Saturday, May 31, 2008

Berlin may be my dream city.
After a bike tour of both the east and west sides I realised that it would take an entire summer to see just the tourist stuff, let alone grasp the night life.
We have been trying to do both, starting off yesterday with some shopping and a trip to the Jewish Museum which was very interactive and had the most interesting architecture I have seen. The place is shaped like a lightening bolt with oddly angled walls and corners in black and white.
The piece that struck me the most was an art instalation that was a room of round metal disks on the ground that had screaming faces cut out of them.
Walking on a room full of clinking faces was so eerie.

We balenced out a day of museum wandering by going to Dr. Pong, which is a bar of sorts. Really it is a cement room with a pingpong table and 50 people drink and take turns hitting the ball. If you miss, your out till the next round. It was such a sketchy place with just a counter and a fridge for a bar, but really quite fun.

We also went to an artist squat turned bar complex which was full of grafitti. They had filled the courtyard with sand and innertubes to make a beach.

Today we leave for Paris which I hope will be at least as much fun.

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Tower at the Kremlin


Tower at the Kremlin, originally uploaded by Jenny P..

A few photos from Russia can be found at www.flickr.com/photos/moveyourknees
Today we did a bike tour of Berlin and it was amazing. I promise to post pictures soon.

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Made it to Berlin

We made it through a night of Russian vodka to an early morning visit to Lenin and hopped a plane to Berlin today.
My immediate impressions based on four hours here are pure love for this city. People dress fashionably and unique and ride bicycles everywhere.
It reminds me of College and Augusta in Toronto. Definitely my style.
We are going to try and make some friends tonight with a bottle of Russian vodka that I bought duty free and cracked on the plane ride.
So it needs to be drunk before it leaks everywhere, and I need to find another gift for my roomate (sorry Matt.)

I promise photos soon! I forgot to bring the card to the cafe.

Sunday, May 25, 2008

From rainy Russia

Four days on the train and many pots of ramen noodles later we have arrived in Moscow.
We had a bit of an issue leaving Ulaan Bator because we didn't stock up on supplies beforehand and couldn't exchange our money anywhere before the train left.
That left us with little food, a wad of Mongolian money and no place to spend it.
JR ended up running to an ATM during a 15 minute station break and grabbing a little cash along with some noodles and beer.
It was really neat watching the scenery because we went from sand, rock and gers tolush little siberian villages filled with gardens and curving rivers.
We traveled along Lake Baikal for hours watching people rowing and fishing. It is the deepest lake in the world, making up 20 per cent of the world's fresh water. There are supposed to be seals living in it.
When we arrived in Moscow we took the subway to the hostel which is on a touristy pedestrian mall filled with buskers, sketch artists and men wearing sandwich boards advertising tattoo parlors.
It is interesting to be in Europe because it is the first time on the trip where we could walk down the street and not look obviously like tourists. People come up to us speaking Russian and then smile when we apologise for having no clue what they just said.
We saw a bit of the Kremlin yesterday but has been very cold and wet and unpleasent to wander around. Today we plan to see pickled Lenin and tour subway stations.
Each one was designed by a different architect and go from being very modern to massive historcal mosaics.
No pictures yet because our internet connection is super crappy and it won't let me upload pics to either blogger or flickr.
Tomorrow we leave for Berlin where our hostel is supposed to be party central.
Though this city is very beautiful, I am anxious for Berlin . This morning I woke up with bug bites on my hands that I hope are just spider bites.
JR has none. Either way i can't wait for Berlin tomorrow.
Take care and we'll post pictures from there.

Saturday, May 17, 2008

Exploring Terelj






Just a few photos from a day in Terelj National Park about an hour outside Ulaan Batar.
I tried to take pictures of everything - goat, sheep, camel, hills, giant turtle shaped rock, the ger where we ate lunch, hills, rocks, dust storms.
The only thing I missed was us on horseback. Though it was at quite a slow pace as we were being lead by a man on foot, it was still too bumpy to take pictures.


