Saturday, January 08, 2005
santa's land
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finland
gonna take the easy way out and do a chronological blog:
26 dec
- left singa land for santa's groovy hometown (not rovaniemi lar, just helsinki only)
27 dec
- arrived in helsinki wee hours five am and headed straight to the city railway to dump our bags into the locker
- did a half day city orientation on foot
- arrived at railway station at 3.15pm before train's departing at 3.42pm.
- headed to the train platform and noticed the electronic board at the platform displaying a weird name (not st petersburg), mak was walking towards the inspector when to our most absolute horror, the train rang its bells, shut its doors and left dusty farttrails filling the two open-mouthed nincompoots wondering if they'd just missed the 50euros per person train ride to russia. thank god they didn't. apparently, the myriad platforms services tens and dozens of trains coming and going to all nooks and corners of finland and russia. and hence the two relieved ninnies boarded the REPIN safe and sound after a ciggie cigar session to calm their nerves. btw, there's zero leg room on board the train. we're like knee caps to knee caps for seven hours.
- met a russian train inspector who was secretly delighted to find two chinese dudes on board. why? so that he can show off his perfect beijing mandarin. he was so fucking good we had to struggle to listen to the china accent. he studied chinese at uni wor...hmmm, yes. the yellows are mighty impressed and a tad embarassed when the white speaks better mandarin than they do.
- arrived in russia st petersburg at ten. realised again to our horror that finlandsky metro station is no longer in use. thank goodness again we met two kind souls on board REPIN and we're really greatful to niZA for guiding us to LARDVOSKY station and paying our metro stubs (we didn't have roubles then).
- arrived at st petersburg international hostel
(after a few missed turns due to an idiotic russian policeman who gave wrong directions) and almost cried when:
* i had to climb four stories carrying the heavy backpack and bedsheets ok, my girlfrens would be so TOTALLY PROUD OF ME, celine and trish, this one's for you, i made it! : )
* discovering the communal bath on the ground floor only
* discovering the communal toilet on the third floor only. so effectly speaking, i had to run down four stories, take my shower, go pee on the third floor should i need to during the night and run back up to the fourth floor in the all too dark bulb flickering staircase in the cold?!?
* i stepped into the bare hostel room (it was just like the youth hostel in perth, can't remember the island)
all these after thirteen hours on the plane, seven hours on the train and half hour on the metro and streets in search of the hostel in zero degrees.
28 dec
- missed breakfast cos we forgot russia had a different time zone from finland. DARN. it's ok.
- headed to the bank to change USD to roubles. they've still got a communist banking system. we had to wait in line outside the bank cos they only allow a max of two entries at the counters only. terok.
- walked round st petes on foot. russia's an absolute beauty, the place and the beauty. READ: RUSSIAN WOMEN ARE GORGEOUS. and all that fur was stunning for someone who lived in tees and singlets.
29 dec
- woke up in time for brekkie (its cereal, toast, cheese and boiled egg everyday)
- visited some churches like "our savoir on the blood" and museums (russian state museum) ala usual tourist routine.
- russia surprisingly had really modern looking babes and not forgetting the american biggies like KFC and pizza huts and the occasional BMW X5s.
- it was difficult getting good food in russia cos we've zero knowledge of russian and many good small eateries don't do the picture menu shit. darn. but we found a good russian eating place near our hostel. it's cosy and the food's awesome, esp the soups.
- my sweetie got all egoistic when he discovered mackers in russia was named after him "makdonalds". oh well. men.
30 dec
- visited the hermitage, its freaking huge and its gawdy. sorry, as much as its impressive architecture and history, the grandoise art masterpieces were at times too much for my limited artistic consumption (i'm a city person who's very much delighted by contemporary art rather than traditional exhibits by the old masters).
- did more walking tours and attempted the flea markets. damn, the russian flea markets sure work differently from the asian ones like bali and hong kong. sensing fresh money (from two asian suckers), the things at the market were exorbitant (kinda like shopping mall prices in sing dollars) and they didn't bother lowering the prices despite our efforts to walk away. oh well. no loss i guess.
- we finally witnessed snowfall!!! (it was ice when we got there)
- did some packing and realised (thank goodness) at ten pm that we left money and train tics in the safe with the receptionist. good grief. if we hadn't remembered, we would've missed the train cos the receptionist doesn't come in till nine the next day and the damn security guard (on 24hrs) couldn't speak a word of russian. big relief.
31 dec
- woke up at four in the morning to complete packing for our train at 7.32am. i'm paranoid.
- sure enuff, at five plus close to six, my sweetie completely freaked me out when he couldn't find the train departure forms (the russians need to collect them back for you-know-what purposes). oh god...this is my greatest nightmare. we spent twenty min looking for it and finally found it in mak's bag...WHEW. left the hostel later than predicted and was suffering a minor panic attack. what if the metros are delayed. what if we cannot find the right platform. what if what if what if? these trains are fucking punctual lor.
- got to the station on time andthe train took off at 7.32am SHARP. met the chinese speaking russian inspector who called us his "friends". er..ok..
