Asia, I am at your mercy!

Asia, I am at your mercy!, originally uploaded by ericdues.

Well, I made it to my train last night without any issue and that was
the good part of the train trip. The next 36 hours consisted of
temperatures ranging (and I am guessing here) between -100 and 550. I
do not know why it is so hard to keep a heater at the same level, but
I guess I am not a Russian train engineer either. Also, I shared a
cabin with an older lady that spoke absolutely no English... which
meant no funny drinking stories.

When I arrived at the train station I was able to successfully
purchase my ticket for tonights train using the translated message I
created at home before I left... at least some if this planning paid
off. I did however, get to the front of the line at one point and then
they went on a 15 minute "technical" break... I really hate that system.

On other news, about 12 hours ago I officially crossed into Asia.
Considering the official marker is about 20km out of the city, and
there is only about 3 hours of stuff to see in the city, I had to find
a way to go see it... since I have come this far, I ponied up the cash
for a 4.5 hour guided tour of the Asia-Europe marker and the death
sites of the Romanovs... the last czars of Russia. It was either this
or pay about half the cost for a taxi and then I wouldn't know where
to tell him to go... So the tour was much easier (but bit quite as
satisfying) It was all pretty cool, but the main point was standing
on the border point. I did not take a picture with my phone, but I did
take a picture of my "official" border certificate that I reviewed.
And the tour guide was a hot Russian blond, which would tend to make
any tour better.

Well, the hotel that I booked my tour through was nice enough to allow
me to sit here and pay to use the wifi and plug in my phone for an
hour, and that hour is about up... so I must go now and get a few
supplies for it next 22 hour train trip that leaves in 4 hours. I hope
to stay in the cheap hotel in the train station, otherwise it will be
a huge and expensive one in the city... this whole damn country is
expensive.

I will likely not have Internet access for the next several days (and
perhaps not until Beijing) so this may be it for a while as far as
blog updates go.

- The Dues