Mockba

heyhey so Berlin has come and gone and we're now in Moscow, which is big and expensive and full of people who don't speak English and don't seem too bothered about this fact. I keep trying to tell them the Cold War is over and they don't need to fear me anymore but they don't seem to want to listen. Ah well. So ya got in last night and despite the lonely planet estimated cost of a taxi being 100R ($4) the first guy was gonna charge us $50 so we pursued the metro situation where we found a queue of literally 100+ people. So back out onto the street we finally found a taxi to take us for the amazing bargain of $20 + 200R. Though there were at least 3 moments during the trip I could've sworn we were going to die which would probably have made the $20+200R poor value since I don't think funeral services were included ;-)

Saw the cool cathedrals and soviet govt buildings in the Kremlin this morning which was good fun. I wanted to ask a guard if he would pose with me for a photo but I wasn't sure the US Embassy was open on weekends to bail me out of jail so thought better not. In general things here seem to be geared towards the very top echelons of society (not unlike NY or London I suppose) and people aren't particularly friendly but I'm hoping the 5 and a half days on the Trans-Siberian will hold for us nicer Russians :-) the hardest thing I would say is navigating since my map has the street names in the roman alphabet whereas all the street signs are in cyrillic ;-(

anyway, will post photos and stuff soon! xx

...and we're back!

So in light of the whole going away thing it seemed about right to do some more of this blogging malarky. Itinerary is as follows for your convenience:

(9/18) London->Berlin (9/19)
(9/21) Berlin->Moscow (9/22)
(9/26) Moscow -> Beijing (10/2)
(10/5) Beijing -> Hanoi (10/7)
-- Hanoi for 2 months with trips (hopefully) to Hong Kong, Kuala Lampur, surrounding Northern Vietnamese countryside, etc.--
(12/7) Hanoi -> not quite sure yet (Southern Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, possibly Burma?)

So yeah! In those sorts of respects I think we're almost ready to go. Should probably pack first though. (p.s. this is mostly to reaffirm I can still post on this thingie).

Cool people: