It is a long flight to Khabarovsk all the way across Russia. We are actually able to get a few hours of sleep on the flight and, due to the seven time zones we fly through, we land in the afternoon, just before 4 PM. When the door to the plane opens and we head down the steps to the waiting bus, we are struck by the warmth here. We have come from chilly and windy Moscow and arrive in Siberia (or rather the Far Eastern Territories) to warm, balmy weather. It was amazing to find this warm weather out here.
We take the bus to the airport gates and then have to wait for our bags. Here, once again, we have the system where the bags come into a small, separate room with a conveyor belt. We have to wait outside for a long time, under the hot sun. They do not let you into the room until the bags start to arrive. We have been met by our driver and he helps us collect the bags once they begin to arrive. We have to fight our way out through a huge crowd that is trying to squeeze through a narrow door guarded by a single lady checking each bag against the check-slip. Things are complicated by a group of Japanese - all the baggage tags are in one group and it is taking the lady a long time to match up each tag with the bags.
We take the car to our hotel, the same one that we stayed in on our arrival in Khabarovsk. We have a few misunderstandings on check-in (they do not give us the room that we want and we have some struggle trying to change it, but succeed in the end). Once we have dropped our bags, we get ready to head out. It is such a beautiful day and we have some shopping to do. We walk downtown and head along the main drag. We head straight to the souvenir shop that we had discovered on our arrival here a few months ago. We want to pick up a few things to take home with us. We are lucky - they close at 7 PM, so we have just an hour or so to look around and make our purchases.
Then, just as we are leaving, it begins to rain heavily. We have come prepared with our rain jackets, so we head out anyway. But we are lucky - after a short time the rain stops and the sun comes out once again. We therefore decide to have a drink at one of many beer stalls that are set up on the sidewalk. There are no free tables, but a guy sitting there on his own is kind enough to let us join him at his table. We enjoy some conversation with him (he speaks very good English) as we drink our beer and eat our chips.
As the sun begins to set, we decide it is time to head back to the hotel. We can feel the temperature begin to drop as the sun disappears. On the way back to the hotel we stop off at the supermarket that we found on our first visit here. It is still one of the best supermarkets that we have found in Russia. We pick up a roast chicken and some bread and other snacks for dinner and take it back to our hotel.
After our dinner of roast chicken back in our room, we spend some time packing our bags and getting organised for our flight tomorrow before we head off to sleep.