Duisburg

This is a walkable rollercoaster! Its only purpose is as an art installation for city beautification. The track is a walkway with stairs, but the loop is off limits.

Next door is a nuclear plant though. Makes me a little nervous after watching that HBO show about Chernobyl.

Arnhem

Now we’re back in the Netherlands, in the city of Arnhem. During Operation Market Garden in World War II, the western Allies attempted invading Germany through the Netherlands. Allied soldiers (mostly British) attempted to secure key bridges throughout the country; one of which was in Arnhem. The operation ended in disaster, and the Allies failed to advance in to Germany.

The John Frost bridge was constructed on the same location as the old bridge that was destroyed by bombings after Operation Market Garden. John Frost was the leader of the group of British paratroopers that actually arrived at the bridge during the battle. The Airborne Museum in Arnhem is dedicated to the Battle of Arnhem, but it was closed for renovations (out of all the war related museums we went to on this trip so far, most of them ended up being closed…). The city centre itself has the same vibes as other cities in the Netherlands.

Our day was shorter because of our flight, but our next destination gets even more exciting: Israel, Palestine and Jordan.

• Duisburg
• Arnhem

We almost missed our ride to the gun range too. We originally thought the tour was supposed to depart from the hostel, but it turned out the departure point was some 12 km away.

We could either take a taxi and be unsure of whether the taxi would be legit, or take the metro and have to watch out for pick pockets. Metro it was. It only costed us 2 UAH (equivalent of about 25 cents) per way. That made it the cheapest metro I’ve ever been on.

Our instructions were to meet him at a gas station by the metro station (which sounded super weird to me). We arrived at the gas station, but didn’t see the guy and wondered where the guy could be. For a bit I thought we weren’t going to make it to the gun tour.

We figured we’d ask the gas station attendant to borrow his phone. He didn’t speak English. It was only after a bit of charades were we able to call the hostel. At least the attendant being super helpful. We joked that the two Chinese guys asking him for help in the middle of nowhere (see below) in Kiev was the most interesting part of his day. We tried to tip him, but he politely declined.

The tour driver eventually arrives late and knocks on the window to signal us. The driver came in his own car and it was just a four seater. Looks like we’re the only ones going on the gun tour (sounds legit right?). He asked me if we were going to the shooting tour and so I said yes and off we went. Luckily he asked first, which showed that he was here for this purpose, which supported that the tour was legit and we weren’t going to get robbed or anything.

This guy’s car didn’t have seat belts. And because he was late, he drove way past the speed limit, and swerved through everyone. Despite that, I still felt quite self as he had really good control of his car. At least his car had suspensions unlike the Chernobyl tour van. Ten minutes later, we arrived at the gun range.

We fired a pistol to start off with first. Then it was what we came for. The AK-47.

The tour originally advertised firing an AK in automatic mode as well as shooting a Dragunov sniper, but instead of doing that we fired the AK in semiautomatic mode and shot a Mosin Nagant and a shotgun with a red dot sight. The kickback on these guns were way more than I expected. It felt like the whole gun flew back two inches. And I learned I’m not a very good shot. I also learned that the shotgun doesn’t have a lot of recoil and that it doesn’t take much effort to ready the next shot, unlike loading the next bullet on the bolt action rifle.

Between each clip, the guy at the gun range would ask us to go down range to retrieve our targets. I thought it was so weird that he’d make us do that. Each time I walked down, I made sure there was no one shooting. Luckily, they do care about safety and all was well.

Shooting these types of guns is something I’ve always wanted to do, but never could since these military grade weapons are common in Vancouver. It was definitely super fun and exciting.

On the way back, the tour guide drove at the same ridiculous speeds, and along the way he honked down a bus. We all got out of the car and he gave us each a USSR army canteen as a gift. Then he says, “you get off here and take this bus. It will take you back to the same metro station”.

It happened so suddenly, we had no idea what had just happened. He paid for our bus fare and he was gone. Being tourists, we had no idea how their bus system worked. We couldn’t even read the name of the metro station because it was all in Cyrillic. He could have screwed us over easily.

The bus was yellow and was the oldest piece of junk I’ve ever ridden in. But it got us back to the metro station and that’s all we cared about. If it had broken down, we would have been so screwed. After this experience, I wondered to myself why I did all those things despite such sketchiness. Still, all went well and now we have a good story to tell.

