We finally rose early enough to see a sunrise. It wasn't a plan, it's simply that all the weird timezone changes meant we were up in time. We took advantage of it, making our way to the back of the ship, fortunate enough to catch a very beautiful sunrise.
Having expended quite enough virtue we ate, read, and sat in the spa. The usual tough existence we've been living the past few weeks.
By mid-afternoon we began our sail-in to Vladivostok. The weather was perfect, 23C/73F, not a cloud in the sky. Who figured we'd get sunburnt in Vladivostok?
That was all well and good, but I must confess my expectations for Vladivostok aren't high. It's a Russian military port, and I keep envisioning some sort of grim Stalinist hold-out full of grey buildings and unsmiling bureaucrats.
This expectation was bolstered when we saw a few military jets, MiGs or SU-somethings, cruise past the ship, practicing bombing runs I guess, and when we spotted a number of very drab buildings on the outskirts of the city.
Shades of the gulag. I started getting nervous as Emma scanned the shoreline with her binoculars. I could see the highlight of this trip being an "I went to Russia and didn't get shot" t-shirt.
The night before we'd seen two ducks while still well out to sea. Emma concluded they must be Russian spy ducks. This suspicion was confirmed today when we saw three of them on the sail-in, most likely the two from the night before, and their duck-commissar confirming their reports.
The harbour was prettier than I expected, and I was pleased to see the quality of the architecture improved as we got closer to the dock. Most of the buildings were in an 18th century style, with quite a bit of colour, and very few post-war communist concrete monstrosities.
The docking was impressive, with the captain slipping the Diamond Princess past a Chinese car ferry with what seemed inches to spare. The berth was just near the terminal for the Trans-Siberian railway - another trip on the wish-list.
Russian immigration authorities came on board - what is it with Russian military men and hats the size of huluhoops? - and since we had nothing to do for four hours or so we did our laundry (not fun), had dinner in one of the shipboard restaurants with a window view on the port (fun), and met the captain entirely by accident (lots of fun).
We've been impressed by Captain Dino Santini. He runs an efficient ship, he's excellent at keeping the passenger informed, and he doesn't smash the ship into Chinese car ferries when docking.
This was the first time we'd seen him in person, so I quickly snapped a photo, thinking he'd be too busy to stop for two random passengers. As it turned out he stopped, posed for a photo with us, and chatted. Very charming and personable. Not all captains are as comfortable with passengers as they are with the technical aspects of sailing. I can see why he's been put in charge of Princess' newest ship, the Royal Princess, which is set to launch soon.
We managed to get ashore around 9.30 - I needed the walk after having had four desserts (memo to me: never, never, never tell a waiter on a cruise ship that you're having trouble choosing between four different desserts) - although we did have an admin problem with my visa due to one of the dozens of border control guards failing to stamp my passport.
Two bright spots: 1) the border control guards were much less authoritarian than feared, and 2) Emma discovered she could recognise and speak much more Russian than she expected.
After a short delay we made it to shore, and walked a few blocks around the dock area. The train station was worth a stop, with several interesting murals, and we were amused to see the Porn Bank. I wonder what they keep there - "hard" currency for naked capitalists?
(It wasn't really the Porn Bank, of course. In the Russian alphabet a P is pronounced with an "r" sound, for example, while a backwards R is pronounced "ya", and we think it was probably the "Royal Bank". Much less entertaining.)
Overall the city was much less grim than expected, but not much happening either. We'll have a better idea what to make of Vladivostok in the morning.
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