- arrived in helsinki (civilisation) at 2-3 plus noon. could finally drink tap water now.
- checked into hostel mekka, met two other backpackers (orlando from mexico and carlos from guatamala) and headed off to NYE countdown at the senate square. firework displays were called off due to the tsunami tragedies.
- trooped over to helsinki club cos it was highly recommended by some people and honestly the site looked pretty decent damn bad choice should've headed to the rave party at the cable factory instead. helsinki club had a long line so we assumed it had to be not bad. the music was alright when we first entered, had some pseudo trance house stuff going with a dj playing CDs (wah lau eh) and some finnish chicks dressed as geishas. as the night grew, the music got so bad they were playing fucking awful retro. its not good fun stuff ala mambo night where you can do a return to college uni jiggly wigglys. this was madonna's like a prayer, followed by michael jackson's billie jean and some old MOS stuff followed immediately by another crap 80s track. wtf?!? oh, got myself molested when this dude grabbed my boob (we're all taking pics with strangers for NYE fun). was too shocked and at a loss for words. oh well. there probably ain't much for him to feel anyway. *rolls eyes* saw a bunch of real ugly asian prostitutes guarded by 2 big weird chinese dudes soliciting caucasian men on the ground floor (ala what you see in typical amercian chinese kung fu shit where there's this big short muscualr asian man and a mini me like short dude who're prob pimps). fucking waste of eighty sing dollars that nite but at least we had a good laugh :)
1 jan
- visited design museum (versace homage)
- walked round helsinki on foot
- waited around for drinks and got too sleepy, i swear the winter brings out the pig in us cos i ain't like this in KL nor bali. anyhow mak went out with carlos for hot dogs and booze at molly malones. and i couldn't sleep anyway cos was waiting up for sweetie.
2 jan
- moved into the luxurious hotel kamp and could finally take a dump in peace. it felt weird experiencing this luxury (turn down service, welcome fruit platter, manicure sets) after the nightmarish hostel in russia *hahaha*!
- walked around more on foot and tram
3 jan
- visited uni of helsinki technology (went to the wrong uni assuming it was "helsinki uni" which was round the corner, had to take a cab costing 14 euros cos we were late) and had the most boring lecture on the history of the uni
- mak felt bad for putting me thru the boring lecture and took me shopping (YAH! that perked me up immediately). he found this cool marimekko sling bag to replace his brown leather one which he lost in a cab some time back. but it was pretty hefty so we decided to have a think bout it first.
- bought tons of chocs for my girls.
- went to storyville, a popular jazz club. lovely swing and romantic crooner jazz. was such a beauty watching the snowfall with jazz in the background and booze in my hand. i'll never forget that instant where life was worth living for at that moment.
4 jan
- visited the markets and found a marimekko bag for myself at a steal of twenty five euros only! awesome.
- went for a private tour of the alvar aalto home and studio . the director was really nice and mak came home with a free book on finnish architecture.
- booked dinner at lappi restaurant (our one and only expensive food treat during the trip) for a sinful taste of reindeer. mak had sauteed reindeer and me salmon (couldn''t bring myself to eat the pet responsible for sending us gifts)
- went to fazer and bought 2 slices of good stuff (choc cakes)
5 jan
- went to our final meeting on the trip, the finnish architecture museum where we met the sweetest director ever, mr severi blomstedt who gave sweets many books, drove us to the outskirts of helsinki and bought us delish italian lunch and filled us with interesting bits of finnish history, culture and politics.
- went for some late night shopping and reminded sweetie if he wanted to get his marimekko bag. was deliberating it over a pair of shoes, a cool looking watch or the bag. he finally decided on the bag and we would get it the next day since its our last day and wanted to take it easy by shopping and relaxing over coffee.
6 jan
- woke up with anticipation of a great round up for the trip (shopping and coffee) and realised to our HORROR that it's a PUBLIC holiday in finland and ALL STORES are closed.
- our hearts fell immediately and the day was filled by tram taking and cafe hopping. my heart broke for sweets who's not able to buy his beloved bag. SOB.
we've also got cool video footage of:
- russian metro doors (its fucking cool!)
- russian metro elevators (at least 100m deep and bout the height of a 14 story or more HDB flat, no shit)
- russian streets (recorded from sitting at cafe)
- snow in st petersburg
- cool toilet in finland (resembles the japanese ones and the finnish are very hygienic people, everything's so clean)
which're unfortunately too huge a file for mailing and posting, so will have to show you guys when we catch up soon.
and there you go, our little adventure to the scandinavia.
bee wrote this at 8:44 PM
2peekaboos
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At 1:19 AM,
adrock2xander said...
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OMG Belynda you simply HAVE to post pictures!!! Words aint enough!
bee said...
if u guys want more pics, send me your mail addy and i'll mail u a shutterfly link. unfortunately the videos could only be viewed on cd :(
but yes, should u guys decide to run off the russia anytime soon, let me know and we'll sit down for more tips *hawhaw*
