What a trip it is here. I got in yesterday and was exhausted, I probably should have done a little bit more than I did but really, I was exhausted. I didn’t sleep much the night before in the really sketchy airport hotel I had; uncomfortable mattress and pillow, in a loud area, the internet wasn’t working, it just was certainly not the best situation. And, I needed to be ready for the shuttle at 7 am. Ick. I took Asiana airlines over though; apparently the “best airline in the world” flying out of the “best airport in the world” for the 4th year in a row. I was soooo happy that my schedule worked out this way because otherwise, I would have had to take some really sketchy Russian airplane. I didn’t meet anyone interesting on the plane. When I arrived, they checked my tourist visa (yep it was fine…. Shhhhh I’m actually here for work), and I was declared free of any H1N1 virus, and then they scanned all our bags over again. I got a taxi outside; it was very expensive for a short ride, $20 USD. An 80 year-old man took me to the hotel in his little old car which was about to fall apart. The scenery was intriguing, surprisingly probably one of the most run-down, dreary locations I have ever been to. There was building after building of trashed or torn-down, or REALLY old buildings around the area. It was cloudy, the ground was hard, cold and gray and everyone was dressed in dark clothes. The hotel isn’t excellent, but it’s really not bad at all; I don’t mind staying here. It’s got a kitchenette, is relatively clean, and everything and surprisingly, the people working here are very nice. (Though one of them took me to my room and tried to open the wrong room; used her master key to do so and it had been locked by the people that were staying in the room! Whoops.) I took a little nap and then ventured out to see if anyone would give me permission to survey their grocery store, and I got negative answers at both locations. UGH, I hate stealthing, especially in small marts. I was a bit depressed by this and very tired, so I came back to go to bed early, especially since there are no streetlights here, and only some of the intersections have pedestrian lights. One of the girls at the front desk was going to help me in the morning with some phone calls.
And, she did. She was a typical Russian girl, smiles very little, very stern and serious but she said she had spent time in Washington. Everyone there in America was very nice to her, so she wanted to help me out for free. I even offered her money and she refused, but offered a smile when I did so. That was enough. She helped me for three solid hours. After that, I went to visit Mr. Valentine Kulik who works at one of the companies where many foreign executives live when they stay here in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk. The taxi could not go into the gate, so she left me outside and I waited for him to come. I didn’t see him, but a guy who was there tried to talk to me in Russian but of course I could not understand. He put me on the phone with someone who spoke some English and I tried to explain why I was outside. He was offering to drive me wherever it was that I needed to go within the complex. But, Mr. Valentine was coming to pick me up and I couldn’t get ahold of him, but I had waited for him for a long time. Somehow we figured out that we missed each other, but my new friend Mr. Aura (who is the manager of the compound) took me to visit Mr. Valentine. Nice guy but didn’t smile much, but that’s the common trend anyways. We only needed to speak for about 20 minutes.
I came back to the hotel and tried hard to get motivated to go into that grocery store. After a short nap, I did it. Well, I did half of it, and it wasn’t that bad. But, tomorrow I need to finish what I did not get to, and hope there will be different employees there – and I need to do the whole other grocery store, ugh. I spoke with the previous surveyor’s translator. She is another person, didn’t seem excited to hear from me but her words told me that she is free all weekend and is so excited to meet with me and to practice speaking in English. She is going to walk around with me in the grocery store. We’re just going to pretend that we’re shopping together, and I’m going to talk out loud and use the voice recorder which has so far come in lots of handy. I love it, and even though I hate having to use it, I’m glad he’s good to me. OK bed time, super busy day tomorrow.
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