Monthly Archives: June 2017

Saturday, June 10, our full day in the Irkutsk area had us heading out to Lake Baikal, about 40 miles from Irkutsk.  We had previously learned about Siberia from a lecture on the plane.  If you dig down about 10 feet in the area of Siberian where we were touring you hit permafrost.  Unfortunately due to global warming, the permafrost zone is getting deeper in the ground.  In some areas of Siberia, homes are sinking into the ground because of the melting of the permafrost.

Irkutsk is the capital of Siberia and the city has about 600,000 inhabitants.  It is a young city because of the 7 universities there.  The average age is 33 of all the citizens living there.  The original settlers came because of the fur trade.  The town is built at the confluence of the Irkutsk and Angara rivers.  Siberia means “sleeping land”.    Siberia has every mineral in the world in some quantity, a great deal of oil and produces great quantities of hydroelectric power.  Our guide told us that he pays only $5 per month for his electricity.  Because of the cheap electricity this area had a lot of industry – paper making, oil purifying, aluminum processing, to name a few.

Lake Baikal is the deepest lake in the world.  There are 334 rivers that feed into it, and only one that is fed by it, the Angara.  Because of the great amount of water flowing out of the lake, they have 4 hydro electric plants.  The lake is 400 miles long and 27 – 50 miles wide.  The water is crystal clear and freezes solid in the winter, when they can drive on it and even golf!  The lake contains 20% of the fresh water in the world! 

Our activities included visiting a local village of Lisvyanka and going to the Church of Saint Nicolas.  The women have been given babushkas to cover our heads while the men have to remove their hats.  

We then went to the Baikal Museum which had information about the lake as well as aquariums with fish that live in the lake.  There are even seals – they are round, looking like filled balloons.  

Next up was a cruise on the lake.  The day was cool when we started but warmed up nicely.  The lake itself keeps a temperature at this time of year of approximately 35 degrees.  Most of us dipped our fingers in the lake for luck!  After a short stop at a local bazaar we had lunch at The Legend of Baikal Restaurant.  There were platters of fish and meats and vegetables and that was just the appetizers.  Then soup, potato pancakes and finally veal.  Way too much food.  There was entertainment – singers and dancers.  Bob got picked to dance AND then to play a musical instrument for the finale.  We then were blessed by a Shaman.

We returned to town with a small amount of time to rest before we left for dinner in the historic 130th District.  This is an area of restored wooden houses.  We saw the Bahr with Sable monument and walked in a pretty pedestrian area to get to our restaurant, Love Story.  Again the table was piled with food.  

Fitbit – 6643 steps, 9 floors and 3.15 miles

We left Ulaan Baatar after lunch for our 1.25 hour flight almost due north to Irkutsk Russia.  Sadly my knowledge of geography did not extend to Russia, but we were now on our way to Siberia.  Unlike most entries to the various countries we travel to on this trip, entering Russia was complicated.  Each person had to go through the immigration line separately.  Your passport was examined, read, flipped through and then read again.  Then it was scanned into their system and a form was printed.  This form has to be presented when we leave Russia.  It was averaging about 3 minutes a person to get this process done.  So with 85 people to process and 3 working lines – it took a long time.  The man directly in front of us ended up being processed for almost 10 minutes.  When we talked to him later he said the agent had to make 2 phone calls to supervisors.  Turns out he worked in nuclear energy and had some high security clearances from the US at some point.  We were not sure why this was all going on, since the visa paperwork we had filled out months ago was quite extensive in the questions asked, so we were already in “the system.”

When we finally got on our bus for our city tour it was rush hour.  There is no rhyme or reason to the streets at this time.  You want to go left, go left, doesn’t matter where you are starting from.  You want to go straight, have at it.

We saw a Russian Church, Znamenskaya Cathedral, which had graves of Decembrists.  These were the people who launched the uprising against Tsar Nicholas I in 1825.  These men were exiled to SIBERIA.  Their exile was for 30 years.  Many of their wives followed them and this helped to populate this area of Russia.  We saw the wooden houses which this city is famous for.

We also went to their war memorial, where one of our lecturers told of the sacrifices Russia made in the Second World War.  They lost millions of soldiers and citizens.  It is a tradition for newly married couples to come here to leave flowers and we were treated to that happy moment after hearing about the sadness of war.

Our dinner was outside on a terrace of the Nzhny Bulldog restaurant along the riverside.  We had a folk music group entertaining.  There were 6 plates of various appetizers – smoked fish, wonderful salmon, various salads, meats, etc.  Then we could go to the carving station for lamb, a vegetable curry and crab cakes (not anything like our crab cakes). Then dessert.  Oh, and vodka to drink.

