It's Mum's birthday today and she would be turning 101, and it's also our great-granddaughter, Juniper's birthday. It's a very happy coincidence.
Yesterday, I was browsing through Youtube looking for some inspiration and I found a video on Vladivostok; in fact, there were several but most of them seemed to be about the Trans-Siberian Railway and that didn't appeal. The one I finally opened was a simple travel diary about a visit to the city. The American presenter spoke Russian so it wasn't just a string of pretty scenes and inane monologue.
We visited Vladivostok on a cruise in June 2012. I've gone back to my blog and noted that we sailed from Yokohama and visited two other ports in Japan before sailing across the Sea of Japan to this Russian port. At that time, I thought of Russia as a frightening place; memories of the Cold War were still in our minds and our ideas of the typical Russian were coloured by thoughts of Mr Kruschev hammering his shoe on the table and saying, "We will bury you."
It wasn't quite like that but there were still firm guidelines for tourists and we just couldn't go wandering about on our own. This new video shows a much more open and prosperous society and it was suggested it benefits from being a long way from Moscow. It has three very wealthy countries close by whose people are keen travellers so the number of Japanese, Chinese and South Korean visitors is growing every year.
There is a real problem with crumbling infrastructure and litter but at least some of the locals are trying to do something to clean up the environment.
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