 The first views of Siberia, a crazy place, I can't believe we're here, it's gonna be crazy. Welcome back to our circumnavigation around the globe by motorcycle, we're here, oh where's the motorcycle, here, here, we're here in the city of Vladivostok in the far east of Russia and today we're gonna collect our motorcycle Bumblebee, so we arrived here a few days ago and yesterday we spent the entire day with our wonderful customs agent Yuri going from office to office with paperwork, with inspections, with basically everything that needs to happen to release Bumblebee out of customs and onto the streets of Russia. We were running around yesterday in the city as well to get a SIM card, to get some money exchanged because our credit cards are not working at the moment here. Nope, visa doesn't work, mastercard doesn't work, nothing works, just cash only. Oh look, Siberian tiger, actually interestingly enough this area is the only region in the world where the Siberian tiger lives, so this state Grimorsky Krai, I think it's pronounced, is the home of the Siberian tiger, fingers crossed we see one of those on the way, but Yuri also basically tore us around the city, took us to like a local place for lunch, it was super super tasty, so now it is day two of our customs adventure here and we're heading down to the port now to meet Yuri and I think everything is done. So interestingly this spot where we are right now crossing over the train track is actually the very beginning of the Trans-Siberian Railway, from there this railway goes all the way to Moscow, how crazy is that? So we just met up with Yuri and look what he has for us, the paper of dreams, temporary import permit is done, all we have to do now is go and pick up Bumblebee, our first views of Bumblebee, there she is, alright, thank you, oh yes, here we go, on the streets of Vladivostok, oh that's so good, wow what an amazing feeling, so we are just following Yuri at the moment to our hotel to pick up our bags, oh my god this is a nice feeling, so good hey, yeah it was super easy actually, as soon as Yuri was ready with all the paperwork he gave us a call, we came down, I had to sign one or two things, I had to pay the money for the storage of Bumblebee, I had to pay Yuri and the company and for everything in the customs clearance and that's it, we are free, yeah Yuri is so experienced, I mean he does his job since 30 years or something and he already got some good bikes from huge adventurers into Russia, which is really cool, yeah basically anybody who has motorcycled or overlanded in any way through Vladivostok has been helped by Yuri, he has shipped bikes and cars and vans all over the world from Vladivostok, so he is just the expert in customs clearance, the expert in shipping out of here, hi guys editing Oli here, at this point we just wanted to say a massive thank you to everyone who donated to our GoFundMe page to help us pay for the astronomical cost of flying Bumblebee to Korea and then shipping on the ferry to Russia, we couldn't have done it without you guys, oh and in case you're wondering this is how much everything cost in the end, so in total £6,921, so the GoFundMe page is still open, so if you'd like to contribute I've put a link in the video description below, thanks everyone, now back to the video, and here we are right in the centre of Vladivostok, look at this, beautiful, I'm so impressed with these buildings and the architecture here, it looks so nice, yeah they call Vladivostok the Europe of the Far East, and you can see why, I mean look at the buildings, these like 18th century buildings, really pretty, yeah really really beautiful place, yeah also just can't believe how like welcoming and nice people are here, like on the ferry from South Korea here to Russia, we have spoken to so many people and everyone was like oh I'm so happy to see you, I'm so happy that you come here and that you visit Russia and yeah everyone was so friendly, yeah even at the hostel where we stayed for the last two nights, you know we're just sitting there eating breakfast and this guy from Moscow next to us just says it's so nice to see you here, welcome to Russia, it's just I've heard welcome to Russia now about 10 times since we've arrived, welcome to Russia, so so nice, so yeah but we have a crazy journey ahead, oh my god, we just route it today like where we want to be in the next few days and it looks mad, really we have an amazing adventure ahead but for today we're not going to be heading very far, we're going to be staying with a biker who was introduced to us through Kinger on her bike who we met at the Overland Expo, she gave us the contact of Sergei who lives here and we're gonna go and stay with him tonight, he lives only I think maybe 10 15 kilometers out of the north side of Ladevostok so once we've gone back to the hotel pack up, bumblebee ready to go then we'll head over to his place, yeah I'm excited and then tomorrow we can hit the roads of Siberia properly and make