When we returned to the hotel around 9:30 it was still very light with the sun not setting until 10:30 at night.  White nights in Russia!

Fitbit – 9834 steps, 92 floors, and 4.66 miles.

There is only a small group here.  The main group went to the Gobi Desert, sleeping in gers, riding camels and learning to build their own ger – not a skill we need to bring back with us 😉.

Our group has been doing some fun and unusual things.  This morning we visited a nomadic family.  Had yogurt in their ger.  The ger is about 18 feet across and is circular.  This family consisted of 2 adults and 3 children.  This was their summer grazing area.  They follow their animals while they graze.  The entire ger can be dismantled in less than an hour.  The furniture was decorated with bright colors and intricate designs.  The main decorations on the walls were medals that they had won for racing their horses.  The children live in towns with relatives during the school year.

Our next stop was at turtle rock.  

We then drove on to hike to the Temple of Heaven, a Buddhist meditation temple.  The start of the path had many placards with sayings from Buddha, think the old Burma shave signs.  We then crossed a wooden swinging bridge and came to the foot of a staircase with 108 steps!  The view of the valley was nice and earned us dessert for dinner.  Pictured with us is Azaa who has been our guide and translator for our time in Mongolia.

We had a photo stop so we could see a herd of yaks.  These animals are recent imports into Mongolia.  

After hiking we were ready to return to the hotel for lunch, but discovered that the bus driver had locked the keys in the bus.  American ingenuity saved the day!

Later in the afternoon we went to a shaman.  There is nothing I can say about this, the Mongolian people believe that these people can devine the future and help them.  I think the real purpose is so they can drink vodka!

At dinner we were entertained by a champion throats singer.  He also played 4 ancient instruments.  He was wonderful and a fantastic way to end our time here in Mongolia.

Off to Russia in the morning.

Fitbit – 11183 steps, 165 floors and 5.29 miles.

First let me tell you about the roads in Mongolia.  The roads in the city of Ulaan Baatar, which means Red Hero, are bumpy and pot holed.  When you leave the city you get on the paved highway which is very bumpy.  As you move farther away from the city some times the road turns into a gravel road which is very, very bumpy.  Then there are times that you say #*\]?!!# about the road.  We figured out the reason our Fitbits were showing us climbing many, many flights of stairs was because of all the bouncing we were doing in the bus.

When we left the hotel on Wednesday, June 7 we headed to the Gandan Monastery.  We had a private blessing by three monks in a ger.  We then walked a short way to the Janraisig Temple (Buddhist) to see a giant Buddha inlaid with over 2,000 precious stones.  The building and the Buddha were quite impressive.

Our next stop was at the National History Museum.  We saw some amazing artifacts and our guide gave us a lot of information about early Mongolia and Genghis Khan.  His empire stretched from the Pacific Ocean to the Bkack Sea.  He was a social innovator, great general, outlawed slavery and bride kidnapping, had sophisticated networks for communication, respected the religions of the lands he conquered and because of the Mongolian horse was able to move quickly through the land.

Our lunch was at Asiana, a restaurant that had Chinese, Japanese or Mongolian food choices.  The tables were in gers.

Our last stop for the day was at the Genghis Khan Statue complex.  We walked up stairs to a lookout point.  We could see the steppe and mountainside.  The statue is 131 feet tall and covered in 250 tons of stainless steel.  It was built by a local businessman to try to bring information about Khan to the world.  We also had a local historian give us a tour of the private collection museum in the basement level of the statue.  Bette talked her way into a photo with a group of young people dressed in traditional clothing.

Here is a link to an article about the statue.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/03/world/asia/03genghis.html
The following is a quote by Genghis Khan that we liked.

“If you’re afraid – don’t do it – if you’re doing it – don’t be afraid.”   Genghis Khan

Fitbit – 7679 steps, 133 flights (bumpy ride number), 3.64 miles

On June 6, we traveled from Kyoto to Ulaanbataar Mongolia.  We have been having lectures both on the plane and at each stop.  Our lecturers are very interesting and the information quite expansive.

We thought that this would be just a “travel” day, but it turned out to be much more.

Our tour leader arranged for Bob to meet with 2 officials from the Mongolian basketball association.  We met with them for about an hour in the lobby of the hotel.  Fortunately they had arranged for an interpreter or it would have been a bust.  The men we met were Etugen Irves, the coach of the National League team, and Mr. Orgil, secretary of the Mongolian Basketball Association.  The country has 6 professional men’s teams and the same number of women’s teams.  A very unique experience.

