|
|
| (54 intermediate revisions by 6 users not shown) |
| Line 1: |
Line 1: |
| __NOTOC__ | | __NOTOC__ |
| This is Lmm's crazy plan, that attempts to combine trains, lots of trains, with getting to Japan. | | This is the crazy plan, that attempts to combine trains, lots of trains, with getting to Japan. |
|
| |
|
| Conclusions, based on departing on a Saturday:
| | == Viable, finished plans == |
| | |
| | === The Trans-Mongolian === |
| | * Days 1-4 (Sat - Tues) - Assemble in London, make our way to Moscow (in time to catch the Tuesday TSR) by $MEANS following $ROUTE. |
| | ** Day 1, Saturday: Train to Cologne and a day there. Overnight train east |
| | ** Day 2A, Sunday: Warsaw, explore it, overnight train to Kiev (or Minsk) |
| | ** Day 2B, Sunday: Miles and miles of catholic monarchist farmland |
| | ** Day 3A, Monday: Kiev, explore it, overnight train to Moscow |
| | ** Day 3B, Monday: Arrive in Moscow early in the morning, do tourism. |
| | ** Day 4, Tuesday: Explore Moscow, catch TSR in the evening |
| | * Days 4-8 (Weds - Sun) - Miles and miles of godless fascist taiga |
| | * Day 9 (Mon) - Arrive Beijing, depart for Shanghai on the Beijing-Shanghai sleeper |
| | * Day 10 (Tues) - Arrive Shanghai, board ship for Osaka |
| | * Day 11 (Weds) - Miles and miles of akitsumikamiless democratic ocean |
| | * Days 12-14 (Thurs - Sat) - Japan |
| | * Day 15 (Sun) - fly home |
| | |
| | === Fear and loathing in Kazhakstan === |
| | * Day 1 (Fri): Catch the 05:25 Eurostar to Paris, arrives 08:50 Gare du Nord. Then RUN LIKE FUCK to the Gare d'l'Est for the 09:09 TGV to Mannheim. Connecting trains take us to Berlin, finishing in Warsaw at 23:15 in time to catch the sleeper to Moscow. Alternately, catching the overnight ferry from Harwich at 23:15 on Thursday would be a little more expensive but lessen the opportunity for lol. |
| | * Day 2 (Sat): Train train train to Moscow, arriving in the evening in time to catch the sleeper to Astana |
| | * Day 3-4 (Sun-Mon): Train train train |
| | * Day 5 (Tue): Arrive Astana at like 10:30AM, a bit of time to explore there before getting the 15:10 (?) sleeper to Urumqi. |
| | * Day 6 (Wed): Train train train |
| | * Day 7 (Thur): Arrive Urumqi early in the morning, explore very briefly before catching the train to Langzhou at 11ish, which I hope is a sleeper. |
| | * Day 8 (Fri): Train train train, broken only by a brief change of trains (maybe 2 hours) in Lanzhou |
| | * Day 9 (Sat): Train to Shanghai, arriving an hour and a half before our ferry leaves. |
| | * Day 10 (Sun): Boat boat boat |
| | * Day 11 (Mon): Arrive in Japan early in the morning |
| | |
| | ==== When to go? ==== |
| | |
| | * optimised for Comiket (December or August) |
| | * optimised for all that cherry blossom bznss (March?) |
| | * optimised for temperature in Siberia not being silly (Jun-Aug, probably) |
| | * optimised for leave allowance (March?) |
| | |
| | ==== Costs ==== |
| | |
| | Train fares beyond Warsaw are taken from RealRussia and some chinese travel website. Cheaper flights may be available. These costs are for travel (which essentially includes most of our accomodation), but do not include food or other expenses. |
| | |
| | ===== Trans-Mongolian ===== |
| | * London-Cologne: £92.50 urk, guess saturday's a bad day for eurostaring. |
| | * Cologne-Warsaw: #42.4550258 if booked in advance |
| | * Warsaw-Minsk: £71.89 in 2nd class, possibly less in third. Warsaw-Kiev: £126.98 in 2nd class during the day, sleeper fares unknown |
| | * Minsk-Moscow: £71.87 or £39.30 in 3rd class on slow train. Kiev-Moscow: £94.04 2nd class on fast train, £61.83 3rd class on slow train. |
| | * Moscow-Beijing: £534.94 2nd class (possibly cheaper in 3rd class) |
| | * Beijing-Shanghai: #44.2369132 in seat, #57.1393463 in cabin |
| | * Shanghai-Osaka: #164.905382 |
| | * Osaka-Tokyo: #63.7884001 |
| | * Tokyo-London: £529.29 on sunday, £440.19 on monday |
| | |
| | Visas: |
| | * Belarus £81.44 - so actually cheaper to go via Kiev |
| | * Russia: £95 or maybe less |
| | * Mongolia: #35 |
| | * China: #45 |
| | |
| | Minimum maximum total cost: #1746.8257211 (assuming return on Monday) We could always take the ferry to Amsterdam at the start, would save a little bit. |
| | |
| | ===== Kazhakstan ===== |
| | |
| | * London-Amsterdam: #34 |
| | * Amsterdam-Warsaw: #42.4550258 if booked in advance |
| | * Warsaw-Moscow: £133.10 |
