Pest_2

Pest cont'




Feeling dissapointed that I don't get to see the inside of the parliament, my journey continued to St.Stephen's Basilica. As if to compensate my dissapointment, the weather turns good and the cathedral looks stunning with blue sky background. Unfortunately when I reached St. Stephen's cathedral, I missed the guided tour hour (only 2 session on Saturday) and I was really not in a mood to wander around in the cathedral knowing nothing about it. So I made a decision to go for coffee instead, lol...

Pic: St. Stephen's Basilica

Budapest's street buildings are so ancient. Not exactly well maintained but I think it really doesn't change much since the last century (from the old pictures I saw at the metro station). 4-5 storey building separated only by small alley, gothic / romanic style buildings are everywhere. They even still preserve the trolley bus which I have never seen before, really eye-opening.

Pic (top): Budapest (Pest side) street views; Pic (bot): trolley bus

Statue Park which displays mementoes of the communist erawas highly recommended by an American aquintance and it looks very attractive in the tourist guides / websites http://www.mementopark.hu/. Personally I'm not a communism fan and the park is really rather far off but I decided to give it a try.

Unfortunately some of Budapest's public transport lines are under construction and notices are only in Hungarian, which makes going to the park so much more difficult (despite help from warm-hearted Hungarian people). The worse part is: reality & image has a big discrepency. To me, the park turns out to be more like it's been built up to utilize a deserted place :( However, since I have to overcome so much trouble to get to the park, I really took a lot of pictures to make the trip worth while :p

Pic: Shots taken at Statue Park (or Memento Park)

Leaving Statue Park, I rushed to the Danube river side to catch night river cruise (with dinner & dance). Budapest is beautiful by day but trust e, it is 10times more beautiful at night when the city lights up, especially on Buda side where the Buda Castle is. Absolutely gorgeous. It was pretty windy on the cruise & I didn't bring tri-pod (my hand nearly froze due to picture taking), so the night scene pictures quality is not really good...but it doesn't affect the beauty of Budapest by night, I hope.

Day2 trip, Buda side, to be continue...

Pest

Budapest consists of two parts: Buda & Pest; separated by River Danube. Hence my trip itinerary is conveniently divided into one day for each side =)

Day1: The Pest side of Budapest

I always think the best way to get close or trying to understand the local is by visiting their daily life. What better than a market? So first stop: central market (which looks like train station from the outside). Being a country famous for paprika, paprika & peppers of all varieties are abundantly available at the market. I'm amazed to see that butcher shop actually takes credit card at the market.

Pic (top): central market; Pic (bot): various goods 'for sale' :)

Tried an apple poppy seed strudel (tasted so so) and walked across the road to pedestrian street where lots of different souvenir shops, restaurants & café are located. Creative souvenirs made from plants & vegetables (like lotus doll), delicate hand made cloths, Hungarian wine in special container & typical tourist souvenirs (key chain, fridge magnet etc) can be found along the street.

Pic (top): pedestrian walk way on the 'souvenir street'; Pic (bot): various souvenirs

Next stop is the parliament, absolutely beautiful. I spoke to a local about how beautiful their parliament building is, he agreed but said it's only beautiful on the outside not on the inside because politicians are in there, lol... The plan was to take up a parliament tour but the tour ticket was sold out :(

Pic: the parliament 'paranomic' view

Video: Budapest Pest side's view (shot from Fisherman's Bastian on Buda side)

I tried to summarize day1 in a single blog entry but it doesn't seem to be possible. Can't believe I walked & saw so much within a day in the Pest side. Will continue on the next blog...

Hello Budapest

Budapest greets me with its very friendly people, absolutely 'foreign' language & very (and I mean very) old metro system. There are guards stationed at the entrance to the metro station for ticket checking (even in Malaysia, it's fully automated) and the metro trains are really 'historical'.

Pic: 'Historic' metro train

Arriving late in the afternoon, took me quite a while to find the hotel. As if to fit into the 'historic' setting, the lift is pretty much an antique itself (picture below). Went into the city centre for a quick walk around just to 'feel' the environment after checked in.

Pic: Buttons for the 'antique' lift

Budapest swept me off my feet with its beauty, especially at night. It is however, surprisingly, colder than Copenhagen (geographically speaking, it should be warmer). Found a nice restaurant for dinner, tried out the famous goulash & paprika chicken. In Budapest, one must really get used to big amount of money (Hungarian currency = Furint). A dinner costs almost 6000 Furint. I feel 'rich' suddenly, lol...