We then went to a group dinner and met our speaker, Oyungerel Tsedevdamba and her American husband, Jeff (did not get his last name).  She is a former member of parliament, former Minister of Culture, Sport and Tourism and is an advisor to the current president of Mongolia.  She is a founder and director of the Liberty Center, a non-profit organization fighting for human rights.  Her talk, which continued through the entire 2 hour dinner was fascinating.  She gave us historical information on Mongolia, current happenings in the county and where she thinks the country is going.  At the end of the evening we all decided that she could be the president of the country in a few years. Amazing evening.

During our time in Japan we learned some interesting things from our chatty guide, Meg.

1.  The Japanese are not very demonstrative in showing their affection for each other.  She said that she had only seen her parents kiss or embrace each other a few times in her life.  She said that the Japanese show their affection by buying expensive and elaborate gifts.  

2.  90% of Japanese people are considered middle class.  They earn enough to have their own home, own a car, send their children to “cram” schools – after school school to help the child get into a good college or university – and travel.  There are very few homeless people because of the high work ethics of the culture.  

3.  The streets were clean.  There was no grafiti.  The people were exceptionally polite.

4.  Golf – wow!  There are 2,500 golf courses in Japan.  Meg’s husband is a golfer.  He leaves home around 6AM to drive to the course.  After every 3 holes there is a stop for drinks.  Lunch is eaten after 9 holes.  After 18, you take a bath and then have dinner and drinks with your foursome.  If you get a hole in one, you pay for your groups round of golf, all the drinks and dinner. Then you have to throw an elaborate party.  Her husband takes out “hole-in-one” insurance for about $100 a year.  This covers the cost of the celebration expenses which can run to $4,500!

Japan was a wonderful stop.

We began our second day in Kyoto by traveling to the town of Nara which was the capital of Japan in the 8th century.  We visited the Todaiji Temple which is the world’s largest wooden building – I think I posted yesterday that the building then was the world’s largest.  Maybe that one is by length and this one by volume (?).  It is surrounded by a large deer park and the deer come begging for food and bow when you give them some.  One of the men in our group had a deer try to eat his package of gifts looking for food.  Inside the building is an enormous Buddha statue, the Daibutsu Buddha – 87 feet tall and made of bronze covered in gold weighing 550 tons.  It was made in 752 AD at a current cost of 4 billion dollars.  When a Buddhas right hand is raised it means “fear not” and when his left hand is raised it mean “I will grant your prayers”.  There were other beautiful statues in the Temple as well.


We had some free time to walk around the grounds before going to Japan’s most celebrated shrine, the Kasuga-Takisha.  This Shrine dates back to the 1st century, and traditionally has been torn down and rebuilt every 20 years because it is made of wood.  This happened until 1863.  The shrine is set in a beautiful forest, but the main draw is the 1,000’s of stone lanterns that line all the paths.  

We returned to Kyoto for lunch at the Fortune Garden Restaurant, with some Japanese food and some American food too.

In the afternoon we went to the Nijo Castle, a remnant from the feudal era.  It was built in 1603 by the Edo period’s first Shogun as his residence.  It was later used as an Imperial Palace after the fall of the Shogunate.  The building was huge, built in a zig zag design.  The floors when you first entered were nightingale one, they chirped as you walked on them.  That was part of the defense system in place.  There were beautiful paintings on the wall and intricate bronze decorations on the doors and lintels to each room.

There were also beautiful gardens around the castle.  It was never used as a fort but only as a residence for the Shogun.  He could only have one wife but as many concubines as he wanted.

We had dinner at the Kaiseki Mizuki restaurant in the hotel for a top of the line dinner.  Many courses again.  Bob had sushi and sashimi for the first time!

Big bags were out by 9:15 and we were sleeping by 9:17!

Fitbit – 9847 steps, 9 floors, 4.66 miles

Let the marathon begin!  After a semi restful night – the time change was quite dramatic, we started our city touring.  The first stop was the Fushimi Imari Shrine.  Shrine = Shinto.  We went through the various rituals necessary when entering a Shinto shrine.  There was the entrance Torii gate at which we bowed.  You had to go to either the right or left but could not enter in the center, that was for the Shinto god.  We then went to the next ritual station where we purified ourselves by washing our hands – left, right, left again with that water brought up to your mouth and then tipping the ladle so the handle was clean for the next person.  We then went to the entrance of the Shrine and asked for a blessing.  Toss a coin, bow twice, clap your hands twice, make your request, then clap your hands again.  Our guide Meg, did a blessing on our group’s behalf, asking for safe travels, retail therapy options for the women, patience for the men, no earthquakes and no attacks by North Korea!

