Next morning, we said goodbye to Olga and gave her some gifts to say thanks for all the great cooking (necklace and kiwi soft toy). She'd outdone herself with a 'fresh-cooked breakfast feast for us of 'Sirniki' - a kind of donut you eat with jam and , you guessed it - sour cream! The boys and Christina picked us up in the van with Anna and Dimitri. We drove to the Wooden Architecture Museum. Similar to Takayama in Japan where they flooded the nearby dam and saved some of the houses (yurt huts). The pouring rain didn't make this event much fun so we didn't stay long but we did buy some beautiful wooden boxes. (What is it with me and boxes - I just can't resist them). But was interesting to see the way people used to live, and actually in some cases still do. Then we drove back to Irkursk and checked into the hotel. The 'newly renovated rooms' turned out to be shoddy, with banana-shaped beds, broken loo and black and white TV. But good location.
Jolene and I went in search of Russian dolls. Irkutsk has beautiful gothic style architecture, now quite run-down, but making for some great photos. We discovered a huge indoor food market. There were thousands of stalls and workers there, selling rows upon rows of everything from smoked and fresh ham, fish, meat, eggs, cheese, bread, honey, herbs, vegetables, coffees and teas, dried and fresh fruit.... better than a supermarket and much more interesting. We stayed as long as possible taking pictures of everything and making plans to return the next day to stock up for the three-day and three-night Trans Siberian trip to Moscow.
Dinner that evening at the trendy Havana Cafe - Roasted Chicken Timbale wich cheese and roasted yellow peppers with onions , salad and great vodka.
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