Optimus Prime here has just turned up with the third member of the team.
After some scheduling SNAFU on the Pusan<=>Vladivostok shuttle we found ourselves with a few days more than we’d anticipated in town.
Notwithstanding when the ship did arrive, with Links Ltd acting as our shipping and customs clearance agents the container was processed, released from the port, transported and unloaded in less than a day after a coordinated effort from Yuri, Svetlana and Andrew.
…and the Disco was unscathed from the journey…
In retrospect the delay was serendipitous as we found ourselves with enough time to get a sense of Vladivostok, this most Easterly of ‘European’ cities.
Sat on the platform at the Vladivostok railway station is a milestone indicating 9,288kms from Moscow and the city around this final stop on the Trans-Siberian railway retains somewhat of a frontier quality - in the taiga of Primorsky Krai surrounding the city survive populations of Siberian tiger and Far Eastern leopard.
Locals were friendly with an initially sparse, no-nonsense turn of phrase that turned to chattiness once we got over the language barrier (GoogleTranslate, amazing).
As we drove Northwards on good roads into the countryside and out from Vladivostok’s thick midsummer fog the sky opened up into wide vistas - waterways, wet ground and thick low woodlands interspersed with arable land.
Next stop Khabarovsk, located on the Amur River about 750kms to the North!