Enjoy, more photos on my flickr.
(Sorry to make you jump. It is faster to upload to flickr)

Good times in Terelj

Got back from Terelj National Park a few hours ago. It's immense and I can only imagine what it will look like once everything starts to bloom. We went horseback riding, though we were being pulled by our guide the whole way, which got to be frustrating to me, like being in the driver's seat of a sports car while it's being towed.

For each of our stops we have pretty big expectations, but I think they were the loosest for UB. It's very much a city on the edge. The roads are wide and full of cars, but the pace is more like Ottawa than Beijing. One of our brief travel companions told us that Japan sells cars that are no longer street legal there to Mongolia for a pittance, so you constantly see left-driving Fords next to Domestic-market only right-driving Nissans. It seems like it would be confusing but they make it work.

Maybe the biggest disappointment about UB is the cost of living. The guide books will tell you that you can get by on 3 dollar meals but most of the time we swing by at 10. Western food and goods are sold at Western prices and local food isn't much cheaper.
Still, glad to be here.

Thursday, May 15, 2008






I brushed my hair today for the first time since we left.
In the rush of midnight packing the night before we left, both JR and I forgot a hair brush which has left me with the beginnings of dreadlocks.
Today I had to decide whether I was going to just let my curls continue to mat or to attack my dreads with the dollar store brush JR bought me and go back to looking half decent.
I brushed it, though I toyed at the idea while in the shower of coming back looking like I really had traveled around the world.
We are in Ulaan Baatar today, the capitol of Mongolia. With about a million people it is a little more our pace compared to the constant motion and rush of people in Beijing.
We left on Tuesday taking the train overnight with two nice ladies from Holland. They kept us well fed and were very kind.
The trip was very relaxing after our day hike along the great wall the day before.
Our hostel offered two versions of the great wall trip, one was to the more tourist populated reconstructed area of the wall, the other a "secret wall' tour which included lunch and said was for those in good physical condition.
We took the latter and hopped into a van at 7:30 a.m. with seven other travelers and set off on a Two and a half hours later the driver pulled over on the side of the road and dropped us off with a tiny old man who lead us up the mountain on a dirt path for about 40 minutes.
I'll describe more later, I'm tired.

Enjoy the pics.
See more on my flickr site - www.flickr.com/photos/moveyourknees

In the Land of Cashmere and Khuushuur

First post was saved as draft. Posted it at the right time so now we have a new post below Jenny's. Feel free to check it out. Arrived in Ulaanbaatar yesterday, nice to get out of the Beijing smog. Both of us have a horrid cough that I call the Beijing Throat Ripper. Everyone we've run into that was coming from Beijing seems to have it. Just found out the Cadence Weapon show in Berlin was canceled, but Broken Social Scene will be playing in Moscow while we're there so we'll try to go.

The more time we spent in Beijing the more I realized the differences. The first, and to me the most jarring was the lack of wildlife. In Beijing proper I don't think I ever saw an animal larger than a pigeon, other than a few pet dogs and a lone cat that stalked Mao's mausoleum. Moreover, none of the birds ever landed on the ground, they always chose perches out of reach. Every sound in the city is human sound.

Generally the food was good, though I've come to realize I'm not very keen on Chinese food. Out of about 6 meals, two of them were at Korean restaurants and the last was at this excellent Modern-Chinese place run by a Malaysian super-chef (can be found here: http://cafesambal.com/ We went to Paper)

About the train ride. Infinitely more comfortable than the plane, better views and marginally better food. Full of tourists of every background, much less business travelers than I expected. We shared our cabin with a pair of incredibly generous, kind Dutch women who were going to administer a free school for underprivileged children outside UB. What most people will tell you as they travel is how nice everyone is, especially other travelers. Everyone shares what advice they have, what food they can give, any sympathy they can offer. I realized, at least on my part, that it stems from a vulnerability we all share. Traveling through Mongolia you realize that you really are in the wilderness. We've gotten by through gesticulation, finger counting and smiles but any futher means of communication with the great majority of the people around us is impossible.

Mongolia is such a beautiful country that it's a shame it is so hard for me to get to it. Once you leave the city you can just drive for miles and never seen anyone save a few herders. We met a Czech man who plans on just inflating his raft and just fishing and rowing till he reaches either the Chinese, Russian or Kazakh border.

