with anna
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A.nna
anna // singaporean. my dream is to some day live in a countryside and have a lot of dogs. reach me on
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Sunday, January 1, 2017
Winter in Russia 9th day into my Russia trip and here I am, waiting for the clock to strike 12. This is the first time I spent Christmas through New Year overseas. Not sure what went into my mind when I decided it'll be Russia but I did it and I'm so glad I did. While I can't speak for many, I've checked Russia out of my bucket list. Yay! Okay honestly I can't remember exactly what I did on which day. The day light in Moscow is limited to 6 hours and in St. Petersburg, we had 5 hours only. I avoided staying out before sunrise and after sunset for safety reasons (but yolo because one of the nights we stayed out till 9pm for Starbucks, #badassalert). The remaining time is spent eating and sleeping. I think I slept more here than what I had in the entire year combined. Not even exaggerating when I say we slept for 15 hours on one of the days? And most of the other days, we slept in for at least 12 to 13 hours before we crawled outta bed and convince ourselves we need to head out to see something. And that excluded naps. I googled, it says that due to the short day light, our brain produces more melatonin thinking it's night time that's why we feel sleepier. But I prefer to call it hibernation. St. Petersburg It was one of the St. Petersburg cathedrals photo that Inez stumbled upon online that got us here. We spent a good 5 days in St. Petersburg and we rented this bed and breakfast. For $30/night, you get the entire huge ass apartment. Getting around was easy as the metro was a 10 minutes walk away? It was quite confusing at first but we used our maps to navigate and after the first night, kinda got used to it. Here are the list of places we visited through our walking tour:
(Winter Palace & Hermitage)
(St. Isaac's Cathedral)
(Peter the Great Monument)
(Church of the Saviour on Spilled Blood)
And also these which I didn't get a good photo out of:
It's almost impossible to get a good shot most of the time because the sky is always gloomy. It looks like 5pm whether the sun just rose or about to set. Church of the Saviour on Spilled Blood was one of the prettiest we've been to and it took me close to 30 shots to get one that looks like I could still savage it with photoshop lol!
Chose a really bad day for walking tour because it was snowing and then raining. Halfway it got so windy that it was actually painful to continue with the tour. And I'm normally not one who uses the heat pad because it's so small, it's as good as useless but during the tour I grabbed one of those and placed my life on it hoping it'll warm me up a little. Damn.
Moscow
Ahhh, this I like. I like Moscow more than I do with St. Petersburg mainly because there are more and prettier things to see. Moscow is the capital of Russia, but it was moved to St. Petersburg for a period of time before it was moved back to Moscow. I'd have thought they're on par but nope. The only thing I liked about St. Peterburg more than Moscow would have to be the fact that they've more English signages around. That's it, I said it.
Back to Moscow. There's walking tour as well, which we covered the following:
(St. Basil's Cathedral)
(GUM)
(Tomb of the Unknown Soldier)
(Between GUM & Tomb of the Unknown Solider)
(GUM)
And also the following which I can't seem to match to my photos:
Here are some of the other photos taken in Moscow:
Drum rolllllll please.. My favourite shot of Moscow has to be this:
It was taken from the back (exiting Red Square). Most tourists were crowding in front of the cathedral trying to get a shot. I kinda gave up because there were too many people and I dislike it when my "tourist shot" is filled with other tourists. Prft. This was the best I could get out of it and I'm happy so yay!
Now the practical part.. Here are some of the tips to get by:
Well, we got through Russia safely. And IMO, it's just as safe (and dangerous) as any other cities. It's not how we see them through the western movies. We've met nice people who offered help, or hold the doors for us, help us get around. Though there was a major communication break down, but we still made it through with hand signals and google translate.
In summary, I don't think Moscow & St. Petersburg made it to the list of places I'd revisit. I don't mind coming back to Russia to visit Kamchatka, or even Kazan, but probably not in winter again. This is one of the few trips whereby I'm home sick. I forgot how warmth feels like - that being said, I'm definitely heading to the pool once I'm back. I feel like I'm getting fairer due to the lack of sun exposure and gosh it took me so long to get to a shade I like and bam, one week, it's gone.
Also, it's 11:15pm here in Moscow, 45 minutes more to 2017 so technically I'm not late for my annual travel compilation. My 3rd year doing so and the hashtag shall be #AnnaualTravelLog. You got the pun? :P
Now, 2016 has been a great year for me, it flew passed before I even realized. Life is filled with ups and downs, so was 2016. I just want to count my blessings and work towards a better tomorrow. I've scrapped the idea of the new year new me and all the cliche resolutions for awhile now. I believe that change should take place whenever we are aware of the need to change and it doesn't need to take place only during the start of a brand new year.
And instead of hoping for a better year, let's work towards a better tomorrow. It really should be an every day thing. To you reading this, let's make a pact. Let's make every day a fulfilling one for 2017 so by the end of 2017, we can sit back, tell our stories and count our blessings before we strive again for the following year. Deal? Deal.
Labels: annateng, moscow, petersburg, russia, singaporean in russia, st petersburg, travel, travelbyanna, travelling, travels, winter |
xx
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