Chinese Embassy & the weirdest wax body

Had a cracking but slightly eclectic day!
Started it with an early breakfast of Brussel sprouts before heading off on the Metro to the Chinese Embassy in the middle of the suburbs to try our luck at getting a tourist visa.
3.5 hours later the process involved the following; a queue outside in a cattle pen like fenced area, being made to put on shoe covers, security, taking a ticket, being asked for a ticket of which we managed to show 3 wrong ones before the right one, being told we needed to photocopy our arrival document ( the one thing we didn’t have 5 copies of!)
We got sent ‘outside’..... and a v entrepreneurial man who had a photocopier set up in the back of a van and charged $1 per page.... genius!!!
Back in and left our passports and docs and back we go tmrw to hopefully pick them up who knows?!.
The bonus was we got back to the hotel 6 mins before breakfast ended so we had another quick round of breakfast!!
The off to Red Square and Lenin’s Mausoleum.
What a weird experience that was??!! More security before being led down into a dark, cool chamber where a wax body of Lenin was illuminated all laid out in state. We assumed the real Lenin was underneath but 8 security guards for a wax dummy seemed a bit excessive.
Next a quick view of the beautiful St Basil’s Cathedral.
Holy shit Kate has just read it was Lenin’s real body!! We don’t believe it but obv millions of Russians do.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenin's_Mausoleumもっと詳しく