| | * Moscow-Astana: £138.86 3rd class, £235.43 2nd class |
| | * Astana-Urumqi: #98.3042517 |
| | * Urumqi-Lanzhou: #49.7665274 in seat, #82.9442123 in cabin |
| | * Lanzhou-Shanghai: #55.2961416 in seat, #92.1602359 in cabin |
| | * Shanghai-Osaka: #161.157533 |
| | * Osaka-Tokyo: #63.7884001 |
| | * Tokyo-London: £529.29 on sunday, £440.19 on monday |
| | |
| | Vizas: |
| | * Belarus £81.44 |
| | * Russia: £95 |
| | * Kazhakstan: #15 |
| | * China: #45 |
| | |
| | Minimum maximum total cost: #1482.4578796 (assuming return on Sunday - could save some by making it Monday) |
| | |
| | == Discussion == |
| | Reasoning, based on departing on a Saturday: |
| * Fly there, train back means: | | * Fly there, train back means: |
| ** Can spend most of a week (sunday morning -> friday midday) in japan | | ** Can spend most of a week (sunday morning -> friday midday) in japan |
| Line 28: |
Line 109: |
| **** Yeah, I think I (Lmm) agree. It's just a shame not to get any time in Shanghai, it's pretty high on my list of cool places to go to. | | **** Yeah, I think I (Lmm) agree. It's just a shame not to get any time in Shanghai, it's pretty high on my list of cool places to go to. |
|
| |
|
| == Stream of reasoning ==
| | Rushed kazhak route gives us more time in Japan, but at the cost of spending basically no time exploring anywhere on the way. For my money (lmm), it's not worth it. Possibly a viable alternative: fly to Moscow on Sat, spend a day or two there, get the train to Astana and have a bit more time there, then as that route. |
| | |
| * Day 0, Friday: Dudes gather in and around London.
| |
| * Day 1, Saturday: Train to Paris/Brussels/Cologne and a day there. Overnight train to, let's say Warsaw. We could get to Moscow by Monday morning on a direct train, but the trans-siberian doesn't leave until Tuesday evening.
| |
| ** There is a Cologne-Moscow sleeper train
| |
| *** Yes there is; my point is that doesn't get us to Beijing any quicker, though we could take it if we want more time in Moscow
| |
| * Day 2, Sunday: Warsaw, explore it, overnight train to Kiev (or Minsk)
| |
| * Day 3, Monday: Kiev, explore it, overnight train to Moscow
| |
| * Day 4, Tuesday: Moscow, explore it, get on the big train in evening
| |
| * Day 10, Monday: Beijing, explore it, overnight train to Shanghai
| |
| * Day 11, Tuesday: Shanghai, explore it very briefly, ferry at 2pm
| |
| * Day 13, Thursday: Arrive in Osaka at 9am, uh, day in osaka
| |
| * Day 14, Friday: Kyoto, maybe?
| |
| * Day 15, Saturday: One glorious day in Tokyo, or something
| |
| * Day 16, Sunday: Morning in Toyko, and fly home.
| |
| | |
| Um. Thinking about minimising necessary amounts of work-leave. Tuesday is the date with absolute rest around which the blocks must be arranged; if we work backwards and get from London to Moscow as quickly as is trainially possible, then that fixes our start point and allows the maximum amount of time to play with post-TSR. On that basis I (Smith) would be willing to sacrifice any of the pre-Moscow stops if that will speed things up, in order to allow a greater proportion of the presumed maximum duration to occur in the Orient. tl;dr I feel we should get out there as fast as we can and not piss about with seeing Eastern Europe
| |
| | |
| Let's see if there are any efficiency savings to be had from doing it in reverse:
| |
| * Day 16, Sunday: Train to Cologne, then Brussels and Eurostar home; we have about 6 hours to spend in one or other on the way.
| |
| * Day 15, Saturday: Get the 8AM train from Moscow, overnight to Berlin.
| |
| * Day 14, Friday: Arrive in Moscow at ~6PM, spend the night there
| |
| * Day 8, Saturday: Day in Beijing, train in the evening
| |
| * Day 7, Friday: Bah. Ferry only arrives on a Thursday, leaving on Tuesday midday, so again we only get like 4 days in Japan this way.
| |
| | |
| Let's look at it another way: suppose we wanted to go to Japan and other places, how much holiday time would we need?
| |
| * Japan, 5 weeks; China, 8 weeks; Russias, 10 weeks. Spare, 2 weeks. Total: Six months.
| |
| * Day n, Sunday: Morning in Tokyo, fly home
| |
| * Day n-1, Saturday: Let's say we're doing this at Comiket. Comiket!
| |
| * Day n-2, Friday: Mickey Comikets early. Other people go do something cultural.
| |
| * Day n-3, Thursday: Tokyo, and all its joys.
| |
| * Day n-4, Wednesday: Kyoto! History!
