A Bit of Russia

This was my third time in Russia - the first on the east side of the country.  The block apartment buildings and stark surroundings were familiar to me but having snow on the ground seemed to lighten things up a bit.  It turned out that we needed to tender at both ports; we were successful at only one. 

The town of Korsakov is on the island of Sakhalin, located half-way between Russia and Japan.  At one point the island was shared by both countries, each taking their side of it, until Russia took over the entire island at the end of WWII.   I did an excursion to the town of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk about an hour away where we visited a Japanese museum (the only sign of it's Japanese ties that I saw) and had a traditional Russian meal, including that typical bowl of borscht.

The Japanese-style museum...

 

Winter landscape in Russia: 

A cemetery adds to the stark landscape:

Typical winter scenes along the way that could be most anywhere.

 

Cruising along the coast to Petropavlovsk, our second port of call in Russia, had stunning landscape and ice fields. 

The very protective harbor for the town of Petropavlovsk, our second port, didn't provide the security needed to tender in to the docks. It was a beautiful day but high winds made it unsafe for us to disembark.  Too bad as it looked like a pretty area.  We had to enjoy the town from a distance... 

Since leaving Russia, we've been cruising along the Northern track of the Aleutian Islands and will reach Dutch Harbor in the morning.  I'll be happy to finally see Alaska!

By the way, I’m finally back on the same day as the rest of you.  Since crossing the International dateline a couple of months ago, I’ve been a day ahead.  But, we just crossed it again, this time coming eastward.  The last time we did it we were going west, so lost a day.  This time we repeated a day.  That day, April 21, happen to have been the 21^st birthday of a lovely young woman who took a semester of college off to join her mom on the full world cruise.   How many people get two days of the same birthday, never mind your 21^st.  She has parties planned for both days.  What fun for her!  If I were her I’d be using 21 as my lucky number.