14/09/08 ~ Started out city tour with St. Issac's Cathedral, Bronze Horseman and then lunch at the Idiot Russian restaurant. It was quite a lovely restaurant, classic decos and serve yummy russian food: pancakes with caviar and sour cream, borsch soup (beetroot soup), salmon and mushroom dumplings and of course, vodka! And then head off to Palace Square, Alexandar Column and the into the Hermitage. Having queued outside the Hermitage and comtemplating whether we have sufficient time to get in and walk around, we successfully cover bits that we wanted to see. The Hermitage was indeed a very lovely palace cum gallery. Beautiful chandeliers everywhere! We also bumped into a lot of newly wed couples in their wedding gowns and suits running around the city taking photographs etc! Later the day, head off to the souvenir market near church of spilled blood. The first store offered a lot sum of 1300 rubbles for a music box. And luckily we didn't buy into it. Managed to get a way much better offer a few stores down for about 550 each!
15/09/08 ~ Went to get theatre tickets around Mariinsky and managed to get tickets for Swan Lake. Visited Nikolsky Cathedral and had lunch at a European and Japanese fusion restaurant. Had a seafood risotto and baked eel sushi (80 rubbles for one piece!). On the way to Vasilevsky Island, stopped by a souvenir shop and bought a russian doll :). Over the river, Vasilevsky Island has some interesting structures along the river but not as exciting and pretty as the historic heart itself.
16/09/08 ~ Chesme Church, the pink cake like church, way down south from the city centre. It was a pretty church, but wasn't straight forward to find. Had to ask for directions and a granny is nice hearted enough to bring us there even though she's not going there herself! Later in the afternoon, headed to Peter and Paul's fortress.
17/09/08 ~ Set off to Peterhof with Metro hopping before that. The metro stations are very beautiful indeed, but we got fined for taking pictures in the stations! 100 rubbles each. It was such a hilarious situation now that I thought about it. We were busy taking pics after we got off the train when suddenly a security guard tapped on our shoulders and ask us to follow him. Not knowing what he wanted us to do, we quickly and sneakly changed our memory cards just in case they want us to delete the photos! Peterhof was quite a pretty place, loads of fountains but the prettiest is still the Grand Cascade. A note, never go to the restaurant in Peterhof! Bad service and they claimed they don't have english menu and tried to con us! Got back to the city centre on a hydrofoil, much more ex than taking the bus, but its very comfy and cool! Walked down Nevsky pr that evening which is the main street where everything is, for e.g. Zara and Subway :). Depressingly, wanted to see the Griffin Bridge but it was under construction -_-! Later that night, took the overnight train to Moscow!
18/09/08 ~ Got to Moscow early in the morning, and half awake, had to try and find our way to the hotel. Frustratingly, the roads in Moscow are so wide and big that you have to walk xxx miles to get to the subway to cross the road -_-. Managed to find our hostel finally even though it wasn't evident enough it was the hostel! Slept in for a couple of hours just to recharge and then head off to Russian Doll Museum and then to VVT.
19/09/08 ~ Morning visit to the Moscow State University, Peter the Great Statue on the river, Georgian lunch where we mistaken a walnut sauced chicken to be soup *grin*, Arbat Lonely Planet walking tour (after we discover the Museum of Photography was under construction -_-), Gorky House and then New and Old Arbat streets again were we had coffee.
20/09/08 ~ It was a Red Square and Kremlin Day. A good day to start off with. The Kremlin was smaller than I expected. Red Square was fun. And then decided to go on a Moscow River cruise while having coffee at a cafe in GUM. Got off the cruise at Kitay Gorod and head for Uzbek at Arbat.
21/09/08 ~ Kolomenskoe down south of the city centre. Another hilarious incident when we were trying to find the place, we had to ask 3 officers (they were standing outside the metro station chatting). Kindly enough, they asked us to follow them. It turns out they were bringing us to another metro exit, in which we had to pay again to get to the other side -_-. After a bit of dilli dalli as they were discussing among themselves in Russian, they finally showed us how to get there. Had some ham and cheese blini in the museum reserve. Then head for Izmaylovo market for only 10 rubbles for entrance. It was a good market to shop for souvenirs. Most sellers know how to speak english. Later in the evening, got to the airport for our flight home...
Nicocism on Russia:
- It wasn't as unsafe as I thought it was. I felt quite secure the entire trip
- St. Petersburg is a much prettier city in terms of architecture, more historic, more character but Moscow is more trendy
- Food wise, a lot of influence from the East, like dumplings, clear soups etc
- Hotel Nikita: the guys at the reception can't really speak english but the hotel is not bad, has breakfast too.
- Yellow Blue Bus Hostel: quite a dodgy building from the outside and had to climb 4 floors with our heavy luggage to get to our flat. But very friendly reception and they speak good english and are very helpful!
- Things aren't cheap, just curious how ppl survive
- A lot of random grannies standing on the road side selling random stuff like clothes, bras, and even pets(cats, rabbits)!
- Learning cyrillic is helpful in identifying signs! I find myself decoding much of the stuff like if it's a "P" then it's actually a "R"!
- Moscow metro isn't that friendly. Watch out for blue signs with man walking up/down stairs for station interchanges. A station with three lines has different names. And always count the number of stops from your starting point to your destination station. It's not like London where you can see which stop you are at when the train stops.
- AND, if you want to take pics in the Metro station, don't let the security spot you doing it!
p.s: Pics @ Nico's Picasa Web Album
24/08/08 ~ Stayed in to watch Olympics closing ceremony and manage to catch Andy Lau and Lee Home singing :))
