Goodbye Russia

Hey all. Well, our time in Russia has nearly come to an end. After St Petersburg, we took the overnight train to Moscow, and trust us, Moscow never sleeps. Did the tourist stuff (the Kremlin, Red Square, Lenin's Tomb, Cathedrals, boat rides, you name it) but also had the real Russia experience of an attempted mugging, a near arrest, a subway pervert, and defending an innocent woman from her abusive boyfriend, all the while drunk as skunks. That sounds bad, but it was all in 1 night. The good far outweighed the bad! Good = amazing sites, beautiful woman, good food, fantastic company, and vodka. One of the sweetest things about Moscow is the Metro system, very cool. We parted from Aussie Drew and Ray from TO, and jumped on train to Lake Baikal (3.5 day ride!)with the other 3 guys in our group (2 Brits and 1 Prairie boy). The train ride itself was something else. Now we're at the end of a 4 day stay at a small village near Lake Baikal, the biggest/oldest lake in the world, holding 1/5 of the global freshwater supply. Did some hiking, same bartering at the market, ate fish, went swimming (brrrrrr), snuck bikes out in the middle of the night and met many locals. Now we're heading back to Irkuust for the day and jumping on a train yet again to Ulaanbatar, the capital of Mongolia, and will be camping for a few days. Won't have access to any technology while we're there, so the next you'll hear from us, we'll be in Beijing. Watch for us painted red at the Olympics, screaming "CAAAANNNNAADDAAAAA!!!!". We'll try to update you on the event we'll be watching (whatevers cheapest). For now, thanks for the patience in waiting for an update, and we'll talk soon! Justin, Kyle and Mike.