some real distance into Russia, so this is the hotel we've been staying at for the last two nights capsule hotels it's called Deep Hotel, we have to load up bumblebee, let's go here hey, so I'm completely out the way of like all the cars, is that alright, people can still get through hey, let's get bumblebee ready then ready for the road, yes thank you so much Yuri, thank you, really nice to meet you, thank you so much Yuri, I'm sure we will call you on the next border, Yuri please help us, of course thank you so much, see you, he needs to help us with everything along the way, oh my god can we even survive without Yuri, here a sticker, a sticker that you can put like on somewhere, that's you, yeah okay I just get our stuff, so this is where we've been staying for the past two nights, Deep Capsule Hotel and I can't go in this area because I can't be wearing the boots like they actually have these little slippers that they give you to go in this area but I can peep my head in, look look look, this is where we stayed the last two nights so all of the beds are just like in little compartments, now we actually had a room here but even the room are just these little boxes over here they're absolutely tiny like it's just you open the door and it's just a bed and that's it but it was one of the cheapest rooms in town so it works and it's super clean and nice look at this it's like three years old they said and they did a really really nice breakfast, sweet, alright we're all loaded up and ready to go look at this, I can't believe how ready we are, so we just rooted over to Serge's house and even though it's only 14 kilometers it says it's gonna take us 54 minutes to get there and Yuri told us he was like oh his house is very far very far I was like it's 15 kilometers he's like very far very far I think there's a lot of traffic on the way hey didn't fall over the first maneuver okay ready to hit the road totally ready okay I'm so ready I think I was never that ready that sounds ready bye bye bye, just like that, Canada, Korea, Russia, yeah Mama Papa we are coming I know that we said in Korea that we were like on the home continent but now it's different because now we don't have to do anything except ride over this massive landmass of Eurasia now this is like we just have to ride through that and we are back in Europe but on the other side we actually checked yesterday how to cross the Caspian Sea and maybe there's still a flight involved but this is something we will talk about it closer to the time yeah that's like the last challenge of coming into Europe but anyway yeah like you said let's not worry about it for now because let's just focus on this success the fact that we were in Canada a couple of weeks ago we flew the bike to freakin Korea we rode across Korea without the correct permit but we didn't mind because it happened anyway and then we got on a ferry and brought us and Bumblebee all the way past North Korea which by the way I checked on the news yesterday and apparently North Korea launched a ballistic missile into the East Sea literally one day after we passed the North Korean coast on the East Sea so we were literally where they just fired a ballistic missile which I just thought was pretty crazy so I thought I'd tell you guys I didn't really want to know that before we got on that ferry but yeah now we are here we are on the Russian mainland in the traffic jam it doesn't matter where you are in the world there's always a traffic jam waiting for you look here Siberian Tiger again second Siberian Tiger of the day I mean it's so cool that they actually have tigers in the wild in this area it's unbelievable Yuri told us that actually Siberian Tigers sometimes even come to the outskirts of the north of the city like they've actually been spotted coming close to the city of Vladivostok and it's a really nice story actually because conservation efforts have meant that the population of Siberian Tigers is steadily increasing I think they said they were roughly maybe 500 of them at the moment in the wild estimation and their range is so cool their range is basically across our first couple of days of riding like that's the Siberian Tiger range all the way to the city of Habarovsk which we will be getting to tomorrow if everything goes well which is so cool because although we probably won't see one it's nice to know that along that road as we ride down it there's tigers in the woods they're just there yeah literally tigers and leopards yeah and bears it's pretty cool I'm really really really happy to be getting out of Vladivostok to be making our way into the mainland of Siberia yeah such a beautiful place here really yeah look at these buildings wow amazing so this city was actually founded in 1860 it was originally founded as a Russian military outpost and most of this center here dates to the early 19th century we were coming right through the center now cool incredible look at this church yeah so this is the main square of the city