The Ramblings of Loren Christopher

It’s that time of year again, my precious week vacation in the summer.  Last year I went to Beijing and Shanghai over the summer break, but this year I had my eyes set on Russia.  It’s a country I’ve always been curious about, mostly because of the dark history and the Cold War.  So, here I am finally (arrived yesterday) and I still cannot believe I am in Russia right now!!  Haha.

The flight was lacking in leg room and smiles, but we landed safely, went straight on through immigration without any questions.  I had heard so many stories of people getting hung up at immigration and being drilled a bunch of questions, but it took less than a minute, she just checked my tourist visa (which WAS a grueling process to get) and let me on through.

The train ride into the center of Moscow was interesting.  I got a chance to see the slums.  Small small little rooms with tin roofs all adjacent to one another.  Packs of wild dogs (big scary wolf-looking dogs) roaming around.  It justified my feelings that I didn’t want to backpack through the country or venture out of the city on my own, not this trip at least.

My hotel is lovely….room service, about 8 different restaurants, spa, pool, casino, the whole nine yards.  I checked in last night and hopped on the subway to go straight into the city center (it stays light out until around 11:30pm).  I had heard that the subway stations were beautiful, and they are!  Marble columns, statues, frescoes, murals, chandeliers….but all old looking, definitely was like that under the Soviet Union.  It’s very cool to see all this stuff firsthand!!

Anyway, I headed to the Red Square.  I found my way around a few corners, and then all of a sudden through a big red gate I could see St. Basil’s Cathedral off in the distance.  I seriously stopped, smiled, and said “Oh my god.”  I was in a trance and just kept walking closer and closer with a huge smile on my face thinking “I cannot believe I’m really here right now, this is crazy!”

Not to brag, but I am a fairly seasoned traveler (23 countries).  There are amazing things I’ve done and seen….but it is hard to remember the last time I was in awe of being somewhere monumental like this.  The Great Wall of China was cool, but I could believe I was there.  The Acropolis was amazing, but it didn’t give me goosebumps.  Walking around the Red Square though (yesterday and today), I still cannot shake the feeling of wonder.

So I snapped some pictures last night before it got dark.  Walked around just a bit and then headed back to my hotel.  Today was a big day though.  I went back to the Red Square and did a tour of the Kremlin.  Again, just drove myself nuts thinking about how Nicholas II, Stalin, Lenin and many others have lived on the grounds I was now walking on.  I don’t idolize those people, that’s not it.  They are just such huge figures of history.

Well the Kremlin is enormous and it took about 5 hours to see (and I didn’t see everything).  The Armory was my favorite though.  It houses jewels from the previous Russian dynasties.  They had everything there….Catherine the Great’s wedding dress, the throne of Ivan the Terrible, amazing jewelry, crowns and chariots covered in gold.  It was more than impressive!  I went on to see the changing of the guards at the eternal flame memorial for the Russians who died in WWII.  The guards picked their legs up as high as their heads when they walked, and then stomped their black leather boots against the pavement.  I got it on video…super cool.

I went into St. Basil’s, walked around the Kremlin, went to a couple other cathedrals, ate at a really good Russian restaurant (had sausage), then went to a souvenir shopping district called Arbat.  The place was really interesting and reminded me of the French Quarter in New Orleans kind of, except it was Russian, not French.  I bought a couple things, but am doing more shopping tomorrow.  I was exhausted from the day and am now back at the hotel for the night.

Tomorrow I’m going shopping, will visit the Cosmonaut Museum, The Bolshoi Theatre, maybe take a riverboat tour at night.  I’m also supposed to meet up with a couple friends I met a long time ago through couchsurfing.

What else to say about this city.  It’s not quite what I expected.  It seems much safer than I imagined.  The people remind me of the Czechs (I find myself thinking about Prague a lot while I’m here), but the Russians are different in a lot of ways it seems.  Customer service is NOT their forte.  I was confused when I went into St. Basil’s Cathedral….I had bought an entry ticket and paid a little extra to be able to take photos inside.  