That's all I can squeeze out for now. Will definitely post later, Internet cafes here are 50cents an hour.

Saturday, May 10, 2008

First few days





For some reason I can't actually view our blog here at the hostel, so I really have no idea what JR posted, so you will have to be patient with us if we repeat.

So Beijing wasn't as much as a culture shock as anticipated. When we arrived, I was quite intimidated by how narrow the streets are and how people were everywhere. Then again, I'd just gotten off a 13 hour flight, had thrown up three times and was running on five hours sleep I had stolen more than 24 hours before.
Add those together with the general business of the city and total construction the inner city is under, I was happy to go to sleep for more than a day.
So basically I slept off my cold while JR explored and got our train tickets.
When he returned, we explored around our hostel, which is about three blocks from Qianmen Square. Then we took the subway to the bar district and wandered around looking for a place to eat. We settled on a really super filling Korean meal of hotpot, which is noodles, beef and assorted mushrooms cooked at your table.
It was so incredibly filling. We then headed back to the hostel and ended up drinking with a mix of Brits, an American, an Aussie, and a Brazillian. Our intention was to go for one drink, but 1.5 litre beers at 6 yuan ($1 CAN) we ended up drunk on essentially $3 each and ended up being the last to leave the bar.
This morning was a bit of a wreck, being hung over we took the morning slow, ate some breakfast then napped a bit more.
The afternoon we spent at the Forbidden City, which is a preserved city in the centre of Beijing. It has all sorts of historical artitecture and was really interesting. We got the listening tour, which we had read was narrated by Roger Moore, but were disappointed to discover it was a lady instead.
We kept getting approached by people who said they were students and wanted us to go see their art exhibit or for them to show us around. We heard the same thing in four different places and decided to pretend we didn't speak English after a while because it was getting quite annoying.
For dinner we went for duck and it was amazing. We ordered a whole duck and they carved it right in front of us. It was so amazing.
You eat it in little pieces with sweet sauce and onion wrapped in a crepe.
Now we are just hanging out at the hostel bar with plans on doing some shopping tomorrow in the silk markets. We explored a supermarket today and bought cookies and fruit with intentions of going to the Wall tomorrow but aparently the hostel bus is broken down so our trip has been postponed.


Pics here are of the Forbidden City that we went to today.

Home to Our Three Tiny Beds.

Late for our first real blog post, but of course we've been keeping busy in order to have things to write about. Heading to the Wall tomorow, will probably update Monday before leaving for Ulaanbaatar.

The departure was a silent, stressful affair, my parents keeping their concerns from me, outwardly expressing excitement. My first trip on a jet in seven years and I kept having to remind myself that I enjoy the experience, otherwise a short, dull affair.
Arriving at ORD (I've taken to using IATA Airport codes, in the hopes that it will make me look like an experienced traveller, but mainly because Ottawa becomes YOW, which becomes Ye-Oww in my head) I was fairly excited. Reading Sister Carrie and the countless cartoonists who base themselves around the Windy City has elevated it in my mind. I tried to pass some of my excitement over American brands and label design on to Jenny but it did not stick.
The flight to PEK was pretty bad, neither of us slept for the whole 12 hours or at any point since we had woken at 4am Ottawa time. We followed the Sun the entire way, so everyone kept their blinds close, opening them only to see what we were over. We were seated in an emergency exit, giving us more leg room that was constantly being filled by the other travellers stealing drinks from the galley and stretching their legs.
Put another way, imagine trying to go to sleep while your dad and five of his buddies climb onto your bedside table and have a party.
Of course you can't hear them, because you have what is essentially two of the world's biggest, angriest fans less than 30 feet outside your window.
You can't see them, because you've cocooned yourself in blankets, in the hopes of emerging 12 hours later, a mature, fully-developed World Traveller.
Still you can't fall asleep because the thought of leaving yourself vulnerable while these tit-high jean wearing men exchange pleasantries and drink tips leaves you with such disgust you feel it in your spine. And you realise you'd rather be watched over by Fire-Rapists. At least then you'd hear some good stories.
The flight attendants were great though. Very professional. A Number One.

I'll write about my impressions of Beijing once we leave it.