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Sunday January 9th - the train to Moscow

	Our train to Moscow was scheduled to depart at 2:54am on Sunday morning, after a two minute stop at our station on its way from Murmansk.

It took about 25 minutes to walk from Natasha's house to the station, and we arrived with about half an hour to spare. This picture was taken on our arrival at the station at 02:25am, so we still had our packs on.
The train arrived on time, and as we only had 2 minutes to find our carriage and clamber on board, there was no time to take a picture of the event.

As usual I used my camera to record a copy of the timetable for the journey so that I wouldn't have to keep walking to the end of the carriage to determine the timing of the next stop. I took this picture at 08:39am, so I obviously didn't sleep in too late.

I took this picture from the foot bridge over the train line at 15:36, so from the preceeding timetable it was during the longest of our stops (35 minutes, from 15:21 to 15:56), at Medvezhya Gora.

And looking back the other way toward our carriage.

Sasha and myself in front of the station house at 15:38.

Meanwhile Lena had decided to build a snowman - but something decidedly less ambitious than Masha's earlier attempt.

With two black seeds as eyes, the snowman looked a bit like a cross between an alien and a zombie. (the snowman is the little one on the right).

At 19:48 during our 23 minutes stop at another station that featured in the pictures from the outward journey - Petrozavodsk Pass.
This time Lena is posing on the steps of the train exhibit.

Monday, January 10th - back in Moscow

Our train reached Moscow at 10:46am on Monday morning, leaving one night in Moscow before my flight back to London on Tuesday evening.

Liu Yong and Yu Hong (with whom we went to Suzdal and St Petersburg in July) invited Lena and me to dinner at their accommodation at Moscow University in the evening, so after unpacking and getting cleaned up, we made our way there.

This was not as easy as it sounds, as security at the University was very tight, and Liu Yong had to arrange a special pass to get me into the university dormitories.

Some how Yu Hong and Liu Yong managed to make a delicious authentic Chinese dish in their room, preparing it on the table in front of me.
Lena had previously indicated to me that she didn't have much experience with spicy food, and this was a spicy dish even by the standards of someone like myself who loves it. But even she couldn't resist it.
It was definitely much tastier than than the normal western version of Chinese food.

Yu Hong loading more goodies into the pot.

Later that evening at Lena's - Sasha had worn his Clockwork Orange t-shirt, and as I still had my bags at Lena's we discovered that we had a complete set and decided to take a 'droogs' picture.

Another try after we decided that we would look more threatening if I changed out of Lena's fluffy purple slippers.

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