We made it to Russia safe and sound. They don't use the Carnet for international registration here in Russia, so we were able to roll on to the ferry from Japan, but not off the ferry into Korsakov, Russia. Bizarre system, but even after everyone we met at the ferry company and even on the ferry telling us it was impossible to organize without an agent we pushed on. We met a couple of Italian Bikers on their way to Japan on new XTZ Tenere's, which pretty much explained why the CEO of Yamaha in Australia stopped emailing us about a possible sponsorship opportunity.
We have met a bunch of Russian guys who are driving to Mongolia in their 4WD so we are hanging out with them for a few days. They all speak perfect English (which is unusual in Russia) and are top fellas. Forget what you might think about Russia, at least for the far east anyway, people here are extremely friendly and hospitable, it is clean and organized and easy to get around (although we did hit about 100km of road works in the rain yesterday which was a little uncomfortable). Our RJ's gear is keeping us dry and warm, but by the time we arrived in Khabarovsk our hands and feet did look we had fallen asleep in a warm bath.
About 600km of terrible dirt roads in the rain and some pretty good hwy and we are in Ulan Ude, Visa in hand and ready to hit Mongolia.