Russia - Saint Petersburg

It has been a really great trip to St. Petersburg! The city is really beautiful and Russia has alot of churches and palaces that has very pretty architecture. Our tour guide was very informative, but then half the time the things he said... i one ear in one ear out. Haha... Before I begin my recollection of the whole trip, there are a few things i want to say about russia.

1. The water cannot be drank from the tap. It is white and clean, but it contains some bacteria so we couldn't drink it directly and we have to buy mineral water instead.
2. Russia has professional pickpocketers. <-- that was what the tour guide told us. Well, we did experience an attempted pickpocketing! It was really disgusting. Daryl and I were walking behind the rest of the other 5 pple in a group, and there came 2 men trying to sell us somethings. We kept rejecting them and trying to move out of their path but they kept bugging us. Then they got nearer to us and I suspected something was wrong... One of the man was trying to unzip the pocket of daryl's jacket while diverting his attention to the thing he was selling. So I pushed the man away and swore at him... Lousy. Not professional enough loh.
3. The people there are not friendly at all. I think they are racist against us... The cashiers at the supermarkets and every other locals that we happened to meet were never friendly to us.

4. The air is quite polluted i think... the cars look dirty, macham 5 yrs never wash.

5. The traffic is bad. The drivers do not care about the rules of traffic lights. There was once we had to cross a road, we didnt dare to cross until after 3 rounds of green man because the cars didnt stop for us.

6. Expired food can be found in the supermarket. Expire until shuang... we ended up buying a packet of cookies that were expired last year, but we still ate it. haha... tasted fine still.

And that's why I find Finland so much more homely when I returned. The officers at the customs smiled at me, the air is fresh and the water from the shower feels so good.

Russia from the window of the bus

at our hotel

The hotel was fine... and the buffet breakfast wasn't too good, but its better than nothing. There were a variety of food, but quantity does not equal quality.

the drive around the centre of St Petersburg on the first night

The 2nd day at the Hermitage, one of the world's best museums!

We saw famous artists paintings and had a "lesson" about the history of Russia. Too much to absorb. The interior of the hermitage was very "golden" and the design was very artistic. Very pretty. We toured in it for abouit 2 hours and the guide told us we had only seen 3% of the entire museum! *faint*

For the rest of the day, we had free time to walk around the city centre.

2nd night - ballet performance.

Graceful. I wish I knew how to dance too. The dresses are very glamorous... There were 3 different performances and after the whole performance, everyone was clapping nonstop and the lead dancer had to come out and bow until there was no more applause.

We were sitting on the topmost row of the theatre.

3rd day - city tour

We visited alot of churches. I can't remember all their names but I bought a set of postcards which has all the different places with their names on it. Anyway here are some of the pictures that we took.

the outside

the inside

the blue one.

The Battle Cruiser


Pushkin (city name). The palace that turned into museum for tourists to see... really super grand!

I really liked this place.

Another church, which looks like a castle to me. I simply love the pink!

3rd night - Russian dinner.

I chose the fish meal with 4 other people from the group. The rest of them chose meat... It was very delicious! The main course was fish with whipped potato and sour cream on top. There were Russian dances and songs played and sung by 3 Russians. There were also traditional Russian games played. One of them is whereby two people had to put on a hat which is a shape of a chicken and they were supposed to try and remove the other person's hat. I had the chance to play with one of the girls and lost terribly. My hat was snatched away within 3 seconds. Lousy.. haha. The other game was the tug-of-war. Totally enjoyed myself in this session.

One of the games that were played. It goes like this: A chooses B and then they kiss, then B chooses C and then C chooses D.......

Also, there was a russian wedding going on in the same restaurant that night.. and some drunk men came over to our side and treated us to free vodka! That night, many of our tourmates were drunk as well. It's quite scary when people get drunk. One of the guys nearly threw his girlfriend down the stairs!

The two drunk russian in the middle of the pic

Last day

We visited the Baltika brewery. It was really amazing to see how the beers are prepared and packed! Everything was automated, simulated and programmed. The machines are so efficient that they can produce (i think) 23 bottles per second. We also got to taste all the different types of beer there and I was surprised that the beers actually tasted good! Usually I don't like beers cause they are too bitter... but for those that I tasted, some had a little sweet taste. Yum... seng.

all of us at the brewery

Overall, it was a very fulfilling trip to Russia - St. Petersburg in the winter.

Phew. 2.5 hrs to blog this.

P.S: click on the collage to see a bigger version of the photos.

cooking session

Just came back from a cooking session with Finns and other international students... It was quite fun because we get to make our dinner together. At first when I signed up for it, i thought it would be a session where we would sit and watch them cook and teach us. And i was very happy and surprised to see Hitomi there too! (our jap friend:))

For today's dinner, we had Creamy Salmon Soup, Shrove buns ("pulla" in finnish), Hard Boiled Eggs n Butter mixture and Curd Cheese with Berries. I loved the pulla most and the salmon soup tasted great as well... overall, the dinner was special and good!

The preparation process.

I was mixing the curd cheese with strawberries

I knead some of them... really fun. And then we sprinkle sugar on top of a thin layer of butter

And i miss Auntie Annes pretzels.... so i did this. haha...


the shrove buns when they are done! Its really nice because it tasted really soft... I miss the bread that we have in singapore. The normal bread here acutally feels alittle hard!