Hungarians are one of the most friendly people in the world I believe (strongly agree with you, Finland's finest). Stand still for 1 minute with a map in your hand looking lost, then someone will come to your rescue. The only problem is most of them don't speak 'understandable' English which often leaves me more confused. But they are nice & helpful for sure. Bonus to the beautiful city.

Another remark is: most of the water sold in Budapest is sprakling water. For people who's used to only drinking still water, please choose water with pink bottle cap. All other colours are only for sparkling water (took me a few wrong purchase to realize that).

More about Budapest sights next blog.

Doll-y

In our corporate cultural & ethnic online training, one of my colleague found out that apparently addressing a lady from China as China Doll is a violation. Well, personally, I wouldn't mind if someone calls me China Doll, think it's kind of cute, not sure why it's an ethnical issue :s

Anyway, this 'mean' colleauge purposedly highlighted this point to me & call me China Doll just to see my reaction (probably he's trying to violate the rules & get some warning? hmm...). Instead of getting the respond that he expected, he got corrected because I'm not really a 'China' Doll but more of a 'Malaysian Doll' :p

Feeling defeated, he came back to me hours later, called me 'Dolly' and explained that Dolly is the name of the first clone sheep (duh...I know :s). I responded with -- 'méhh' which surprisingly entertained him a lot. Now whenever he sees me, he greets me with 'méhh'...

I will 'revenge', soon!

Pic: Dolly the sheep

Updates (9-Oct-08)

I was complaining to another friend that my mean colleague, let's call him 'B' is calling me 'Dolly' and received feedback that instead of making people complying to the training material and become better behaved, the training actually brings out worse of my colleagues. How true...

My 'Dolly' story starts to spread around the department (partly because I find it funny & tell a lot of people...my own fault) and my boss finds it amusing. He said B is right. I'm Dolly from 'Méh-laysia', a Pe-'néh'-ng girl...

Another colleague (after hearing the story) said I should stop dressing in t-shirt & jeans to 'live up to my Dolly reputation'...ish...

Moon Boots

Was walking on the street and discover these hideous gigantic boots - moon boots, it's named.

I can understand why it's call moon boots for it looks exactly like the astronaut's boots, bulky and huge.

I actually thought it is for display purpose until my friend told me she loves it when she was younger. The weather in Denmark used to be much colder so these boots are really practical when one has to walk on thick snow.

I was thinking: even if I'm freezing, I wouldn't wear such boots, be it practical, it's too ugly to put on, lol... Anyonw wants a pair?? ;)

Girls' Day Out

Sunday, sunny, went on a girls' day out with a few girl friends to watch a girlish movie - 'Happy Go Lucky' http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1045670/ (another reason why I haven't update anything on Budapest :$).

It must be the day for us because parking was so easy to find in normally packed mid-town (& it's free), we're late for ticket collection but there are plenty of seats available still (well, basically also because most people don't go to cinema on Sunday noon) and the movie turns out great (from a female perspective) despite typically British.

Nice cosy café, a cup of latte mocchiato & raspberry tart makes perfect setting for an afternoon ladies talk. Discussions has been on-going about putting a kindergarten kid in a decision making team that decides which subject to be studied at school (it happens for real, I find it ridiculous) and we were debating about it, which eventually leads to the 'big talks' about liberty, and I'm really amazed with how 'liberal' Denmark can go. Good 'intellectual sparring' :)


The day continues to a very nice dinner in a Vietnamese restaurant. I've always like Vietnamese food for it's refreshing taste & diverse usage of herbs back home (not my ultimate favourite but it's definitely on top5), never thought we'd get such nice ones in Denmark and I was really overwhelmed. 'Summer roll', rice pancake with beansprout & pork wrapped in fresh leaves & Vietnamese beef flat noodle soup almost made my stomach exploded.

The girls' day out is so nice that I'm sure I'll do it again. Next nice movie? new restaurant? shopping? maybe... We just need to find some time to synchronize ;)

My Living Room (finally)

I promise to publish a picture of my small living room in my 'lonely' apartment when I get my sofa some time ago but I can't bring myself to share a picture with only a black sofa & nothing else, would have looked 'deserted', I think :$

So I went on a 'carpet & sofa table' search to enhance the look of my living room. Didn't took me long to realize IKEA is, again, the best solution provider for low cost yet reasonably reliable products.

Finally, here's how my current living room looks like:-

Any comments?? Personally, I think it looks nice (basically also because I took it from possibly the best angle, lol...)

Statistically speaking, my blogging rate has reduced as time goes by. Partly because I've been traveling quite a lot, work starts to kick in, attending Danish classes & make new 'time-demanding' friends. I just came back from latest travel - Budapest, was there with an old acquintance from my home town. Will blog more about the beautiful Budapest soon...after I consolidated the pictures =)