Some pictures from Vladivostok

Journey to Vladivostok

We took the ferry from Sakaiminato to Vladivostok, which was great fun. It was quite a small boat and we were lucky having very nice cabin mates. We even stopped in Korea briefly.

Our arrival in Vladivostok

The transiberian train journey

Russia is grand! It is so nice to be back in Europe again, and Moscow has history! It seems amazing to be in a country filled with buildings going back hundreds of years and still in use, to visit churches going back centuries, to walk through streets with crumbling plasterwork; until this trip I had no idea just how privileged we are in Europe to live amongst the history of our forefathers, I took it for granted.  Even in Japan where I expected history and sought it out, it didn't feel the same!  Moscow has some amazingly beautiful buildings, especially the churches, I had one of those jaw dropping with wonderment moments today in at least two of the churches! Sorry no Moscow pictures yet...

The transiberian Railway journey too, was just fabulous! I enjoyed every moment, and the scenery was fantastic. It was cold and wintry with small patches of snow remnants and ice in the mornings, trees with tiny new green leaves, and bare fields waiting to be sown. Then we crossed the Urals and it was summer, trees in full leaf and 30' in Moscow!  Siberia is beautiful miles and miles of silver birch forest interspersed with Chagall like villages, complete with wonky dark wooden huts, and beautifully painted and decorated window frames.
Some pictures from the train....

Leaving Japan

We were only in Japan three and a half weeks, and yet time flew by.  We did lots of sightseeing, and lots of train journeys (the trains are AMAZING, especially the Shinkansen), and stayed in some very friendly hostels, and saw some truly beautiful places.  My favourite place was taking a ferry (actually it was a jet foil) to a tiny island called Yakushima at the south of Japan. We spent one day on the beach, which was very pretty, we were a bit early for the huge and ancient turtles which come up on to the shore, but it was fantastic none the less.

The next day we hiked up into the forest, and up the mountains.  It was magical.  The forests cover most of the island and are home to some of the worlds oldest trees. We saw some that were 3000 years old.  The most impressive thing I thought was the amazing root structures which seemed to be holding the mountain together, and the amazing scent of ceder and forest.  It was wonderful.  Unfortunately the older trees were too big to photograph well. We spent a whole day walking through the forest and every moment was special.  We even saw a deer with an hours old fawn, which was brilliant.

I would love to return to Japan, but I also feel satisfied with everything I saw and did, and so lucky to have been there.  I would love to have had the time to cycle, but even if you quit your job and go gallivanting like me, there still doesn't seem to be the time to do everything you want to!  I feel regretful that I didn't get to eat much Japanese food or speak to more people and find out more about their way of life, but found the language barrier a difficult one.

Some more Japan photos for you all:

 

Pictures from Japan

Tokyo

Street furniture - notice the squirrels

Abundant cherry blossom its super!

Restaurants show their products by using food models in their windows! Food modeling is an art in itself, but Im not convinced it looks tasty.

An advert for accommodation. In Tokyo there is so little space floor plans are given on each advert and are often ingeniously arranged.  I thought my garden shed was small but compared to a Tokyo flat it was about large average. (Barbara I saw these and thought of you.)

Nikko

Nagano

Matsumoto