Ebony Bones rocks your hutong

West to East
Baltika to Tsingtao
Beef stroganoff to gong bao ji ding
Red square to Tiananmen square
Roubles to Rinminbi
Lenin to Mao
Moscow to Beijing
Na'zdrowje to Ganbei
Blini to Dim sum
Vodka Baikal to Vodka Chinggis Khan
Spasiba to Baialala
Kak dila to Ni hao

It was a wicked trip!

Arriving in Beijing, being greeted by a "vodka train" sign and right
off to a place where Ebony Bones rocks your Hutong. The whole place
was exploding. Imagine it's 1977, punk rock is born and you were right
there! That's what it felt like. Sweat dripping from the ceiling. The
crowd dancing and jumping like there was no tomorrow. Ebony Bones
cover "another brick in the wall" and the Chinese crowd goes mad. They
play Iggy's "now I wanna be your dog" and the place goes absolutely
ballistic. I am so happy that I start to cry. The best things are
happening in places where they are least expected. It was a wild
night. We head out into a warm Beijing night, laughing about
shanghai-wa vs. Beijing-wa in a cab with a chinese girl speaking with
an austrian accent, headed for the white rabbit, back to the hood
where Ben Sherman is always on sale and shots need to be tasted. A night to remember...

 Pet Conspiracy

 Pet Conspiracy

 Ebony Bones

 Ebony Bones

 Ebony Bones

 peeping tom

guidebooks

The trip requires a certain amount of research to be carried out before setting off.

You can download free cityguides in pdf format from in your pocket. Since they are for free, there are obviously lots of advertisements included but otherwise they are not bad at all, in particular if its a city you just pass through and don't want to spend money on a guide book. Also, when you left the place you can simply recycle them and don't need to carry them along. I always have a hard time letting go of real guidebooks. Inyourpocket guides are available for Minsk and Moscow (and many other cities).

For the Trans-Siberian Railway:
IMHO the two best guidebooks covering the railway are Bryan Thomas and the LP edition of the track.

City guides:
Moscow and Beijing mar the beginning and the end and deserve some more days and more extensive coverage.

For Shanghai I trust my personal city guide Shanghai-Sändi to lead me to the darkest alleyways and seediest etablissements.

The LP Mongolian country guide was purchased to do some pre-trip research but given the time I will get to spend there and the meetings with local vs. the weight to carry it, it will most likely stay home. sorry...

The small world atlas is a little book I tend to have in my bag which comes in handy if you meet someone and you want to show them which part of the world you're from, where you've been to, where you're going and to plan future trips.