Then we went into the Shrine and were blessed in a traditional ceremony.  It was similar to the one I (Bette) had attended in Tokyo in January.  We all received boards that represented our being blessed.

We have no actual photos from the ceremony since it is not allowed.

Then we toured the rest of the Shrine area seeing thousands of torii gates.  The have been donated over hundreds of years by believers.  The gates actually follow a path to the top of a mountain, but because of timing, we could not walk through all of them.  We probably walked through 500 or more of the gates.

We then went to the Sanju-Sangendo, a Buddhist temple.  At this place we had to remove our shoes to go in.  This once was the largest wooden building in the world, 400 feet in length.  It is no longer, but it is very impressive.  The main attraction were the 1,001 Buddha statues.  The original building burned down and was rebuilt in the 13th century.  Most of the Buddhas were replicas but there are approximately 200 original ones.  They are made of cypress wood and are gilded.  Each one had 42 arms with each arm holding some different object.  There were 28 guardians for the Buddhas.  Each Buddha stands or sits on a lotus flower which represents wisdom.  Again, we could not take photos inside.

Then we were off to a shabu shabu lunch at Hyoto restaurant.  We had to remove our shoes here too. This involved cooking our meat in a hot pot of boiling soup along with vegetables.  We had a small box with sashimi and pickled vegetables and a bowl of sticky rice to accompany the meat and vegetables.  It was very good.

Then we were told our driver had arrived and off we went on our own.  Shozo was his name and he took us about 40 kilometers outside of Kyoto to the Miho Museum.  The day was beautiful and the drive took us out into the countryside.  The final part of the road reminded us of North Carolina mountain roads.  This museum was founded by a Buddhist sect.  The building was designed by I. M. Pei.  It is set into the side of a mountain and the building is as much a part of the experience as is the art.  The displays were beautiful and the art quite extraordinary.  No paintings, but beautiful Japanese glass from 400 years ago when glass was first being made in Japan.  There was also sculpture and artifacts from Egypt, Persia, China, Iran and other Asian places.  Unfortunately no photos of the inside of the building but some of the outside.  You get to the museum by walking through a tunnel, over a bridge and then up a grand staircase.

We took the expressway back to Kyoto.  Then we cleaned up and were off to our group dinner.  We had cocktails at Geshi-in Temple followed by dinner at Sodoh Higashiyama restaurant.  The dinner was 6 courses, first salad, then a hot appetizer of conger eel, then a pasta course with cuttlefish, then a fish course of Pomfret, then the main course of grilled sirloin and vegetables and finally dessert a mango “Baba”.  Bette gave up after the fish course!  While we were eating we had entertainment, geishas singing and dancing.  They then came around the room for photos.  

The geisha with Bob is 18 years old and has 2 more years of training.  It costs about $300,000 for her to complete her training.  

We crashed immediately after dinner.

Fitbit: 12,245 steps, 5.8 miles and 10 flights.

The real start for our trip was Friday, June 2.  Our welcome dinner and briefing were nice.  Started to meet our fellow travelers and had a lecture from the National Geographic “host” traveling with us, David Harrison, a world famous linguist.

We were scheduled for the first bus on Friday morning, 7:45 AM.  When we arrived to board we were told that the jet had some problems and to go back to our rooms to wait, coming back at 9.  At 9 we were given the go ahead to board the buses for Boeing Airfield where our plane was waiting.  Security was done on the tarmac with hand held scanners and visual checks of our hand luggage.  Then we were allowed on board.

After take off we were served champagne and caviar.  We had to have a technical stop in Anchorage for fuel and to pick up our regular crew.  Because of the distance we had to fly this first day the crew could not work the necessary hours, so we had a crew for the first leg (4.5 hours of flight time).

Alaska from 35,000 feet

We were supposed to make a second stop in Sapporo Japan, but our pilots were able to get clearance to fly over Kamchatka Russia and so we flew directly to Osaka.  That flight was 7.5 hours.  We had lectures on both legs of the flights.  Bob thinks they are trying to convert us to Buddhism.

After waiting over 40 minutes for our luggage we were finally on our way to Kyoto and the Ritz Carlton Hotel.

Our room here is amazing with everything being run from electronic control centers.  The shades go up when you enter the room, the closet lights come on as you approach the closet, there are various “scenarios” for the lighting and the decor is simple but elegant.

After dinner we were in bed by 8:30 Kyoto time which was about 22 hours since we were up in the morning.

And, by the way it was Saturday night, June 3!!