Budapest
Friday, May 16, 2008
Well.. today was a much better day. More relaxing.. somehow I felt lighter and happier.. maybe because I had a good sleep the night before. Or maybe it was beer. Haha. The only irritating thing was that my heels are starting to crack.. the dry weather and lousy sandals I guess.. muscles starting to ache from too much walking.. which just means that I'm losing weight! Yay!
(That is if all my ice creams, burgers and other random snacks don't set in too quickly)
Guys woke up to cook breakfast today.. Fried yesterday's macaroni with eggs and ham till slightly chao tar (Gabe and Allan's invention) and it tasted like char tao kuay. Haha. But still not filling lah.. the girls had to cook their own instant noodles after that.
Talking about that.. it's interesting how come girls (like Yiling) can eat that much. For her small size. Again talking about that.. this trip had been an amazing discovery about Susan Tan Yiling for all of us. Let me share.. do you know that....
- She has a monsterous appetite. She probably gets hungry faster than any of the guys in the group
- She is only a few steps away from being a Caroline.
- She is a Grade 5 Ballet Dancer.
- She is a Grade 8 Pianist.
- She got sing in front of the her whole school before.
Close your jaws. We were as surprised as you are now.
Back to the trip.. we began by visiting the Parliament House.. but what interest me more were the colourful flowers outside the building rather than the building itself.. Wa lao eh.. this is like the first time I see so many colours naturally blooming in front of my eyes! Damn pretty sia.. wait till the photos come out...
Next stop we went to this place called the House of Terror.. the building was formerly used by the Nazis and subsequently by the Communist Party of Hungary when they were in power.. and thousands of people died within the building. Now it's a museum, but it's still an eerie place to be in thinking that so many lives were lost there. Museum-wise.. it's a fantastic exhibition.. with creative layouts and aesthetic decorations. One big drawback though -
Every Damn Thing Was In Hungarian
We didn't understand the videos.. the audio snippets.. the articles on the wall.. luckily at every exhibition room where was an A4-sized writeup in English we could read about the corresponding history behind the exhibits. And so the whole trip through the museum we just walked and glanced around while collecting these pieces of paper as 'lecture notes' reading them diligently like we were damn siao on about history like that. Some of the writeups were FOUR PAGES LONG ok?? Mai siao siao eh..
We were quite lost after the House of Terror.. cos there wasn't really anything particularly interesting to do. Headed down to this little island called Margret Island floating in the Danube River between Buda and Pest. Thought it would be this little Pulau Ubin like place for more nature stuff for a change but it turned out to be nothing interesting after all. Surprisingly the whole island was filled with KIDS!! It probably was a school holiday or something. If I had more energy I would have checked out what all the kids there were up to or why they all came to this island. But we were quite shagged out.. so we left the island after a while.
Spent the rest of the afternoon chilling at some pub before we headed down to our very atas dinner.
Yes, we made it a policy to have an atas meal at every city.. to pamper ourselves and to taste local fare. Headed down to this restaurant called Menza simply cos it was highly recommended by all the guidebooks that we had. The food was simply amazing! Especially Weijian's Roasted Duck in Mango Sauce.. wah siah.. crispy skin.. succulent meat.. tantalizing sauce.. heavenly.
Regretfully most of the food we ordered weren't authentic Hungarian food (as we realised only halfway through the meal).. So we topped me meal up with authentic Hungarian dessert! Can't rememebr what i was already but.. tasted interestingly nice. And filling. Rocks.
The night was spent strolling along the Danube River banks looking at the historical buildings of Buda illuminating in its majestic glory. Nice cool breezes accompanied by excellent scenery I must say.. a fantastic way to soak up the atmosphere of the final night in Budapest.
Damn shagged when i returned to the hostel. Plonked on my bed and slept for like 2 hours. Now I've washed up.. packed.. blogged.. and the receptionist isn't even around for me to pay for our laundry! To think I hoped he would appear earlier so that I can borrow the Sound of Music DVD to watch through the night. I'm going to Salzburg in 4 days time and I haven't watched the show.. So Disappointing!!
Oh well.. For now let's see what Youtube has to offer while I wait for the AWOL bum to appear.
Signed off at
8:50 am
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th reader
