Across Russia to Japan and Malaysia - Part 7/12 (Vladivostok)

Vladivostok, on the Pacific Ocean, is the end of the Trans-Siberian railway line and marked the end of our train journey across Russia.

The weather in the area is unpredictable and as the train entered the outskirts of the city under grey skies, with grey concrete buildings, and a grey Pacific Ocean, one of our fellow travellers revealed that he understood English by laughing out aloud on hearing my comment to Henry that the view was not quite like the sunny skies of the Pacific in California.

After arriving in Vladivostok station, we headed off to our hotel, with Henry leading the way following the GPS on his phone. The hotels in Vladivostok are very pricy and this hotel, although the most expensive of our trip, was probably not worth the cost, despite its excellent location. The staff did their best and check-in involved the receptionist calling a friend/relative/colleague who could speak English to make sure that we knew what was going on. Breakfast involved going to a café further down the street and showing a chitty we'd been given. Only large hotels seem to have dining rooms and lots of creative solutions are found to solve this problem.

The next morning, our first task was to sort out our ticket with the DBS Ferry from Vladivostok to Donghae (South Korea) and on to Sakaiminato (Japan). Booking the ticket from Finland had proved a little tricky and my friend Sergei had to be drafted in to phone the agent in Vladivostok, Storm Marine. They wanted to be paid in cash on arrival, which made me a little suspicious about whether the booking would be honoured, but everything went well and was in order, if not ship-shape and Bristol fashion.

After the visit to the agent, we set off sight-seeing.

Central Square with the Memorial to Fighters for Soviet Power in the East.

Vladivostok is the home of the Russian Pacific fleet and although the museum ship was closed we were able to visit the museum submarine, S-56.

 Inside the submarine.

 Torpedo bays of the World War Two submarine.

 After visiting the submarine we went up to the Eagle's Nest Hill, unfortunately not by funicular railway as it was under renovation.

 Memorial to St. Kirill and St. Methodious, founders of the Cyrillic alphabet.

 Around the monument there was a group of young women posing for photographs. Their photo shoot went on and on and on. Below the evidence.

 One of the girls posing.

And the next one.

 And the friends taking the photos.

Another photographer.

 Golden Horn bridge.

 Vladivostok harbour.

DBS Ferry 'Eastern Dream' ready to take us on the next leg of our journey.

In Vladivostok Henry had a surprise - the world's most eastern Hesburger restaurant. Hesburger was described as 'Finland's legendary burger'.

 'Finland's legendary burger'.

Henry pleased to get food that he recognized.

Vladivostok suffers from traffic problems.

In eastern Russia, there are a lot of second-hand right-hand drive vehicles imported from Japan. Until the recent changes in the tax laws, such cars were cheap and good value as the Japanese look after their cars carefully and there is only a very limited second-hand market.