:: zone3 ::

Got around to updating this after a few days off line

Well, the Hermitage is big. Very big. It has about 2.5 million exhibits,
makes Te Papa look very small in comparison. Spent about 4 hours walking
around looking at works of art. Getting to see works of De Vince and the
like. Pretty cool when get to see some works have seen on the History
channel recently.

After finishing up in St Petersburg, was off to Moscow overnight by train.
Spent the day walking around the Red Square and visiting Lenin, pretty
much looks as though made of wax.
Included a fun couple of hours of Metro station hopping. The Russia’s made
a number of the underground stations pretty much works of art. Made for
fun jumping on and off the trains…

Well made it to St Petersburg...

Made for about the worst set of connecting flights have ever had. Wlg to
Akl was fine. Got fun from there.

The plane to Shanghai brunt up a lot of fuel due to the weather on the way
and with fog in Shanghai had to divert to Naha, Japan to re-fuel. That put
things a bit late getting to Shanghai, had 60min to until my plane to
Moscow took off. Shanghai customs etc was fast lucky (fastest I've had in
any coutry), check-ins for my next flight had just closed, but they let me
on...

Then that flight was delayed in Shanghai, so got to Moscow with again
60mins until my next flight, however there is no way can transit Moscow
that fast... Getting myself on to a later flight to St Petersburg was fun
considering I about 5 words of Russian and the airport staff don't speak a
lot of english. Had some Russians that were on the same flight me to
Moscow and also going to St Petersburg, they were pretty friendly and helpped
me get re-ticketed and on the right plane.

Off on holiday for the next 5 weeks to Russia, China and Mongolia...

Taking the Trans-Seb from St. Petersburg throuh to Beijing, then going on to Shanghai.