There was some confusion with the lady who takes your ticket at the door.  She wa trying to explain to me (in RUSSIAN) that I needed a different ticket.  I was confused and quickly whipped out my miming techniques.  ”Photo” (pointing to my camera) “Ticket” (showing the ticket) “I paid” (place one hand over chest….with other hand, rub fingers together to symbolize money).  I was sure she’d get it.  Instead she shook her head and gave me the “shoo, get out of here” signal, while murmuring something under her breath.  Now you must keep in mind, Czech and Russian are similar languages, and I did learn a couple curse words in Czech….I am 99% sure that she told me to “f*** off” in Russian.  She works at a CATHEDRAL folks, come on!!

It all worked out in the end though.  The people have been through an enormous amount of history.  I was watching this 90-year old woman on the subway, just wishing I could sit down with her and a translator and ask her questions.  Geeze, she has lived through Stalin, Lenin, WWII, the Cold War, the Soviet Union, and now the Russia of today.  Can you imagine??

I am absolutely fascinated by this city and my eyes are wide open taking everything in all the time.  Two more full days here, then I’m riding 1st class on an overnight train to St. Petersburg, which I have a feeling will be more beautiful, less communistic feeling, more European-like.  But, we shall see…

For more pictures of my trip in Moscow, go to my Moscow flickr album.

Korea is so funny sometimes.  You travel just a couple hours away from Seoul (or less) and soon stumble across some special sight or nature that takes you into a completely different world.  Whether it’s hills of green tea fields, deep caves that go on forever, rocky cliff beaches, bamboo forests, or in the case of today….a sheep farm that looks as though it is set in the hills of Scotland, Korea still amazes me.

I am a big fan of the Official Korean Tourism Guide website , and had stumbled across some information about this sheep farm a couple hours west of Seoul.  The photos caught my interest, and I decided I had to go visit just to see if it really was that beautiful!  After having lived here for a year and a half, I still have slip-ups getting around.  The website said that the bus station to go to is Heonggye, but in Korean it reads quite different.  So I had some difficulty getting a ticket, finally went to an internet cafe near the big bus terminal and found out how it was written in Korean and realized I had been pronouncing it totally wrong.

(future note for those of you who decide to visit, it is pronounced Hwayng-gyae, not Heonggye)

Half of the reason I enjoy visiting places around Korea is simply the bus ride itself.  The sheep farm is located in Gangwangdo, which is a really mountainous province.  I was reading today on the bus ride over there, that an ancient Chinese philosopher once said of Korea, “If you could somehow squash the entire country flat, it would be as big as China.”  That may be ’stretching’ it a bit too far…but it does indeed have some beautiful mountains.

Well, 2 and a half hours later I arrived in Heonggye (see proper pronunciation above).  Take a taxi to the farm from the bus terminal, it will cost you about 10 minutes and 7,000 won.  I was actually quite worried because I had read online that the farm would close if the weather wasn’t permitting, and it looked like it was about to rain any minute.  They were open though (9am-6pm in the summer, 9am-5pm in the winter) and for just about 2 bucks entry fee I was hiking my way up the green hills, surrounded by a sea of Koreans.  I was the only foreigner there, didn’t see a single other one today!

I am exaggerating the hike, it really wasn’t so bad.  Evidently they care for over 200 sheep here on the farm.  Pretty soon I could hear them “Baaa”-ing (so cute, I laughed when I first heard them) and started spotting them everywhere.  At first you walk by their stables where some are hanging out and eating hay.  You can buy a little basket of hay and feed them yourself if you want….the Koreans were taking full advantage of this opportunity for a photo shoot.  Young couples taking turns feeding and snapping shots of each other with their cell phones, families with the little kids throwing hay at the sheep and yelling “Yangi, meoggeo!!” [Sheep, eat it!]  (yeah my Korean is getting better, haha.)

A bit further up and you have to stop and turn around to admire the view!  Just amazing green mountains everywhere, the rain was about to come so you could smell it in the air, but it was also much cooler for being July.  I snapped some photos of course, which felt REALLY good.

I have been so busy with my promotion, working on projects, and studying Korean that I have hardly had any time to be creative and work on my photography skills lately.  This Saturday I set aside specifically to enjoy myself and be out in nature.  Who knew that a trip to Scotland was just a couple hours away?  I hope to go back and explore the area more again, possibly in the winter since they have a big ski resort nearby too.