Love Finland designs

Shame that I have be using Iain's camera today so I can't upload any photos on the blog today. ( his expensive camera has no wifi) 

Helsinki is beautiful. We finally get some nice weather. The city is small but nice. Full of wonderful designs and fashion. 

Now we are on our way to Estonia!

Hello Finland

On our way to Helsinki. Readin Bridget jones new book. Drinking coffee. Icy lake and forest outside my window. What can be better than this?

Kupet Eliseeves Food Hall - Saint Petersburg

The most fancy food hall I have ever seen! Actually this is the first time I have seen a food hall. It's like a cafe sells different type of food. Super fancy and sparkle. 

I don't understand how Russian stays so skinny??? Look at their cakes! They are not as sweet as those in Australia though. The portions are a bit smaller as well. 

Saint Petersburg - Hermitage museum

I m sure it's one of the world best museum and I m sure it's one of the most difficult museum to get in as well.

To begin with it's our bad that we didn't buy ticket online. It's the worst deciosn ever. There were lots of school kids there, probably about 20 different schools? So you can imagine the queue is very long. There is no sign how to get in the museum as individual so we just try our luck to find our way in.

There is ticket machines at the enterence which have English option but they only take cash.  The ticket is 400 rubles per person and if you want to take photos you have to pay 200 rubles more. But we only have 100 rubles on us so bad luck again. We tried to get ticket at the ticket office. There are 4 ticket offices but the queue was everywhere. There was no sign and no staffs to tell you what to do. We couldn't understand any Russian so we just pushed in. When we finally got the ticket and prepare to go in the security guard told us we can't wear our jackets! I didn't know going to museum is such a formal thing so we only had pajamas under our jackets! Iain was very annoyed but he is not an arguing type of person so it left me to deal with the security guard!

I told him I can't take off my jacket coz I am cold. And he told me it's not cold inside. I told him I will be cold coz I only have pajamas on and I took off my coat to show him immediately! I can tell from his face he wants to laugh. He tried to hold it in and said the rule is the rule. Well. What can we do right? So we wore pajamas to the best museum in the world. Later we found out we were not too bad coz there was a guy wore singlet.

We follow the lonely planet guide to see the most important collections but we were lost right after we saw the Egyptian collections! But I think it's a good thing coz it gave us the chance to browse through all the room that no one cares. We can take beautiful photos with the room and decorations. 

We love the interiors so much that we forgot about the exhibitions. Not that we understand anyway. It's hard to pretend something that we are not sometimes.

The Winter Palace is part of the hermitage museum as well. Imagine being the queen and king living in this beautiful palace. It really feels like waking into a movie.

The whole museum is amazingly beautiful and flash. Everything is gold an sparkling. We have no idea about paintings and stuffs but we truelu enjoy visiting this museum and it's definately worth all the trouble. 

WiFi Russia!

The WiFi connection in my hotel room is so bad that I feel like going to the reception and throw their computer off the window! 

In Moscow and Saint Petersburg, 99% of the restaurants and cafe have free wifi. Even their train has Internet.  I wish Sydney will be like that soon. 

The best meal we have in Russia so far

Can't believe the best meal we have in Russia so far is Chinese! We didn't know Chinese here is kind of fancy and we wore the complete wrong clothes - pajamas! Not like a full on pajamas but I did wore the same t-shirt to bed and tights.... I didn't noticed we are wearing the wrong thing until Iain pointed out everyone is in suits and proper clothing!

Anyway, the Chinese in Saint Petersburg is fantastic! It's full on Chinese food not just sweet and sour! Our conclusion is Chinese food in Saint Petersburg is better than those in the Sutherland shire.

Dr Chris has made it to Russia

Can't believe we are watching Bondi Ver in Saint Petersburg! The Russian don't even bother to erase the English. They just put Russian on top of English so you can hear two voices of Dr Chris.

Hello Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg is beautiful. It's been raining all day but everything still looks amazing. It's less organized than Moscow. It feels like there are too much history in this city no matter where you go there is a super old building waiting for you. As if god just dump all the bridges, statutes, churches in the city. We were walking along the street watching students playing in the park, people having lunch and oops! All of the sudden this Church just causally sitting at the corner of the street waiting for peole to come. It's amazing!

You still see some expensive cars but not a lot. People don't drive as fast. Less police and soldiers here so you feel less offical. 

