Almost out of Siberia

Since my last post, there has been a significant and most desirable development in our lives. The roads are fully sealed since Krasnoyarsk (with a few minor gaps that only serve to as a reminder of how bad things can get and how good we have it right now). So now, instead of struggling through 1000km for a week (Khabarovsk to Chita), we can do it in two days!

As a direct result, our car has decided to stop breaking down (apart from the occasional refusal to start now and then - but I can't really blame it for creating a minor difficulty for us after all we've done to destroy it).

Krasnoyarsk

Good roads after this city!!! Have I said that already? Otherwise, pretty much blends in with the other Siberian cities we've seen.








Tomsk

I think out of all the Siberian cities we've been to, this will be the one that sticks in my memory for it's beauty. The main street is an almost uninterrupted procession of stunning turn-out-the century buildings. I think I've put too many photos us, but I just couldn't resist.











Novosibisk

Novosibisk is not a particularly pretty city, and there really isn't much to do or see here - but it is super trendy, If your thing is good coffee and Japanese restaurants, this is the city for you. The only complaint I have really is a general complaint about the tight-arse servings in Russia. All food is sold by weight, and god forbid that you should get a gram more than you paid for! I can understand that in a typical "stolovaya", or lunch cafe, where the menu has the amount of grams of rice you are getting, and all food is weighted before it's served. But I didn't expect to see weight measures on the menu of a nice restaurant. Experience should have told me to as much pay as much attention to this measure as to the price. This is what we ordered:



And this is what we got:



Does anyone notice a difference?

But then again with some of this:



We didn't feel too sore about it, and ordered some more food. Still, I think there is some intrinsically wrong about ordering a main for two and still being hungry afterwards.

In other news, it's getting COLD! The other day we found frost on the inside of the windscreen in the morning. I was getting tired of not being able to feel my toes, so I bought these: