First visit to the city
6 January 2015
I spent some time in the hotel fixing the jetlag, and then in the evening I took a cab to downtown Vladivostok.
Just for fun I try getting there with the bus, but after about one kilometer the bus leaves the highway and drives into the village of Trudovoye, and that’s the end point of this bus. Trains don’t run tonight, so all I can do is take a taxi. And yes, there is taxi, but getting these guys to actually take me to Vladivostok turns out to be difficult. What I want to do in Vladivostok? A restaurant? Which restaurant? Any restaurant? They don’t get it. What address I want to go to? Any address? Somebody dials a phonenumber and gives the phone to me, on the other end of the line is someone that speaks a little English. A taxi to Vladivostok? Sure, let me talk to the taxi drivers. And then again ten more minutes of discussing between them. It takes about half an hour before we finally start driving.
Vladivostok is a relatively new city, the Russians only came here at the end of the 19th century when they bought the region from the Chinese in 1860. The Chinese had just lost the opium war with the British and were unable to defend it, so they sold it to the Russians (Wikipedia). The taxi driver dropped me at some Burger King like place but I wanted some decent food and asked two men standing outside for directions. They said they would finish their cigarette and then take me to a better place in their car. Perfect.
While smoking they started discussing politics, and off course it was about Putin and Obama and this stuff in Ukraine, and one particular remark stuck with me. They said that Europe could never win a fight from Russia because Europeans were weak. Weak, as in sissies. Unable to endure hardship.
Russians were tougher, they said, Life is so bad here, you can never make it much worse for us, that’s why we are stronger. Then we got in their brand new 3-liter Isuzu SUV with automat, full leather, heated seats, Bose stereo, sunroof and whatnot, and they took me to a fine Japanese restaurants two kilometers away in Svetlanskaja street.
Because my brother Jacob can see where I am via my GPS tracker, he finds the restaurant, sends me the restaurant reviews via email and suggests a menu. First I order a beer and get tea instead which smelled like fish so maybe it wasn’t tea, but a second try works better.
After the restaurant I walked around for a bit, all the way to the Pokrovsky Cathedral.
After midnight I took a cab back to the hotel. Plenty cabs here, and they don’t cost much. And in the old days I would worry a little if I could find the hotel again, but these days it is easy: I look at my phone and tell the driver where to go. This driver wants double price because it is late, so we haggle a bit about the price but not too much because I don’t mind if he makes a little extra. I am back in the hotel around 3 AM.