The Boat

Adam and I stepped off the boat in Vladivostok about 24 hours after we left Korea. It was a lot more relaxing and comfortable than I thought an overnight ferry would be. The biggest problem was the excessive air conditioning inside.

There weren't a whole lot of people on the boat. Maybe about 40 passengers. There weren't many Koreans, but a fair amount of Russians and a few other Americans.

Adam and I spend the early afternoon hanging out on deck in the sun. As I was going inside to get my camera, Adam called me back with "dolphins!" and I ran back. There were maybe half a dozen right next to the boat, cresting the water by the wake and sometimes shooting out like a spear. Farther off, it seemed like dozens were doing the same thing.

We got talking with a group of 3 American guys about our age who were doing a two-month tour through China, Japan, Russia, and Europe. We had dinner with them, Rob, Alex, and Mark. It was a Korean/Russian buffet, not bad, but not great.

I guess the highlight of our evening was the nightclub. Some Korean man noticed us watching a group of Russian girls walking by and said they were headed to the night club. The American guys had been there the night before, from Japan to Korea. Despite the fact that the boat was almost to capacity then, the club was empty.

It wasn't much better when we showed up. The three Russian girls were dancing alone on the gently swaying dance floor, and a slightly older Russian couple showed up soon after. We got a table and tried not to be too obvious that we were watching them all dance. Eventually we went up and efficiently emptied the floor with our horrendous dancing.

Alex eventually got the girls to come over and sit with us, where they were safe from our dancing. They were students coming back from three months of study in Japan, and all spoke English fairly well. I talked mainly with a blonde girl named Sasha who told Adam and I the things to do and see and where to go in Vladivostok.

The nightclub closed down two hours early, at ten o'clock, and we moved ourselves into the common area on deck three where we were all staying. Adam and I were both starting to catch a cold and he went off to bed earlier than the rest, and I followed him not long after.

The bunks were stacked without a lot of storage room eight to a room, but for sleeping were surprisingly comfortable and cozy. I chugged water before I went to bed and everytime I woke up to piss to fight off the budding cold. I closed my eyes and felt the gentle rocking of the boat and listened to a special playlist I made for the occasion, themed partly for sleeping on a boat:

1. Alizze - J'en Ai Marre


2. Bob Dylan - Lay Lady Lay


3. Christopher Cross - Sailing


4. Duke Ellington - The Star Crossed Lovers


5. ELO - Can't Get It Out My Head


6. Jack Johnson - Symbol In My Driveway


7. Jeffrey Lewis - Roll Bus Roll


8. Jeffrey Lewis - Sea Song

I slept late and showered in the sauna with views of coastal Russia passing through the picture windows and ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for breakfast. Everyone stood on deck to watch Vladivostok slowly surround us. It's a city like an industrial Russian San Francisco. The crystal clarity of the rusted boats and naval cranes directly to our sides slowly faded the further you looked in the hazy distance, with smokestacks darkening the sky and massive bridges under construction between the islands and hills.

Adam and I stepped onto Russian soil after waiting for what seemed like a disproportionately long time in customs. I'd hate to wait there if it was a full ship. A massive and shaggily-groomed black Russian dog sniffed for drugs, and when we cleared the first desk, two more dogs of two more breeds sniffed some more. We had no hotel reservations but had a few places to check out, and scored with the first place we looked for, the Hotel Moryak, just around the corner from the port and train station.