on our Hostel's computer would take forever... I'll let the pictures describe the beautidul views we saw.
-Sophia
Oct 8, 2010
Quick update - Day 3
Check out is due in an hour, and since the train isn't leaving until very late in the evening we decided to leave our packs in the hostel reception/common room and go see Lenin and do other touristy things. Take a last good look at mighty Moscow.
This'll probably bee our last post in Russia, so the next time you hear from us we'll be in Beijing! We're all actually looking forward to the long train ride :D. 6,5 days of complete laziness, sounds good to me!
//R
This'll probably bee our last post in Russia, so the next time you hear from us we'll be in Beijing! We're all actually looking forward to the long train ride :D. 6,5 days of complete laziness, sounds good to me!
//R
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