Another Train Ride

A few days ago, in order to entertain ourselves while surviving another day of our 10-day wait, we decided to get adventurous and take the train down the coast and into Vladivostok.  Since Evan has this ongoing passion for trains, we seem to make it a habit to ride a train wherever we area traveling.  Between Jose and myself, we've traveled to quite a few foreign countries, so we felt fairly confident we would survive this excursion.  Because we still have an immense language gap, we stopped at the hotel's front desk and asked them to write down our "order" to present at the ticket window for train tickets.  Two adults and two kids round-trip from Sanatornaya station to the end of the line in Vladivostok cost just 110 rubles or $3.95.   Pretty inexpensive for a 35 minute ride there.  Most definitely the most inexpensive part of this entire journey.


The ride was pretty if you remain focused on the water, although the weather was a bit hazy.  Most of the train ride, until you get into downtown, runs along the coast, so you get a pretty view of the coast overlooking the Sea of Japan.  This area potentially could be a beautiful sea-side tourism destination, but unfortunately most of the buildings along the water are run-down, decrepit industrial sites.  In between buildings and clearings, the locals will find a patch of beach area (very rocky and not much sand) to camp out, cook out, lay out, you get the picture.  You don't see many people swimming in the ocean, as we understand, it's a well-known unfortunate fact to be quite polluted.

The boys in front of the Marine Terminal

The boys behaved marvelously on the ride and we enjoyed watching Maxim's expressions as he saw the sights with us.  It seemed like a new experience for him. Our plan was to walk 4-5 blocks from the downtown train station to a submarine museum that is situated near the Marine Terminal and the bay that is home to some of the Russian Naval Fleet.  After exiting the train station, we couldn't help but hear lots of commotion coming from the Bortsov Revolutsii Square that seemed to be on the way to our destination.  We were lucky enough to pick a day when there was a community festival happening.  We have no idea what it was called or why it was happening, but it was interesting to see the entertainment and exhibits as well as the local people out and about.  


After about an hour of that excitement, we decided it was time for lunch and to head toward the submarine.  Jose and I have a rule about trying to stick to local cuisine while we're traveling and we generally avoid fast food places as much as possible.  This was our first time attempting to eat outside the hotel (no english-speaking employees to help us) and our first time with two hungry little  boys on our hands.  We happened upon a "Magic Burger" restaurant.  The picture in the front window advertised a juicy hamburger sitting within a sesame studded bun, accompanied by fries and a Coke — looked good, especially to the boys. We looked at each other and said "how hard can it be to order a hamburger in Russian?"  We decided to break our own rule... plus we knew the boys would be happy with the french fries.  

Result:  a "where's the beef?"-type hamburger accompanied with "what's this on my hamburger?" (cole-slaw, we think) and a "Mommy I don't like the bun." and a "can I get more ketchup?" Magic Burger was definitely the most-uninspiring, unsavory, hamburger we've ever seen, not to mention, the most challenging to order, EVER.  We were even charged 5 rubles per ketchup pack.  It's not a lot, but something we're unaccustomed to.  After this experience, Jose and I were wondering aloud what a typical Russian would think once they experienced a Five Guys Hamburger. No comparison.






The kicker of the whole Russian fast-food restaurant experience...   the bathrooms.  We decided since we were there, we'd take the boys to the bathroom so we wouldn't have to worry about trying to ask for them somewhere else.  As we went down the stairs toward the bathrooms, we noticed a cashier sitting in front of the doorways.  Yes, a cashier.  Yes, we had to pay to use the bathrooms.  We learned that it cost 4 Rubles to use the bathroom — each.  Not a lot, but interesting nonetheless.   (It's about 27.5 Rubles to an American $1 so the bathroom adventure cost about 60 cents)  As we were standing in line waiting our turn, I noticed the people behind us each holding their own little wad of toilet paper which they had gotten from the cashier. Noticing that we had forgotten to acquire our necessary supplies for this portion of our adventure, I sent Evan back to Ms. Cashier to get TP for each of us.  Then we each took our turn.  Once I got into the ladies room, I couldn't help but giggle at the sight, and especially at myself because I was frantically digging through my purse praying I had the camera instead of Jose so I could get a silly tourist photo.   I'm so glad to live in the U.S.A.  Marisa — I thought of you during this episode.


Next we had to walk through a beautiful public park that adjoined the submarine memorial museum.  It was also a battle memorial for the Russian Pacific Fleet... lots of marble walls inscribed with WAY too many names of men and women who had given their lives for their country.  One of the most interesting things we observed were no less than three brides and their grooms with some of their wedding parties in this park.  It seems to be a tradition for the bride and groom to bring a bouquet of flowers to lay at the memorial and then take photographs there.


After Evan and Max climbed all over the canons and other old war relics, we finally made our way to the S-56 Memorial Submarine.  What boy doesn't love to look through the periscope and check out the torpedo bays.  Fun, fun, fun.   We then finished our time in downtown Vladivostok by backtracking through the festival to the train station.  The boys were gifted with yo yo's and bubbles to keep them entertained and we began the search for the right station platform where we would board our train.  Not a sign in sight, not even in Russian using the Cyrillic alphabet.  We had to guess which of the three platforms our train would arrive on.  It's quite obvious that this is not a big tourist destination.  Very few sights list names in Latin letters.  You really need to be a local to know your way around here. 


Luckily, we landed on the right platform and boarded the correct train in the right direction.  Unfortunately, we ended up getting off one stop too early.  We forgot to count how many stations we had to stop at to get back to the one closest to our hotel.  We kept listening for "Sanatornaya" which was our stop.  We got off when we heard it and then realized that they must have been saying, "Next stop, Sanatornaya."   We looked at each other as the train was pulling away and simultaneously let out an expletive.  Oh well.  First we considered walking to the hotel, but there was no clear, straight road or path that we knew of and we weren't sure what we would encounter between this stop and the next.  It had to be at least a mile or two at least.  We ended up calling our coordinator to get the hotel phone number.  Jose called the desk and asked if there were a driver who could come get us.  They suggested it would be quicker to walk to the end of the street and get on the bus.  I started feeling panicky but Jose reassured me that it would be all right.  "But what happens if we get on the wrong bus or go the wrong way?  How in the world will be we able to ask for help?  We don't understand anyone and they don't understand us!"  We and our two tired boys began walking.  About 1/4 mile into our walk a car pulled up and honked the horn.  It was none other than our our coordinator, who happened to be in the area.  Super Ivan came to our rescue and delivered us safely up the road to our hotel. Boy were we happy to be back at the Vlad Motor Inn.