Getting our Barings (sic)

Day 70 Friday 10^th June 2011 

I checked my emails when I eventually woke and was relieved to see that Yuri had replied saying that he had set out for the airport but got stuck in traffic and had only moved a few metres in one hour so he had telephoned the airport and they had advised him that the flight had arrived early. He deduced that because we had not phoned him we must not have received his email (correct Yuri) and so he turned back – I was mightily relieved to hear this news.

We had breakfast – surprised to see boiled vegetables at breakfast but, Hey, this is what it’s all about – and got hold of a map of Vladivostok. I translated Yuri’s office address into Cyrillic and looked for the road on the map – there it was but it just happened to be one of the longest roads in the city but, promisingly, the start of the road was not too far from the hotel.

We walked for about a mile and a half through the throng of roadworks, pavement works, people, potholes until we found Yuri’s office. He told us that he had only just arrived and was about to go out so we had been extremely lucky to catch him in. Seeing that he was busy we declined a cup of coffee and he left with us on his way to the nearby port entrance and agreeing that, after he had dealt with this Korean job, he would contact us and we will meet up when things are not so hectic in a day or so.

1960's Space Race style entrance to our hotel

 

We went back down the street stopping to take a few pictures in the military park and then went shopping in the old government run department store for some toiletries to replace those that we had to leave in Vancouver because of flight restrictions on liquids. The store was a bizarre collection of booths and kiosks but also very different so it was a good experience and must have been fun for the locals watching us mime shampoo, shower gel, shaving foam and air freshener (our room suffers sometimes from a rather pungent smell from the toilet where the trap is sometimes drawn open and lets the sewer smells into the room. We also found a little supermarket not far from the hotel so we stocked up on some nibbles and beer as this will save us having to sp[end out money in restaurants. Mark, having just stopped smoking, has also discovered that cigarettes are only around 50p a packet and smokers are not second class citizens – but I will give him his due, he has not been tempted by the low prices and has lasted 4 days now. Normal everyday things you normally see in the park.....

Still knocked around by the flights we had an early night although by the time we turned off our computers and switched out the lights it was 11.30pm !