Well it was another early morning, 5.20am wake up to catch the 6.20am ferry to Listvyanka and minibus transfer to Irkutsk. W e had our thermals on as it was a chilly start to the day. There was a layer of ice on top of the water that the ferry broke through on the journey, it looked amazing. It took an hour to drive to Irkutsk where we left our bags in day rooms at the hotel and had breakfast before heading out for an orientation walk of the city at 10.30am. We passed old soviet buildings while old trams and trolley buses passed us on the street. We took Karl Marks street (the main street) down to the Angara river, passing statues of Lenin and Tsar Alexander III.
It started to heat up as we walked to the Central markets to the Maria Volkonsky House Museum. We had a tour of the museum which is an old restored mansion that belonged to one of the Decemberists (A group of young Nobel men who revolted against the Tsar in 1825 and were exiled to Siberia). The house was full of old pictures and furniture and it was very ornate.
After the tour of the museum we continued our walking tour with Boris, passing ornate wooden houses and shops.
We had lunch at a cafe that had wifi and managed to call Chris and David's Mum on skype using the ipod. A few of the interesting sites we saw along the way were, the locks attached to the hand rails beside the river which couples attach and throw the key into the river. They lock is supposed to signify the hearts of the couple that have been locked together forever as they can not be unlocked once the key is in the river.
We left the hotel at 9pm and headed for the station to catch our train to Mongolia. When we boarded the train we found it was very similar to the first one, quite modern but it did not have a powerpoint in the cabin and the toilets could only be used on route and not while at a station. On the plus side it meant that the toilets were not noisy like the ones on the previous train. We shared the cabin with Craig (Australian) and Michael (American) for this leg of the journey. We ended up going to bed not long after boarding as it was quite late and we had been up early.
We all slept in until around 10.30am which was nice after the early mornings we had been having. Looking out the window it was nice to see the changing scenery, more arid with fewer trees some mountains and small lakes, passing small wooden housed villages. 
We had many one minute stops at empty decaying train stations. We made it to the Russian boarder town of Naushki where the train stopped just after midday. We stopped and had a customs check and the officials came and collected our passports for processing. We had 4 hours to fill while we waited to be allowed to leave Russia. Every cabin was searched by customs officials before we were allowed to leave the train. We walked around the border town for a while, had lunch at a cafe, with Boris' help and bought some water at the local shop. After re-boarding the train we slowly made our way through no mans land and into Mongolia 
where we had to once again hand over our passports and fill out our customs declarations. Once again the cabin was checked over by customs officials and they even had a sniffer dog with them. We had a couple of hours on the Mongolian side waiting to get our passports back. We ended up finding a shop to buy beers for the guys as no one else had any Russian Rubles left and we had not bought any Mongolian currency. Once the toilets were opened again we started drinking and playing Uno. 
There was a GAP trip on our carriage and a few of them joined us playing cards and drinking vodka until around 2am when we had to kick them out of our cabin so we could get to bed.
We were woken at 5.30am by the attendant as we were close to Ulaanbaatar. We managed to pack our things and were ready to disembark when the train stopped. Once again we had a minibus transfer to the hotel where we checked in, had a shower and breakfast before heading off for an orientation walk. We started off at the Sukhbaatar square with Parliament house 
at one end and the mile 0 marker in the centre.
We met up with our local guide and set off to the Ger district. We visited a high school where the English teachers gave us a presentation and then headed off to a kindergarten where the children put on a performance for us, they were so cute.
After the kindergarten visit we headed off to a local families Ger for lunch. They had prepared meat patty fritters and Mongolian milk tea for us. It was very filling. Back in town after the Ger visit we managed to find a shop selling flags and were able to buy a Mongolian flag for our collection.
In the evening we went to a Mongolian cultural show which was very interesting. There was music, dancing, throat singing and a contortionist display. We finished the evening with a Mongolian dinner which cost around $23 for a drink, main meal and desert each.
