Fat Asses

Day 476
When I woke up I was happy to see that Bridget from Mongolia was now at the hostel. After breakfast, Jack Bridget, two other Americans and I headed out.

The first step was the train station so that I could get my ticket. It proved to not be a problem at all. I had three extra days from thebegriming built into my itinerary and getting this train meant that I would have one more.

We then went to see the Nerpa Seal Show. Baikal Lake (more on that soon) has its own type of freshwater seals. There is a half hour show that runs all day long. I don't know why we thought that this would be a good idea. The seals were in a small tank and were clearly overfed. When I could forget thosethings I was sorta able to enjoy the show. The seals put their flippers to their eyes and looked worried. They danced and made bizarre nasal sounds and for unknown reasons fetched Barbie dolls tied onto rings. They both used toy instruments to play a tune with their noses. Towards the end they triggered a small ring on a string that dropped flowers into the water. One seal then gave the flowers to the other and they kissed. The grand finale had one of the massive seals jumping out of the water to touch alarge ball. I haven't seen anything like this on my trip and sorta wished that I had skipped it. Pictures weren't allowed, but I managed a few blurry ones before getting dirty looks from the Russian speaking only commentator.

To add to the sad animal stories of the day on the walk back to town we found a cat stuck up in a tree.

Hungry we decided to hit one of the main pedestrian streets to see what was there. We all ended up with some pretty descent kababs. We then wandered thru the very Soviet looking fruit and veg market.

We then all headed to the art museum. I don't know if pictures were allowed or not, but I didn't take any. None of the titles were in English so I couldn't even write down the names of the paintings that I liked the most. The museum was small and I headed back to the hostel afterwards to find someone tocouchsurf with at my next destination.

That evening the 5 of us went out for dinner but the Americans had to leave early to catch their train. Jack, Bridget and I finished our beers at the Beatlesthemed but empty pub before heading to a beer garden. It was pretty much empty so we ended up just buying beer to drink back at the hostel. We bought one liter cans because they just seemed cool. I didn't make it to the end of the movie and went to sleep before everyone else.