Summer Days

Day 78 Saturday 18^th June 2011

The weather forecast had today down as a scorcher but the initial signs were not good as the view from our eleventh floor hotel window was the usual thick fog but there were promising hints of sunshine by around 10am.  We headed down the hill towards the beach stopping at the Dynamo Stadium along the way to see if the local Vladivostok team had any football matches planned for any time soon – they had not so we carried on to the beach promenade area whereupon we staked our place on the wall looking out across the sand to the row of pedalos lines up at the shoreline. The sun had done its job and the cloud base had lifted and cleared leaving a glorious sunny day for us to enjoy.

Beach highlights included a bride and groom who were being ushered along the sand by the wedding photographer as she tried (in vain we think) to get the magic ocean shot of the happy couple. We then had an old couple next to us who must have been approaching their nineties who were toying with a mobile phone. It became obvious eventually that Mr old man was trying to dial a number but couldn’t see the screen properly but he overcame the problem by producing a thick lens magnifying glass from his pocket and he had soon completed his task. Next on the list was a family of three strange people – some mother figure dressed in an ankle length skirt made from what can only be described as old drab curtains, bright orange socks and sparkly sandals. She had a wild hair do and a well worn dreary jumper to hide any shape that she may have had to her body. She was accompanied by a largish girl in her late teens who got into the sea to take off her jeans so that she could swim in her panties but neither of these were as bizarre as the male of the species who was tall and as thin as it was possible to be to sustain life – we were waiting for the Mothership to beam them back up.

Bride on the beach

Old man with magnifying glass and mobile phone

The final beach event was, shall we say, a very portly lady with big hair, heavy breasts covered by a figure hugging white jumper, tight black ski pants and a couple of gold teeth to round off the effect. She asked me to take a picture of her and we had an amiable conversation, she was from Kazakhstan and was on holiday, she had been on many holidays and had some more planned and so the conversation continued.  It soon became obvious that she wanted to be picked up for a date and she suggested that we could go to the aquarium or maybe for a walk and that she would like an ice cream. We politely declined all that was on offer and she walked off in a huff to buy her own ice cream at which point we made a hasty exit from the area.

We had just got back to the hotel when our newly acquired Russian phone rang. It was Yuri asking to meet us at 6.30pm for a beer and he was bringing his assistant, Svetlana, with him and, no, it was not the same lady that we fought off at the beach. We met Yuri and the very pretty Svetlana, a high school teacher, and went to a local Chinese restaurant where we had a nice meal and chat until the karaoke started and stopped us being able to hear each other. Svetlana dropped us back at the hotel in the middle of a thunderstorm and we settled down for the night only to be shaken to the core at around elevenish by fireworks exploding literally outside our window – this being the finale of celebrations going on in the hotel (and all over Vladivostok Yuri tells us) for young naval officers who have just completed their studies and exams. 

L to R - Me,, Svetlana, Yuri and Mark

Fireworks in the hotel car park