Journey to the kingdom of the Great Tsars

Nowhere in Russia is more famous than the beautiful, europeanized city situated at the Gulf of Finland, the place where Peter the Great once roared - St. Petersburg (SPB).

So, Emmy, Wei Shyuan and I planned to go there. We rode on a train which took about 14 hours to reach SPB. The train was quite comfortable. It started quite hot in the evening, and thanks to me, the night got really cold coz I opened the window due to the heat in the evening. So 3 of us and a Russian businessman, Oleg curled up underneath the warm blanket. Then finally I couldn't take it anymore, so I stood up and shutted the window. I thought I've shutted it tight, but actually I didn't. The window was really hard to operate! So after a few hours, I woke up again and tried to shut it again. This time I succeeded. Oleg didn't feel the cold I guess coz he slept soundly though the wind was blowing right straight in his face, which I found really amazing.

Anyways...after 14 hours of train ride, we finally arrived at the railway station in St. Petersburg. The first thing I did was looking for a shop to get a map of SPB. The next thing was to look for the hostel we've booked. I thought the hostel was pretty close to the Metro station but it wasn't. Luckily we didn't walk all the way to the hostel. It was about 5 km from the Metro station. So we checked into the room. The bed I got was as hard as a rock. It wasn't really comfy to sleep on.

We went out for sight seeing right after checking in the hostel. The first stop was the Hermitage. Unfortunately the queue was too long so we went to the Peter and Paul Fortress which is on the Zayets Island (Rabbit Island) which was situated opposite the Hermitage. Anyways I should tell a little about the Hermitage first since that I've mentioned it. The Hermitage is..........you can find all info about it HERE. (Oh I'm so lazy...) Well honestly, it's just seeing paintings, as in lots of paintings and also some splendid interior designs of each room in the Hermitage. It's just like window shopping, except that you can't touch anything inside. I guess this would be particularly a benefit for girls who like shopping, also for guys who love shopping. I mean shopping which one goes shopping from one shop to another in a zigzag pattern, and then zigzag back to the first shop. Or from the ground floor to the top floor, then from the top to the bottom.















Note that the queue was so freakin' long. Imagine the first day we got there. The queue was even longer that it reached out from the gate of the Winter Palace. We went on the 2nd day and the queue was still long as displayed in the pic. We waited about 1 hour just to reach the entrance of the Winter Palace.

There were little things that caught my attention during the excursion








And also I couldn't hold myself back from shooting some ridiculous pics

Note : I was trying to snap his little brother but this didn't show ((

Okay enough about the Hermitage. Next stop - The Peter and Paul Fortress. It's apparently a fortress and a museum with a Cathedral of the Saint Apostles Peter and Paul which housed the tomb of the Tsar family but sadly the last Tsar, Nicholas II wasn't there. He and his family was shot dead in Ekaterinburg, and some said that his daughter, Anastasia managed to escape. That's why we have the Walt Disney cartoon "Anastasia".

The tombs were made up of marbles and the interior of the Cathedral was beautiful. Actually it didn't seem like a cto me. It seemed more like a cemetery, but they still called it Cathedral of the Saint Apostles Peter and Paul.

The museum on the other hand exhibited the civilisation of Neva. After the museum, we went on a boat trip on Neva river. Pretty boring though captured alot of pictures.

After that we went around the town for sight seeing.....

We went around the town for quite a long time, then we decided to go and wait for one of the Neva bridges to be lifted up. It was so freakin' cold that night and we were waiting there for 2 hours for the freakin' bridge to be raised up....so this is it :

Then we took a taxi back to the hostel and Henri was already in the room. He told us about his day activities and he also waited for the bridge. He said he encountered the Russian Mafia while coming back home. HAHA. Then he gave me a treat of his classic "Finnish candy", which was apparently a piece of black rubbery jelly thingy that tasted like a piece of rubber. I bit a little and then couldn't continue anymore. Then Wei Shyuan came in from shower and I suggested to let her try. She actually liked it!! Then Emmy too came in and we gave it to her as well. Emmy, who had a great crush on Henri pretended like she liked the candy so much and requested for the whole packet of candy as a gift. So Henri gave a NEW packet of candy generously to her. I quickly changed the new one with the old one. I didn't know if it's right, but it's actually not really nice to take things from someone for granted. Then he encouraged me to finish the candy. I chewed the candy reluctantly and then swallowed with water like swallowing pills, hehe. Here's how the candy looked like :

For more pictures, feel free to go to http://picasaweb.google.com/kochi.kochi

Kochi~