I can't believe what happened!

We had our last meal at Helsinki market. Looks like Finnish loves their sausages. That's yummy tho. 

So that's it. Our three weeks trip has almost came to an end. Sitting at the market. Looking at the water and the islands over the water. It's beautiful and calm. I wonder will I ever have a chance to come back to Finland. 

When everything seems wonderfully calm I can't believe what happened to us at the airport. Our flight from Helsinki to China would stop over in Moscow for a night. We tried to check in online the night before and it only allowed us to check in the flight to Moscow not to Beijing. So we thought yeh maybe it's not quite 24 hours yet so we will let the people at the airport do it instead.

The lady at the airport tried to check in for us but she couldn't find the flight. It turned out the flight we booked has been cancelled and we were scheduled to another flight at night! What the hell??? She said the airline has emailed us three times and also SMS us. I checked my email EVERYDAY! I received no email from them even in the junk mail!! Unbelivalbe!! Even when I checked in online last night it still shown our flight the next day is at 2pm not 22 o'clock! I can't believe this happened to us. I m glad that we can fly out before mid night otherwise Iain will have a problem with his visa! 

Well that's not it. I tried to contact Novotel in Beijing and tell them our flight has been delayed we will check in one day later. The bloody reception said she can't help us and I have to call them back at 9am to talk to reservation! 

I emailed Agoda and the hotel to explain the situation. Agoda replied me the next morning said it's alright but the hotel replied me they are going to cancel the booking! Bloody shit! I told them why we can't check in on time and they replied the booking policy said no changes and cancellation! I almost exploded! I told them it's not our fault that the flight has been cancelled. So she finally agreed to extend our check in time to 12 noon the next day but we still have to pay for the first night. Oh my god!!! She didn't even know I have already paid the reservation!!! What the F has she been doing? When I told her we have already paid then she said everything is fine! OMG.... Why people can be so retarded?

Anyway. We arrived Beijing safely at the end.

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.

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! 

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! 

Time travel

We managed to have two hours sitting at Mr Putin's backyard waiting for our Metro Tour. Well it's actually the Aleksandrov Garden, not exactly Putin's backyard. I don't think he will come out to have a barbecue when he's not working. 

It's such a beautiful place to be. But unlike Australia, people are not allow to sit or walk on the grass. The secret police agent will blow whistle at you! I think it's not very nice to get shout at in front of the World Heritage. Anyway, I was telling Iain how incredible it is to be able to see all the historical buildings around us. How    crazy it is to sit in front of the obelisk that maybe Lenin used to look at. Then he said to me "you know we are completely opposite to Australia now? If we dig a hole in the ground all the way through we may come out in Australia"

Oh well. What can I say? That's my husband.

Moscow police

For some reason there are so many police in Moscow city! I think the amount of police we saw in one day are much more than the police we saw in New Year's Eve in Sydney CBD! All the polices here are so offical and so serious. You definately won't see a police riding a horse here. They ride BMW!

Moscow Kremlin

Well we can't find the enterence yesterday coz it closes on Thursday! The! Anyway We finally managed to find our way to get into Kremlin. We were actually going to give up and go for clothes shopping instead. Iain thinks it's quite stupid came all the way from Australia to Russia and not go in Kremlin so we went. 

Kremlin is huge! You can simply spend a day here no problem. We were only here for like an hour or two coz our legs are about to fall off. But this is such a beautiful place to be. Very quite and peaceful. A bit like Canberra but much more to see.

When everyone is a supermodel

Rumor is right! All Russian young girls are beautiful like supermodels! Walking in Moscow city is like walking into Vogue. I think some of the girls have legs up to my chest (which is not hard)! To show you the full effect, here is the photo to show you how long their legs suppose to be compare to mine!

Kremlin

It took us like two hours to look for the enterence of the Kremlin. And we still haven't find it. Unbelivavle! There is no sign or whatsoever. Well at least no English sign. Maybe they purposely don't want tourists to go in? 

Cute designs in the supermarket

Sharing some photos

Guess what I found ?

A contact lenses vending machine outside the super market! I guess there is no optimist in this country ?

Why so dirty?

For some reason cars in Beijing and Moscow are so dirty you can hardly see their number plates!

From one crazy city to another

China has absolutely no rule with the traffic. People don't care. They cross the road whenever they can. Drivers don't care either. They drive as fast as they can as long as they don't hit any moving objects on the road.

In Moscow, people do follow the rule so cars do stop for people, and you won't see group of people stuck in the middle of the freeway try to cross the road. 

Most of the main road has at least 3 to 5 lanes and everyone drove like a hundred K in the city. I think Moscow drivers will fall asleep if they try to drive in Sydney CBD! Everyone has a fast car here. Police drives Audi and BMW. My Zusuki has absolutely no chance in this country!

привет Moscow - hello Moscow

Moscow is so beautiful. We are living on the sixth floor of a studio apartment inside an old building. The main door and the lift are so doggy. The stairs looks like those in the movies that suddenly the polices will jump out from nowhere and start shooting their machine guys at your door. Luckily there is a workable lift coz the building opposite to us has no lift at all. Maybe that's why everyone is so skinny in Moscow?

Anyway, it's a beautiful city. All the old colorful buildings. It's like in the movie. All I need to do is to wave on the balcony then I m a true princess! (Or waving a baby then I will be Michael Jackson?)