Wednesday 9 July 2008

The long awaited Moscow update

From Moscow

Due to the fact that we only had access to 14.4kbps internet in Mongolia for the last few days, we haven't had a chance to update the blog. We are currently in Beijing but will update you chronologically before talking about our time here.

We will also be putting up photos on all the posts now that we finally have access to a halfway decent computer.

Moscow

We only spent a couple of days in Moscow but to be honest I think we got the balance between there and St Petersburg right, once you've been to Red Square you've basically seen most of what the city has to offer a tourist. The Kremlin is there, Lenin's Mausoleum is there (although his brain was removed by Stalin under the auspices of "studying true communism" years ago), St Basil's is there and The Tomb of the Unkonown Soldier is a few feet away.

One thing we weren't expecting however was to find ourselves face to face with an enormous, gothic skyscraper whilst walking down Arbatskaya. The monolothic building was obviously built within the 20th century as it was adorned with a huge hammer and sickle. However, the main section looked like a malformed, enormous Houses of Parliament; whilst the top was adorned with an audacious looking spire. Out of all the sights we saw in Moscow it was definitely my favourite.

From Moscow

The one workout I managed to get in at our Hostel looked like this:

10 x 10 Tricep dips (using 2 bunk beds) - George joined in for this bit, Magnus was asleep
3 x 12 Push ups (medium band)
5 x15 Behind the back pull-aparts (medium band)
5 x12 Bicep curls (doubled up monster mini band)

We were in a hurry to get out and eat some food so I went for as fast a set of burpees as I could muster at the time. I managed an abysmal 50 reps in 3:19 and headed off to Mu Mu (a cow themed Russian canteen) for some borscht and beef.

On our second day we came to the sharp realisation that we were about to board a train and not get off it for 5 days. Having heard about the quality and price of food available on the train we decided to perform two acts:

ACT 1. Eat like fucking savages while we could

ACT 2. Prepare for the journey ahead by buying 48 boxes of instant noodles and several packets of cured sausages which later turned out to taste only of blood and fat.

Let me tell you this: when it comes to buffets, Russians have got their shit together. We found a place that, for about 8 quid had a buffet that included all manner of salads, sushi, Georgian food (including some, rather unusual, veal bone slices), pancakes, about 5 different kinds of cakes and fruit salad. We stocked up like bears preparing for winter and hobbled away to the train station with our sights firmly set on Mongolia.

From Moscow

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