Aaaand We're Back! Welcome, followers, to St. Petersburg, Russia, as we begin our epic journey

In the very early morning of the 15th of July, 2015, my intrepid husband and I packed very few things in a couple of backpacks and flew to St. Petersburg, Russia, to enjoy something that has been a dream of mine for several years of living in China.

To go all the way from St. Pete back to our "home" in Beijing: overland. How will you do this, you may ask? It's as easy as it is vodkalicious: the 

TRANS

     

                       SIBERIAN

                                                    RAILROAD.

Church of the Spilled Blood

We started planning this trip in the same way that all the most intrepid explorers do: looked at stuff on the internet. With the help of this guy, we booked our tickets for deluxe VIP soft-sleepers (ok, maybe not so intrepid after all, but they have showers in the compartments!)

Going up the steps in St Isaac's Cathedral

Cars as billboards...

The train tickets don't actually go all the way from St. Petersburg, but if you want to do an epic journey, sometime you have to go a bit farther. So...

Day 1: Arrive, somewhat tired and cranky after an overnight flight, in St Petersburg. Following the instructions the Puppet Hostel gave us, we took the shuttle bus from the airport, then the metro (Vince has played a dystopian post-apocalyptic video game set in the Russian metro tunnels in the future, so he was especially excited.)

 Then we emerged from the deep bowels of St. Pete to follow a road map the rest of the way to our home for the next three days.

St. Petersburg souvenirs

The hostel welcomed us, a bit miffed because we had booked for the wrong date but none the worse for wear, and gave us room eleven which conveniently is right next to the TV room and as far away from the internet router as possible without leaving the building.

St Isaac's Cathedral

The escalator to/from one of the St. Petersburg Metro stations.

So, with very little sleep and no prospect for further sleep in this town, we set out to see what we could see, and, well, eat.

On top of St Isaac's

roof of St Isaac's

Next objective: start trying to learn a few words in Russian. At least if we could learn to read Russian, that would help. Alas...

View from St Isaac's

Street crossers