it's a long way from whitley bay... Hi everyone and welcome to our journal where you can see and read what we've been up to and where we're going next. We hope you enjoy it, and would love you to keep in touch with your news, and send us your comments! Lots of love, Sarah and Phil x ;)

First off, apologies for no updates in the past few days but we've been Russian around a bit (sorry - that was Sarah's pun, Phil is denying all input into that one). We arrived in Moscow on Wednesday evening and after a day of sight seeing on Thursday, we got the night train to St Petersburg and arrived on Friday morning at 7am. We managed to pull the short straw and shared our train compartment with a mad Uzbekistani guy, who was by turns drunk, mad, racist and scary. Despite not speaking any English, he managed to communicate that he wasn't very keen on Americans or George Bush, but that he loved Russia and thought their army could kick anyone's backside! He wouldn't let us sleep till we'd finished off a bottle of vodka with him, though the more he drank the madder he got. Anyway, what can we say, it was an experience! Our 2 days in St Petersburg were fantastic and the city is incredibly beautiful. We went to the Hermitage Museum on Saturday and it really has to be seen to be believed. It's just huge. You could fit three houses in some of the ballrooms! And they're all covered in gold and amazing art work. Though despite all that, the best bit was that it snowed! And we had a snowball fight with a few Soviet statues. We got the 20 past midnight sleeper back to Moscow in the early hours of this (Sunday) morning and have been to Red Square again and managed to get inside the Kremlin this time (it's closed Thursday's) and went to Gorky Park (where the spies used to hang out) and then went on a metro journey where we got off at 5 or 6 of the stops that were recommended in the guide book.....which doesn't sound that exciting admittedly(!) except their stations are incredibly ornate and beautifully designed and worth checking out (very similar to Finsbury Park or Seven Sisters in fact...). We're planning to pop in to Lenin's mausoleum tomorrow morning to say hi, then it's off to the airport for the 5pm flight to Tokyo. Hope you're all well. Great to read all the comments from everyone. Keep em coming. From Russia with love (Sarah again), Phil and Sarah xx