Not to mention that the drive to Chernobyl was about two hours on a really bumpy road.  On the really bad bumps, my whole body flew up and my head hit the ceiling of the car.  I was still recovering from jet lag and I guess I was so tired that I slept anyway, while waking up intermittently when the bumps got too bad.  The tour guide played an intro video about Chernobyl on the way there and I slept through that too.

The Abandoned Kindergarten

We toured an abandoned kindergarten.  The building was made out of wood and so we were able to go inside and visit it.  The tour guide mentioned that people used to be allowed to enter most of the buildings in the area, but lately some of the concrete buildings began to crumble.  Because of that, it is no longer allowed for people to enter concrete buildings.  The tour guide also said something along the lines of “if you get hit by a falling concrete block in the head, you’ll probably die, but if you get hit by a falling piece of wood, you’ll just get hurt”.  By that logic, wooden buildings are still okay!

It makes a lot of sense that there is a lot of random junk lying around since the people did leave in a hurry during the evacuation, but some things didn’t really make sense.  Like the doll in the above picture:  why is it randomly missing its limbs?  There was also a tricycle on the floor with no wheels.  Did someone think the wheels were worth something and took only the wheels?

In this area there were also tons of tiny mosquitos and I got stung so many times by these “irradiated” mosquitos.  The tour guide said that it’s better when it rains when the mosquitos are even bigger.  He said that because they’re big, they’re easier to notice and to get rid of.  But if you get stung…the swelling probably isn’t going away for a while.

Reactor Number 4

We went to reaction number 4 next.  The disaster began at this very reactor.  We were able to get as close as 300 m away from it.  Beside it was the new sarcophagus structure that was being built to replace the currently existing leaky one.

I didn’t think we’d be able to get this close to the reactor. At this point the Geiger counter was reading about a few microsieverts per hour, which is over 10 times more than what normally people receive in a given day.

Pripyat

Before Pripyat was evacuated, the city had a population of about 50 000 people and we got to walk around the abandoned city.  We were told not to touch anything or sit on any surface for fear of radiation contamination.

After so many years of neglect, trees grew out of control and blocked off entire streets.  In some sections of the city, what used to be roads and intersections just became completely blocked by trees.  In some of the heavily paved areas, grass and weeds grew through the cracks in the concrete.  Bits of concrete were clearly missing from the surface of the buildings too and metal surfaces were all rusted.  It’s a shame that we couldn’t go inside the concrete buildings here.

We also went to the amusement park, where the iconic ferris wheel is located.

It was so rusty that I questioned when the spinning part of the ferris wheel would just crumble and fall.  Or maybe the seats would be the first to just drop one at a time.  Maybe the entire ferris wheel would just fall over on its side.  Even in the picture, the ferris wheel looks like its leaning a little bit toward one side.

Beside the ferris wheel were the bumper cars.  I found that pretty creepy.  I also remember that randomly on the street there was an abandoned bumper car just lying there.  That made me wonder how it got there.  Did someone think that was worth keeping and drag it there only to abandon it?  I wonder what was going through the people’s minds when they were evacuating.

Memorial

Within the Chernobyl area was a memorial for the events that happened and also for the three nuclear events that happened in Japan.  In the picture below between the two cranes, there are replicas of nuclear rods.

There was also a path with signs showing names of all the cities and villages that were affected by the nuclear disaster.  In such a short time span, so many lives were changed forever.

Back to Kiev

After having a giant lunch at the power plant canteen (no irradiated food I’m pretty sure), we headed back to Kiev.  I don’t recall eating dinner that day.

As we passed through the Chernobyl zone checkpoint, everyone had to go through a standard radiation screen.  We stood in this machine and the light would turn green to signal that we were okay.  I wonder what happens when people fail that.

After passing through the checkpoint, it was another two-hour ride in a van with no suspensions where I fell asleep for pretty much the whole way.

Links to photo albums:

• Chernobyl
• Chernobyl (Edward’s Photos)

At Frankfurt Airport, when Edward and I lined up to check in, we were the only two Chinese people in line.  We seemed very out of place.  Some of the people gave us these stares that seemed to ask “why are you flying to Kiev?” We wanted to visit Chernobyl and shoot AK-47’s.

Our experience on the plane was dreadful.  Four crying babies/toddlers plus jet lag plus one hour delay was not a good combination. No sleep for me I guess.  Worst flight ever.

