From Saint Petersburg to Helsinki

From Saint Petersburg to Helsinki is such a pleasant trip! The train was comfortable , free WiFi, restaurant, border security keep checking people's passport again and again. We had a good time.

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. 

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.

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.