Budapest - Pest
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Budapest consists of the town Buda on the west of the Danube river and Pest on the East. So today.. we explored the bigger of the 2 - Pest.
Zibin and Weijian led the way today.. refreshing change coz these 2 history students have their history-student-photographic memory and can recite the guide book's description of the places at will.. Hence my videologue of our travel escapades have a more pro emcee now.. thanks to them!
It was kinda a slow pace of travel today.. maybe because we didn't had the buffet spread we had the past few days to keep us going.. maybe we kept on stopping for food along the way.. or maybe we were still recovering from the fiasco earlier.. but still.. oh well..
Our first stop of our walking tour was the National Museum.. which we well.. just stood outside to take photos. Yes.. Europe's all about Museums and Churches none of which I'm particularly interested in.. Glad that we all shared common interest.. and photos outside the Museum were all so enough for us.. oh actually.. they were more than just ordinary photos.. (and videos) You guys will know soon. Haha.
We spent quiet a lot of time at the Market though.. it was not only a wet market where fruits and foodstuffs were sold but the top level was full of cool stuff like Eastern European toys and handicraft.. as well as the touristy catches like postcards and magnets. It was like a er.. Hungarian Mustafa Centre. Haha ok no, not that extreme.
Along the way we went to some University of Economics and pretended to be students there (who ironically can't speak a shit of Hungarian haha). Got myself a fried turkey sandwich cheap. And got ourselves a lot of freebies such as chocolate bars with rum (which seriously tasted like bananas *yucks* no wonder they were free la!) and pregnancy test kits. Yes, pregnancy test kits were given out free in Budapest universities. Makes you wonder what they do in their free time..
Well, as if we had not enough of shopping we headed down to a shopping street next where all the common franchises mushroomed along both sides of the street. As with every shopping trip so far..
- We will always stop to look at postcards
- We will always eat ice cream
- Xiuying never fails to check out her favourite H&M store.
And then a strange thing happened.. there was a recommended atas restaurant serving good apple strudels.. so we went in.. found prices quite exhorbitant.. and some of us just walked out feeling paiseh for not ordering anything. Remember in Switzerland we got chased out by one restaurant after another for ordering nothing but cheeze fondue. But this turned out to be the start for another uneasy event later.. I guess...
An interesting event was that we happily stumbled into this church with its fantastic church orchestra doing its practice. Thinking that it was the Last Parish Church, some church that at some point in its history was converted into a mosque then back into a church again, we sat down happily enjoying the sweet sounds of the orcheestra while Allan as usual goes around snapping away.
Only to realise after quite some time that we were in the wrong Last Parish Church. Hahahahaa! Quite hilarious. We eventually went to the correct one.. which was much grander and mroe colourful.. but I thought I still liked the fake one better. At least got nice music. Haha.
As much as I would like to avoid going into too many churches if I can.. the St Stevens Church's greatest draw was probably the observation tower haha.. which we could.. guess what? Photowhore!!
We did more jumpshots and videos at this bridge.. forgot what it's name is called.. will update again tomorrow. Ha.
Then the dark clouds started looming.. literally... and this was when we had our first small scale disagreement within the group.. over dinner. Like.. I kinda expected this sooner or later.. but we still have yet to find a good way to resolve such issues. It's such a big group and there's bound to be different opinions throughout the trip.. more tackily so when is comes to how we spend our money.. So.. till now we all know that we have to solve this somehow.. but just don't know how/when. Or simply.. How do we throw the topic onto the table?
Heroes Square was our last stop before we split up to the bath-goers and the non-bath goers (which consist of only Weijian and Xiuying because they want to spend their own lovey dovey. Ha joking.) Heroes Square is just another but open place with lotsa statues to take photos with. Of course each statue has its own meaning and significance.. but er.. I'll read about them later. Haha.
And so we ended our day with the recommended Hungarian thermal baths.. While it was fun splashing around the hot water and playing like little kids in the pool for 2 hours.. it was quite sian to find out after coming out that...
WE WERE ONLY LIKE UTILIZING 10% OF THE ENTIRE BATH AREA!
We missed the mud baths.. the carbonic acid baths.. medicinal baths and whatever nonsense hidden in the rooms which we didn't explore.
Damn super duper sian. Makes us wanna go back for the baths again.
Oh well.. seems like we did a lot today right? But we could have done more. We missed going to the Torture Museum.. the spy museum probably sounded interesting.. the UNESCO Heritage walk was missed as well. This just means that some other day.. we would have to clear these places.
For tomorrow.. Buda!!
Signed off at
6:03 am
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th reader
