Pictures from Hong Kong, the Mainland, the trans-Siberian train, Russia, and Ukraine are now on-line! You can see all 432 at http://www.stroube.com/travels/ though I suggest starting here and viewing one-by-one for the full experience ;) Still have a few short video clips from the trip that will be uploaded later.
Title says it all, great trip! Many gigs of photos to sort through, stay tuned…
Arrived in Kiev this morning after an overnight train from Moscow. Went to Independence Square this afternoon. Spending tomorrow at an underground monastery, followed by our flight Friday afternoon.
Pulled in to Moscow last night. Hardly feels like we spent six full days on a train :) Lost of pictures and comments about life on the train later. Time to explore Moscow.
Last day in Beijing, just got back from the Forbidden City. We spent the first day here at the Summer Palace, and the first evening watching some performances at Lao She’s teahouse. Yesterday we had an amazing hike on a remote section of the Great Wall (we were the only people there, lots and lots of pics later), and spent the evening at a famous hotpot restaurant with friends from my Hong Kong program. We just picked up our clothes from the laundry and are about to grab some dinner. Train for Moscow leaves in five hours!
Trip is amazing so far. Among other things, we explored the roof of our hotel (great view), stumbled into a mahjong parlor and made some new friends (won the second round, see pic), and ate homemade zongzi (sticky rice) in an old couple’s shop/house. And of course, enjoying all the other food too. Shanghai is better than ever!
Months in the making, the final cross-continent hoorah is one week away. It begins in Hong Kong, where Sam will arrive on the 2nd of June. From there, we head to the mainland, taking in a yet-to-be-determined city before heading to Shanghai and then overnighting it to Beijing. At least two days in the capital should provide enough time to explore a new section of the great wall and a palace or two (and of course a quick trek through the Forbidding City). Saturday night we’ll board the “Trans-Siberian” for Moscow, though we’re technically traveling the Trans-Manchurian–as we’ll loop up eastward around Mongolia to cross the boarder into Russia. Our “Deluxe Soft Sleeper” is where we’ll spend the next 147 hours (6 days) as we cross Russia heading west.
Once in Moscow we’ll spend four days exploring, though the details are relatively unplanned at this point. I assume we’ll be able to find some free time on the train to read a travel guide and think of something. Following Moscow, the next stop is the Ukrainian capital of Kiev where we’ll spend a few days taking in the former Soviet country and wrapping up the trip.
With any luck, on friday the 22nd, after a short layover in Warsaw, we’ll find ourselves in Chicago.
And that’s the plan.
Thursday we made a day-trip to Shenzhen, the boarder town just next to Hong Kong. Sun Zhe needed to mail some things back to Shanghai (cheaper from Shenzhen), I wanted to buy some Chinese language books, and Jin Gu just came along for food and fun.
If you’re looking for books in Shenzhen, Book City is the place to go. It’s a brand new mall with a variety of stores, including a separate foreign language book store, an art and design bookstore, a huge music store, and a gigantic Chinese bookstore (named something like “Book Experience”). The last one is the place to go if you’re looking for Chinese language instruction books. They have a great selection of material. I ended up buying the last two books in the series that we used at Purdue, along with some specialty book like “IT Talk” (ever wonder how to say ‘I’ve read your blog today, and left a message there’ in Chinese?).
I bought six books and two sets of CDs for a totol of 310 RMB (US$40). What a great deal. The selection was much better than anything I’ve seen in Hong Kong. For some reason, the HK bookstores seems to only stock books printed by HK presses (which are expensive, and don’t have a great selection–perhaps because not many people are learning Mandarin in HK), whereas the ones in Shenzhen had a full selection of mainland press material (which are really inexpensive).
To get to Book City, take the Number 4 line of the Shenzhen metro to Shao Nian Gong. You can’t miss it when you exit the station.
