It's a beautiful world.

Among all the places we have been to in this trip, Helsinki is the city not as charm as the other cities but it's the most friendly one. It has the best tourists signs. Everyone speaks English and friendly. Everything is similar to Australia. It's a small city but easy access to everything. Actually I should say easy access to everywhere. It's a 2 hours train trip to Saint Petersburg. It's few hours from Estonia by cruise and it's an overnight trip to Sweden. I m so jealous of the Finnish. Coz it takes at least 6 hours for us to get out of Australia! Helsinki has a bit of everything. You can see a Russian style building on one side of the road then you see some European style building on the other side. The constant changes of the senceary makes this city very interesting. The wooden red house in northern Finland are so cute! It may be one of the coldest place in the world but people are so warm and friendly that make you want to stay here forever. 

Russia is a crazily beautiful. Unfortunately the weather wasn't that good when we were there but the grey sky gave it another kind of beauty. I have to say the Russia are a bit cold compare to Finnish. But our metro tour guide was wonderful. Our landlord in Moscow was amazingly nice and helpful. Walking in Moscow and Saint Petersburg were never boring. It's like you are walking in a live museum. It's amazing. A romantic day dreamer like me can spend years wonder around this city and never get bored. Looking at the buildings around you and the people around give you unlimited imagination. Ideas were bursting in my head that I worry I will have a heart attack. All the giant beautiful buildings with bright colors and detailed decoration. It must takes a lot of effort to maintain the history of the cities. I love Russia. This is the second time I visited this country and once again it won my heart. I m jealous of the children of Russia. I m jealous they are given the opportunities to grow up with the history. We saw lots of children in the Winter Palace. They can go to the museum for free. I saw them doing live drawings in front of an old painting. How lucky they are! 

We haven't spent enough time in China, Sweden and Estonia. But all these countries have such strong characters we will never forget. 

Sweden was the only country has that multicultural feeling similar to Australia. It's a vibrant country. We can feel the energy coming from everywhere. People are riding a bike. People are shopping. People having a good time in the restaurant. The energy of the city just shock you in the face! We would like to spend more time in Sweden next time. It's a beautiful country.

I m amazed with all the bad stories we have heard about traveling in Russia and Europe and nothing happened to us.We have only experienced some scam in China. It's not even seriously at all.  We were safed. We haven't had any bad experience with people. I guess the world isn't too bad after all. As long as you travel with care and respect. You can still have an amazing experience like ours. I love traveling. I love overseas. Without all these difference experiences we will never know how good our home is. 

No smoking please!

After Russia I think it's weird to see this sign in Finland. It's the law you can't smoke inside a property in Finland. In Russia, everybody smokes inside the building. In the restaurant there is smoking and non smoking area. I guess maybe ciggrate in Russia is cheap? Or they have too many people so they don't care people die with lung cancer? I m not sure but I certainly like Finland's law much better!

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. 

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.

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!

Sharing some photos