Hitomi, me and mq

the guys...


Sitting together and waiting to eat...

The two thingie on the left are actually rice with dont know what lah.. haha. We put the butter and egg mixture on top and ate it. On the right is the yummmmmiiie salmon soup, with potatos!

Delicious.

xia sway videos

Sliding down a slope with a kicksled

Kicksled (failed attempt) -- i was screaming like siao...:(


Successful attempt!


Daryl running to a pile of snow


Feeding the reindeer


Passing snowball

Lapland - Rovaniemi - Inari

Just came back from the trip to Lapland, the northern part of Finland. It is near the artic circle (which we crossed!) and hence very cold! Although I am really tired because I couldn't sleep well in the overnight train, I have decided to update now before my memory fails me and I forget what are the things I wanna mention! Haha. I experienced -26 degrees there... and combined with the wind, I think I could feel -30... grrr... luckily we have a plentiful supply of heat packs with us. And my super thick trackpants helped me survive the cold. It was only my face that got really frozen till I couldnt really feel it there anymore...


There were 5 of us who went together (me, daryl, meiqing, chee kiang n fuxiang). The train ride was 12 hours long and it was really tiring... we started out playing tai tee on the restaurant table and were super noisy. After about an hr, some guy came and wanted to chase us away because we didn't buy any drinks from the restaurant. We stood up and were about to leave... and the Finnish people around us kept telling us that its okay and to continue playing. There was one guy who even argued with the man. We were rather surprised that they "treated" us so well! But in the end, i think the waitress there had to ask us to leave because that man complained non stop.


After 12 hrs... Rovaniemi here we come!



Outside the train station




Took a bus to visit the Santa Claus village. Daryl and I love this place the most out of the whole trip! There were a few snowman hanging out there and they were HUGE... like this:









And there was Santa of course... but it was too ex to take photo with him. The whole village looked very white cause of the snow, and there was a forest behind the village which really looked like a fairyland to us... we felt like we were in Narnia.

This signboard showed us the different countries in the different directions, and I am so glad that they built it with Singapore in mind! (made me feel like going home) Cause not all the countries are mentioned in this signboard. Singapore is at the bottom...


In the Main post office of Santa Claus!! Its really cool! There were alot of letters to Santa from people frm different countries... i read one which thanked santa for the presents. don't know how it works... but we could actually request Santa to write a card to us during Christmas!

The 5 of us at the "fireplace" in Santa's room


Pretending to be Santa~



We wrote postcards and threw it into this special mailbox that would only send the card to us during Christmas this year.




This structure is really tall and I think I was only halfway up there that i decided to come down. It was really scary cause of the height and also because the structure has alot of "holes" and when I looked down...ermm... that feeling made my feet tremble. Haha... And it felt a little unstable too. (but it should be stable.. its just psychological) Fuxiang climbed the highest and he was still up there while we were already waiting downstairs. Can u spot him? heh..




There are still lots of photos... will show you all when I come back! haha... Moving on, we took a 5 hours bus ride north some more... to Inari. We checked in our hotel at night and woke up the next day with nothing to do, nearly! The information office was sort of closed on weekends... and if there weren't anyone inside the office, we could have been eating chips in our hotel for the whole day. Heng we were lucky, there was this lady in the office who was very nice to us. She recommended that we visit the museum nearby and we also rented 2 "kick sleds" and a pair of forest skis to entertain ourselves with. She gave us discount and we paid only 10 euros altogether for those cause we only had 3 hours to play. Usual price is like 8 euros for a kicksled for a day. The kick sled is really fun!! It slides really well on the snow and each of us took turns to slide down this slope down to the lake. Haha.. the lake is frozen of course and there was a really thick pile of snow on top. We also took videos for the sliding part and they are really a must-see cause it was really funny the way I fell like dunno what on my first attempt. Meiqing's one is the most hilarious and i think she will post hers on her blog, to xia sway herself too. hahaha... (i need help to upload videos. will post another blog for the videos later)

daryl is getting heavier... (joking!!)






the 3 guys and the hotel at the back is the one which we stayed in. It looks terrible on the outside but the rooms are really comfy.



We didnt get to drive these snowmobile cause it was too ex... like 100euros per person.


Next is the visit to a reindeer farm to feed the reindeer, which were owned by a Sami family. The Samis are a small group of people living in Lapland. The reindeer are very timid animals and were scared by the group of us. We were chasing after them with food and realised that the only way to feed them is to not move and pretend to be trees so that they will come to us. Haha





We also visited the family's house, where we saw alot of things, such as shoes, that they made from reindeer skin. They often eat the baby reindeer for meat...We had lots of fun trying on the Sami costumes! Btw, their wedding dress is really heavy and they put on lots of jewellery that adds more weight.


One of their costumes that they made themselves




A photo with the host


Havent't got to eat reindeer meat.


A little celebration of Chinese New Year at night... SpArkLerS! But i burnt my gloves while playing... :(


Anyway, we didnt get to see the aurora that night because of the cloudy weather, but we saw some redish orange light that looked like aurora but we couldnt be sure. There were some streaks of green on the sky too. The others decided to stay one more night to see the aurora but daryl and I went back first... So I dont really know whether i have really seen aurora! haha... But at least there were streaks in the sky that we were sure it was aurora.

Long post.. now im really tired. :):) hope the photos are nice.