| |
| * Day n-5, Tuesday: Osaka! Accents!
| |
| * Day n-6, Monday: Arrive Osaka, 09:30, rest weary selves, go to a hot springs or something.
| |
| * Day n-8, Saturday: A little Shanghai in the morning, ferry at 13:00.
| |
| * Day n-9, Friday: I'm going to say spend this in Shanghai, and stay night in Shanghai.
| |
| * Day n-10, Thursday: Day in Beijing, sleeper to Shanghai.
| |
| Eek, the only good train runs tuesday to monday.
| |
| | |
| So, best option would be to extend the original plan above by a bit at the end.
| |
| Constraints: if going out, train is tuesday -> monday, and ferry is tuesday from shanghai - so not much time in shanghai.
| |
| If coming back, train goes wed -> mon (at 2:28pm, plausible flying time), ferry could arrive sunday (leaving japan on Friday). So a plausible itinerary would look something like:
| |
| * Friday evening: Gather
| |
| * Saturday hideously early morning: Planes to Japan
| |
| * Sunday morning: Arrive in Tokyo, spend some time there and in Osaka.
| |
| * Friday midday: Get ferry from Osaka
| |
| * Sunday midday: Arrive in Shanghai, spend a day and a half or so there
| |
| * Monday night (say): overnight train to Beijing, spend a day and a half there
| |
| * Wednesday morning, 8AM: get the big train
| |
| * Monday afternoon: Arrive Moscow. Lamers could at this point fly home, meaning they'd only need 2 weeks + 1 day off work; otherwise we could take the rest of the week slowly crossing Europe.
| |
| | |
| ==== A modest proposal for training out and flying back by Smith ====
| |
| * Day 1 (Sun) - Assemble in London
| |
| * Day 2 (Mon) - to Cologne via Brussels
| |
| * Day 3 (Tues) - to Moscow via Cologne-Moscow sleeper. NOTE: I have not checked whether this gets us into Moscow in time to board the TSR. I am assuming that it does.
| |
| * Days 4-8 (Weds - Sun) - Miles and miles of godless fascist taiga
| |
| * Day 9 (Mon) - Arrive Beijing, depart for Shanghai on the Beijing-Shanghai sleeper
| |
| * Day 10 (Tues) - Arrive Shanghai, board ship for Osaka
| |
| * Day 11 (Weds) - Osaka
| |
| * Days 12-14 (Thurs - Sat) - Japan
| |
| * Day 15 (Sun) - fly home
| |
| The Cologne-Moscow sleeper takes two days, so we'd need to leave on Sunday. (Well, that's not entirely true; if we really wanted maximum train density we could get an early morning Eurostar to Cologne, spend the day going to Warsaw by conventional train, then get the Warsaw-Moscow sleeper which only takes one night) I feel if we're leaving Monday/Sunday we might as well leave Saturday and spent a few days in interesting places, at least for those of us who're conventionally employed (options would either be getting a second day in Moscow, or taking a slower combination of sleepers that would give us days in Warsaw and Kiev - see my plan near the top of the page). Also note that the ferry doesn't arrive in Osaka until Thursday.
| |
| That's annoying re ferry - I (Smith) now see what you mean about this getting us annoyingly small amounts of Japan. In that case I will concede both your points and the resulting outline, I believe, becomes something like this:
| |
| | |
| ==== A modest and viable proposal for training out and flying back by Smith ====
| |
| * Days 1-4 (Sat - Tues) - Assemble in London, make our way to Moscow (in time to catch the Tuesday TSR) by $MEANS following $ROUTE.
| |
| * Days 4-8 (Weds - Sun) - Miles and miles of godless fascist taiga
| |
| * Day 9 (Mon) - Arrive Beijing, depart for Shanghai on the Beijing-Shanghai sleeper
| |
| * Day 10 (Tues) - Arrive Shanghai, board ship for Osaka
| |
| * Day 11 (Weds) - Miles and miles of akitsumikamiless democratic ocean
| |
| * Days 12-14 (Thurs - Sat) - Japan
| |
| * Day 15 (Sun) - fly home
| |
| | |
| That's basically identical to the topmost of my outlines above, right? Are we actually going to do this then? Awesome --Lmm
| |
| Broadly yes, actually. I (Smith) would recommend we draw the attention of the chat to this plan and see how quickly Philip shoots it down in flames<sup>W</sup>W<sup>W</sup>W^W raises some problem we haven't considered
| |
| ....LOL
| |
| | |
| ==== When to go? ====
| |
|
| |
|
| * optimised for Comiket (???)
| | For more detailed planning see /LmmStreamOfConsciousness |
| * optimised for all that cherry blossom bznss (March?)
| |
| * optimised for temperature in Siberia not being silly (Jun-Aug, probably)
| |
| * optimised for leave allowance (March?)
| |
|
| |
|
| | I (Smith) am wary of costs here, as these may spiral wildly due to the financial corollary of Hofstadter's Law. I would attach quite a strong weighting to cheapness when considering these plans, and I also feel that the route to cheapness may be through simplicity of itinerary |