Russia > On the way to Japan

Russia - The ferry from Vladivostok to Japan

In the supermarket, we buy ingredients for breakfast. We eat it in the hotel garden. At half past eleven, a van arrives at the door. We load our luggage and head to the port. The port building is crowded—much busier than yesterday. Svetlana soon arrives with the boarding passes. We say goodbye to Yoeri and to her and walk on to customs. About fifteen minutes later, I walk along the gangway of the Eastern Dream. I’m on my way to Japan. The sleeping quarters turn out to be a kind of dormitory. A decent bed, but no way to close a door. Just to be safe, I secure my backpack with a small lock. Most of the passengers on board are Koreans. They have only visited Vladivostok. A few of the young men tell me they went there to see Korean memorials from past wars. One also mentions that the relationship between Japan and Korea is tense since a Japanese attack—presumably referring to the occupation between 1910 and 1945. Lunch is disappointing, both in price and taste. We’ll have to get used to everything being more expensive from now on. Beer costs five dollars, a portion of fries ten dollars. Fortunately, the evening buffet in the restaurant is better. For a fixed price, we can eat as much as we want. At the end of the evening, we have a beer in the “nightclub.” The music is loud, but it’s not very crowded. A Korean group comes in with one of the crew members. He explains that he wants to play a song for them on his saxophone. It sounds good combined with the karaoke music. Especially for us, he plays The Rivers of Babylon because we are from the Netherlands. Around eleven o’clock, we go to bed. There isn’t much else to do on board.