Week 20-2009
Peterhof fountains
We flew to St Petersburg from London. We had five days in St Petersburg where we had a guide, Tanya, and driver, Marat, who kept us on the go! It is a beautiful city, with many rivers and canals. There are no tall buildings ( a amximum of five stories high) and very few advertising signs. The Hermitage was an amazing experience! Amazing art in equally amazing surroundings! The Impressionist collection, including the ones that the Russians took back from the Germans, is great. We went to a Russian musical night and to the ballet, Swan Lake performed by the Kirov-Marinsky Ballet. We came out of the performance at 10.15pm, into bright daylight. Daylight was at about 4am and it did not get dark until about 11pm.
Cathedral of the Split Blood
We caught the overnight train to Moscow. There was not much English spoken on the train, but we had a great sleep! We did a tour with the delightful Anna, and then flew out to Tokyo. We had run into trouble with accommodation in Moscow because of the Euro-Vision song festival, so thought the one day tour was our best option. We were standing in Red Square at 7.45am. Anna, our guide and Marat our driver gave us the swift 7 hour tour of Moscow.
I was a little stressed about navigating in Tokyo, but thanks to Momi (a Japanese travel guide, who has stayed with us in Ballarat), our Michael’s instructions and the help of an Irish fellow who was on the train with us, we found our hotel at the Shinjuku station without getting lost once! We had left our BIG suitcases at Toyko airport .Thank goodness for Japan Rail hotels and helpful Irishmen working in Tokyo. We were very fortunate because Momi was able to spend the next day with us, showing us around Harugku. She knew all the best places! We had great fun cooking our Japanese pancakes for lunch. And the 100 yen shop was a treasure trove. The bustle and lights of Tokyo was a huge contrast to Russia! 
We navigated our way back to Tokyo airport and then home after just over seven weeks away.
The stopovers in Russia and Tokyo certainly helped with the jet-lag.
We had a wonderful, wonderful trip! No major hassles! We had seen some amazing things and been part of some amazing experiences. Apart from a minor brush with the strange taxi driver in New York, we always felt very safe. We stayed with some very precious friends and relatives which is a great way to travel, and we were really pleased that Arnie got to meet Thea and Jack in Santa Rosa and Andy and Kate in Boston.
There were many, many highlights. Special moments that one remembers with a smile! One was certainly the spring flowers. What we saw depended on the latitude of our location at the time. Sometimes the tulips were just coming out, other times they were in full bloom. Sometimes the trees were still their soft winter brown, in other places they were covered with bright green foliage. We were too late for the cherry blossom in Tokyo, but had seen the apple and cherry orchards in flower in Faversham (near Dover) ans in Durham, and had seen the blossom trees and forsythia out in Central Park. The bed of purple tulips backed by the lilac tree in Moscow was wonderful. As were the bluebells and primroses flowering wild in the English and Irish woodland.
The brown, burnt hill as we flew down from Sydney brought us back to the reality of the bushfires.
Natalie and Ewan picked us up from the airport.
Tags: Momi, Moscow, St Petersburg/Moscow overnight train, Tokyo