Awkward Car Ride

The hostel arranged transportation for us and so when we arrived, I looked for someone holding a sign with my name on it (first time ever!).  The driver was not happy at how we were late (not that we could do anything about it).

Probably since he was late, he drove like a maniac.  He drove way faster than the posted limits and passed every car on the highway.  The expected 45 min ride was reduced to almost 20 minutes.  The driver didn’t speak English.  No one said a word during the entire ride.  Awkward.

I had read before that people sometimes get driven to random places by taxi drivers before they get mugged.  By getting the hostel transportation, we minimized that risk.  Despite that, I was at peak alertness the whole time, making sure he was going the right general direction (I vaguely remembered the directions from the airport to the hostel).

Dream House Hostel

This is by far one of the hostels I’ve ever stayed at.  The staff were extremely helpful.  We asked them like a thousand questions and they happily answered them every time.  They treated security very seriously.  Kiev might not be safe, but I felt safe leaving my passport and cash in the locker in the room.

Security Measures

During our trip planning, we had read about the potential dangers in going to Kiev from the Canadian travel report about Ukraine.

The report tells travelers to “exercise a high degree of caution”.  It warns of dangers such as pickpockets, passport scams, armed robbery, racially motivated violence, muggings, etc.

Seeing how the hostel’s security was pretty good, we left our valuables in the room.  We each carried a decoy wallet with nothing in it except a scan of our passports and the cash we needed for the day.  No credit cards, no real ID, no cards at all.

If anybody steals a wallet, no big.  Better to lose $30 than all our money.  Nobody can scam us for our passports if we aren’t carrying it.  I didn’t even put on a hidden money belt.  The less I brought the better.  We felt pretty prepared, and luckily nothing happened.

Language

People in Kiev generally speak Ukranian or Russian.  I know neither.  I also don’t know the Cryllic writing system.  Even if I wanted to ask in English how to get somewhere, I can’t even pronounce the name of the place.  When I went to Greece, I could at least pick out the greek alphabet (side effect of studying math and physics), but in Kiev, I can’t even read anything.  Too bad.

Food

The first night we arrived in Kiev, we had no idea what kind of food was around here.  We couldn’t even read the menus anyway.  Picking a restaurant was a matter of randomly walking into a restaurant.  To our surprise, our random pick turned out to be Japanese food.  Interesting.  No pictures needed.  Vancouver has an abundance of Japanese restaurants.  Beer is worth taking a picture of though.  I can’t even read the label.

One of the hostel staff had recommended to us the Golden Dukat Coffee House.  I wish I took more pictures here, but I found someone else’s travel blog with good pictures of it!  Good coffee, good dessert.  And they have an English menu!

We were told that Borscht is one of the traditional soups in Ukraine.  When I tried it, its taste was so familiar and I had to think about where I had tried it before.  It tasted a lot like the vegetable soup that people can get at Hong Kong style cafes (羅宋湯).  I Googled it later, and apparently the Hong Kong recipe (while a little bit different) is a derivative of it.  What a coincidence.

Independence Square

By far the largest city square I have been to.  For me this was the place to see in Kiev.  The pictures here don’t do justice to how epic it was.

At the square, there would always be these people carrying pigeons around.  They kept coming up to me with me and I had no idea what they wanted.  Later I found out that apparently they’re trying to get tourists to take a picture with them holding a bird.  Not sure why that’s cool but okay.

There were also people dressed up like Mickey Mouse or Shrek trying to get little kids to take pictures with them for money.  They did this even when the temperature was above 30 degrees Celsius.

St. Andrew’s Church

Nearby our hostel, there was a nice church.  It’s architecture was quite different from anything I’d seen before.

Friendship Arch

This arch was built to commemorate the unification of Ukraine and Russia when Ukraine was still part of the Soviet Union.

Street Market

On the way from our hostel to Independence Square, we walked along a long stretch of road with many street vendors selling souvenirs, trinkets and other random stuff.  People there even sold gas masks, replica German WWII medals, and fake guns.

Trip Ideas for Next Time

After we came back to Vancouver, we found out that the hostel started offering tours to abandoned missile silos, helicopter rides, and Yak plane acrobatics!  If only the hostel were offering those tours.  We would have totally gone to those.  There’s always next time.

Links to photo albums:

• Kiev
• Kiev (Edward’s Photos)