Sunday, October 5, 2008

A few shots of Yuzhno

Since moving here last week, I have been into Yuzhno twice.  It is about a 30 minute ride into town from our compound, and we have to have a driver take us when we go.  EM provides cars and drivers for us to use instead of us having to purchase and drive our own cars.  I am not sure if I like this yet, I guess time will tell.  I am an independent person, and am not afraid to drive around strange places.  I figure...I drove in Houston and the Middle East - how hard could it be here?  Oh, well, I guess just like anything else, it will take some getting used to.  Definitely a plus...no car payments, buying gas, car maintenance, insurance, registration, potential car accidents, hmmm...maybe this won't be so bad.

I was able to take some pictures as we drove to town, but most of these would have turned out much better had we stopped to take them.  I didn't ask the driver to stop, mostly because I am not yet comfortable with having someone take me everywhere - much less stop every 10 minutes because I want to take a picture of something...

This looks like a church

Vodka display - next to the pickles, of course (here they chase shots with pickles)

A sign at the entrance of town (the yellow letters say "Welcome to Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk", not sure what the red ones say yet)

Sign is promoting border protection policies

This is a shopping mall - probably won't be finished until after we leave

I want to stop one day and get a better shot of the hill in the background...the fall colors are starting to come out!

An apartment building in town

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yellow letters say "Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk City", red letters say "Welcome" :)

Pavlas Family said...

Thanks, Tim! I need a really good dictionary....oh and to get enrolled in that Russian class my husband's company offers!