Vladivostok, Russia

My grandma and I got tickets for a tour of Vladivostok, but luckily, it didn't leave until the afternoon.

My grandpa went into Russia before we did, then at about 1:00 we went to the theater. We were put on a bus, and when we go off the ship it was raining, but by the time we got to the first stop, there was no more rain!

Our first stop was the military museum in the barracks. It was kind of interesting, but it got boring. We had a male tour guide, and a girl was his assistant.

After that, we went to the Royal Arsinev museum, which also sort of dragged on after a while....

Next, we went to the central square. There were three interesting statues, but the most interesting part was the last stop which was called eagles nest look out.

To me, the name is a bit misleading. It is basically a hill that you can walk up and see a big part of Vladivostok. While we were there, I went into a souvenir shop and got a couple things for a couple people. :)

After that, we went back to the ship and relaxed.

Some interesting things about Vladivostok:

-In 2012, they are holding a conference/expo type thing that they are spending years getting ready for. They are building a bridge that we could see from the lookout, and something that I thought was cool was that they are bringing in cruise ships to the port, and they will function as "floating museums".

-Vladivostok (geez I'm getting tired of typing that out) was only opened to anyone (not even other Russians) that didn't live there in 1992. Before that, it was a closed port. You would have to get a special paper to get into the city.

-What was once the most closeed city in Russia is now the most open. For the rest of Russia, it is EXTREMELY difficult to get a visa (among other things, you need a letter from someone in Russia), but for Vladivostok, you only really need a passport.

-Vladivostok was originally inhabited by the chinese, who called it a name that meant "Place of Sea cucumbers", then it was Japanese, then finally it was Russian.