Wedding Pictures: Russia! Trans-Siberian and Novosibirsk.

It took me way too long to put up these photos.
Working as a full-time beatnik and

life got in the way.

Anyone reading this probably knows I lived in Korea for two years. Part of my contract was airfare home after the gig was over and I decided the money could be put to better use than a plane ticket.
I finished my job, lived for a month in an expat neighborhood in Seoul called Haebangchon with a badass Kiwi named Fiona and then took a boat to Russia.

24 hour boat ride from Donghae South Korea to Vladivostok Russia.

Then I got to checking off a dream of mine: The Transiberian.

I won't go into the history but it's worth looking it up in the google.

Sadly, I lost the memory card with the first 5 or so days in Russia.

I'm going to keep the commentary blogs of the 3 months Euro-Russo trip brief but feel free to ask questions in person and I'll bore you with all the travel stories you can stomach.

The boat ride up was mostly Korean tourists and Russian businessmen.

Being on the boat's deck and looking up at the midnight stars was one of the most peaceful things I've experienced.

Vladivostok is a dirty port city where half the cars are importaned illegaly from Japan and have the steering wheel on the wrong side. Very hectic.

3rd class on the Trans-Siberian. hella cheap.

Very different from first class. But I believe in the religion of budget travel.

Also, drinking vodka with Russians who don't speak English was probably a much more authentic, if less regal, experience than I would have had in first.

The good Siberian countryside photos are mostly lost but I passed by a lot of little farm homes like these. Some of them have really odd roofs.

The only photos I'm really sad to lose are from the part of the train ride that went around the world's deepest lake.

Here's a shot from the google.

This is a Samovar which gives riders a constant supply of hot water.

I was worried about being restless on the train, but I bided my time drinking tea, looking at the Siberian countryside, reading War and Peace and sleeping. I was sleeping about 10 hours a day. The train's low rumble and meditative rhythm had the same effect as a benadryl and a couple glasses of wine.

I talked, sometimes in fluent English and other times with hand gestures and nouns, to a family from Kyrgyzstan and handful of awesome Russians: one who had lived in Springfield MO, a college student who hung out with Sigur Ros while living in Iceland, a group of electricians who thought non-Russians would get very drunk of a small amount of vodka, an old lady who gave me a lot of tissue for my runny nose, and others.

I should have stopped in Irkutsk, but I thought Novosibirsk would be good to see because it's Russia's third largest city.

So after 3.5 days on the train I got off in Novosibirsk, which is a boring new city with very little history. Thankfully my host, Ilyas, was great.

He's from Kazakhstan and is getting a PhD in organic biology.

llyas answered all my naive questions about central Asia, and those often forgotten parts of the USSR.

I asked him if he was offended by Borat.
"Are you offended by South Park?"

Ilyas is really into two things: Soviet era, Russian rock and roll and Chinese tea ceremonies.

I saw a lot of rock graffiti.

Initially I didn't understand why kids would spray paint "Pink Floyd" on a wall.

Then we watched a documentary about Viktor Tsoi (with Ilyas simultaneously translating from Russian to English)

Almost everything western was banned under the Soviets, making any form of rock truly underground.

Before perestroika, graffitiing "The Beatles" on a wall was a statement of rebellion.

Ilyas called over a few friends, busted out his traditional Chinese teaset and dove into an elaborate tea ceremony. It's a strange hobby for a Kazakh living in Russia, but he's a tea connoisseur and I enjoyed getting schooled on the subtleties of green tea.