Nemo is planning on passing through China in a few weeks so we’re deciding on a course of action to see and do fun things. He’s interested in checking out Thailand, naturally, but I’m trying to get him to serious consider the trans-Mongolian railway to Moscow as a serious option. Not only is the weather far from optimal in Thailand right now (it’s uncomfortably hot and we’re on the edge of rain season), but the weather is very modest up north in Russia and Mongolia where normally we’d be very cold. There’s a lot of information to collect about the railway, which is a 6-day trip from Beijing to Moscow (not including a stop in Ulaan Baatar, capitol of Mongolia), but I’ve been sifting through it online as efficiently as I can. I think it might beat reading the Lonely Planet guide to the railway, even. This would be a great opportunity for me to get back into photography, which I’m really dying to do, but just lacking inspiration at the moment. Any day now I’ll get a bike which will hopefully inspire me to spend days exploring the city and taking photographys. Recently I’ve been re-reviewing photos that I took in Bali last year and I’m stunned by how beautiful they are and what a rewarding experience it is to look over photos that I’ve taken. I’ve decided not to sell my camera equipment as I had previously considered, but only sell the body (Canon 300-D) for the purpose of an upgrade.
I updated some of the general information about the site which can be accessed through the menu in the upper right. When I was in America my father hassled me about removing the photo I’d taken of hash that I bought months ago, for fear of Chinese government finding it and tracing my website to me and busting me. No need to worry, Dad.
Here’s a map of the route that the trans-Siberian railway takes, starting in Vladivostok and continuing west and then north, past Moscow:
The trans-Mongolian route takes a similar path, except starts in China at Beijing and passes through Ulaan Baatar which can barely be seen at the bottom of the map.