Day Five

On the boat to Russia!  I think we're moving, finally.  It's a big boat, so it's sort of hard to tell.  This shall be, by far, the longest period I have spent at sea.  My previous best is about six hours between island in Indonesia.  This time should be about thirty.

I'm silaing third class, so I'm in a partitioned room that sleeps five people on some very thin floor mats.  I'm sharing my room with four Russians (there seems to be only Russians and Koreans on this boat).  There is a woman here, Julia, who worked the past two months in a jeans factory near Seoul.  It's remarkable to note Russia's decline - from a superpower and world menace in the 80s, to it's current status as a supplier of cheap labor to a second-rate country like Korea.  Heck... China supples factory labor for the same industries in Korea.  Are these two countries equal now?  What would Stalin think?

Russia seems to have a lot of Asian people.  Well, on this boat, anyhow.  I wish I knew a little about the demographics of the country... perhaps they are indigenous, which would make sense, because Russia IS mostly in Asia.  I would ask, but I think that "so, are you, like, Asian?" might be a little inpertinent.