right here and this church here in front of us it looks like it's really old but actually Yuri told us that it was about 10 years old and it's not actually even finished it's not even open yet so the population of Vladivostok is now 600,000 it's the largest city in the state Primorsky Krai but it's the second largest city in the Russian Far East behind Habarovsk which we'll be going to tomorrow if it all goes well and so like I said originally it was built as a Russian military outpost but it actually remains the main Russian seaport of the Pacific but Vladivostok also has become known as the cultural, touristic, scientific center of the Russian Far East and it's pretty touristic place actually it was visited by three million people in 2017 not so many people have visited it recently actually we haven't seen like any other tourists since we've arrived Yuri told us we are the first motorcycle since Covid that he's actually brought into the country so the city as you can maybe just about see over there in the background the city is located around a bay called the Golden Horn Bay that's on the Sea of Japan the first settlement here was actually recorded in 600 AD and it was originally a Chinese settlement but then there was a treaty called the I think it was called the Peking Treaty the Treaty of Peking that was in 1860 at that time this whole area was ceded to Russia and Vladivostok was born Vladivostok means the Lord of the East oh well look at the price of fuel here 95 octane is 53 rubles and it's actually quite convenient because rubles to the pound is pretty much exactly a hundred to one sweetheart but did you see a hundred octane was there no yes I don't know what that really means a hundred octane yeah it must be a hundred octane is that really a thing apparently it's a thing here I never ever in my life saw anything like it and did you see the price it was like 69 pence 69 pence per liter anyway it looks like fuel will be pretty cheap yeah which is good because we have a lot of miles oh yeah next leg tell you more about that tomorrow when I show you guys the map of where we're gonna be headed but I can tell you there are thousands of miles of Siberia ahead okay maybe stay behind the police yeah yep I do not want to be not messing with the police no all right we can probably turn our camera off anyway as well one super super funny thing look at this car next to us you notice anything unusual so here they drive on the right with the cars that they import from Japan well Japan drives on the left so the steering wheel is on the right of the car so basically they drive on the right with the right hand side drive so the whole of bloody boss dog is actually mixed up yeah basically all the cars imported from Korea is on one side and all the cars imported from Japan on the other side I mean look at the cars around here Toyota Toyota Toyota there everything's Toyota everything but well look at this police car I'm trying not to point the camera at them really obviously I really yeah super careful about it but that's that's a pretty cool looking police truck hey yeah looks really really vintage hey look at that GS that's not Sergei is it do you think he doesn't have a GS to see I don't know maybe it is him do you think it is him I'm unsure I mean we're very close to his place it might be him okay it is Sergei okay we follow him amazing his top says follow nice okay down here yeah wow look at this condos yeah this is where he lives hey so many apartments so many apartments it's crazy oh look at those doggies playing in the mud oh this is like a maze okay I would jump off I think yep yes Privyad Privyad how are you? Great! Okay, motorcycle here? We have a park, no park Okay Now we can take your biggest Okay, I'm so happy, motorbike team are so good This your motorcycle? Yes, BMW RS 1200, amazing It's a big bike Yeah, yeah, is it falling? Wow, our bike fall many times, 40 times Good evening guys we made it, happy to live Yes Sergei's just gone to drop his bike off at his work I think this is his flat look at this place so he's given us the bed for the night and we just went to the supermarket and got some supplies because we're gonna be cooking dinner for him yes we bought actually some traditional dumplings but I would just create like a kind of tomato sauce was it so I don't really know if this is like traditional or there will be absolutely delicious so Sergei has his apartment on the 10th floor look at this and this apartment block has 22 stories so it's absolutely crazy it's just really cool that we arrived here in Vladivostok and then already we're on the road with another bike staying with a local bike and that's super cool thank you so much Sergei alright we better get dinner ready because he's gonna be back and I'm really hungry yes and that's it from us today we hope you enjoyed the video if so please give us a thumbs up subscribe to the channel and share the video with your friends and family comment below and we will see you next time