There are so many people here. Domestic tourists. Students. International travelers. Mind you, if you take a cruise from to Saint Petersburg you don't need a visa to stay here for 72 hours. I guess a lot of people are taking advantage of that.

Saint Petersburg is more tourists friendly compare to Moscow.  People are more willing to speak English. Signs and maps can be found everywhere on the streets. Souvenirs shops are everywhere.  

I enjoy Saint Petersburg a lot. It's just a romantic city full of magic.

Russia country side

On our way to Saint Petersburg from Moscow we have seen lots of countryside scenery of Russia.  One thing shocked me the most was once we are outside Moscow, the suburbs look depress and dead. Moscow is really rich and fancy but the suburbs look quite awful. 

In Australia, some people's dream is to live in the country. You get a big piece of land and some cows or sheep. Life can be pretty relax and beautiful out there. 

In Russia, you wouldn't want to live in the country. It's old and unpleasant. Some houses don't even have a proper roof. Every now and then we see some colorful Northern Europe style houses, but they are not that fancy either. People just look after the piece of farm land in front of their houses. I think some of the land is smaller than someone's front lawn in Australia.

I wonder what makes them living in this condition. Does the government only allow them to have certain size of the land in the country? Or is that because the soil is not fertile enough for them to farm anyway?

It's quite depressing to see from one extream to another. Do people in these places know what sort of lives people are having in Moscow? Do people leave their town to find a life in Moscow and leaving the old people behind? Lots of questions going through my head and I think I will never find out.

From Moscow to Saint Petersburg

We took an express train from Moscow to Saint Perersburg. It took us almost 4 hours but the normal train will take about 8 hours. The train station at Moscow was strange but new. It has nothing but chairs. There were a few vending machines but that's about it. You can find more polices than anything else. I love the fact that people are very quite and polite in Moscow. Waiting for a train in china would be nothing like this. You can only see people jumping the queue and talking on the phone loudly in china. 

Again, there is no sign in English so we went to the ticket office for info. The ticket lady checked our passport and printed us a real train ticket.

Instruction is not in English English but lucky enough I have done some homework about this train so I kind of know what to do. 

Anyway, getting on the train is easy when you are in a country that people know to queue. The ticket lady checked our tickets and passports again before you jump on the train. Be careful with the super big gap between the platform and the train. If you are not strong enough then your heavy suitcase will drag you into this hole! 

The luggages storage space on the train is very small about half size of the one on Melbourne airport transfer bus. So if you have big bags want to secure a descent place, you have to get there early.

The train itself is very nice. Big seat with lots of space and good size of table. 

Food trolley came around few times during the trip or you can go to the restaurant car on car number 5. They have coffee tea and sandwich. 

I still the like train better in Japan coz it serve train bento but I think this train here is newer and have bigger seats.  

Moment of truth

So is it dog food? Or a bar of ice cream?

It's chocolate coated ice cream!

Ok let's talk about food

Binchiki - Russian creeps with cheese. We got it from supermarket. Heat it up in microwave for 30 seconds. Love it. We also got the desert in cherry!

Ptichie Moloko - Classic Russian sweets. It's a thick slice of marshmallow covered in chocolate on top of shortbread. Very yummy!

Chak chak - original from Turkic. It's a chewy soft dough of raw eggs, molded into cyclone then deep fried and coated with honey. It's actually the national dish of Tatars and Bashkirs! Not that I know where they are but can't believe one of my childhood favorite is a national dish somewhere else and a national favorite of Russia!

Moscow people are crazy about Japanese food. And the Japanese we are talking here are serious Japanese restaurant not like the sushi rolls we found on Sydney street!

Kebabs is also a big thing here. We found it everywhere as well and very cheap! I think pickles is very popular here as well coz I found a lot of pickles at supermarket! And I have eaten this pickles hotdog, it's so nice but the pickles I have on this hotdog are more than enough to make twenty cheese burger in McDonald! 

There must be a lot of Japanese here

Not only there are lots of Japanese restaurant here but also heaps of Japanese products in the supermarket! Skin care products, drinks, food, they are everywhere!

I need a break

So that's what I have for dinner!

What do we have for dinner tonight? Fluff!

Imagine you are eating something that you have never eaten before in Australia when you are in Russia is actually from America? 

We found this "marshmallow spread" at the supermarket and of course Iain wants to try it. It's sooo weird! It's like eating a jar of frosting but a bit chewy! Very sweet! Very marshmallow!