Tuesday, November 20, 2007
.Hungary-Budapest.
4.5 days at Budapest, anticipating snow that never come. Maybe a little, but accompanied with rain. Erm, nvm, good things come late huh.
This is our supposedly last Bathie trip together, and I did enjoy myself despite the really bad gloomy weather, Mich zombie-fied on the last 2 days, Sue forever munching and complaining, Gerrie talking about how she needed to diet WHILE eating her sugary dessert and chocolates, and Jay being irritating as ever. haha. Sue was telling me on the taxi back home how we are like one family. Sometimes we irritate the hell out of one another, but at the end of the day, we still laugh everything off.
This trip was more than just sightseeing. Met an American, a Hungarian and a Brazilian. Lucas, the Brazilian, who seem to know many many Singaporeans, travelled with us for 2 days before he headed for Poland to see snow. (Damn it!) A nice guy who took great care of the girls. haha. Quite interesting finding out more about Brazil through him and surprisingly, could click with him pretty well. The American and the Hungarian lived just next to our hostel. Thank to them, we wouldn't be able to find our way to our ulu hostel man! Met them for dinner on Saturday night at their really cosy house and talked about some politics, the economy and ideas & views sharing session on Hungary, America and Singapore. It's quite fortunate of us to live in a rather democratic society where the government actually take great care of the citizens.
More of Budapest. Had a S$25 haircut there and ate really well. Visited Buda on the second day, when we went to the Castle Hill and took some nice views of their famous Danube River. As the weather was freezing, we couldn't travel long and were constantly looking for cafes to keep ourselves warm. It was so bad that at one point of time, I was unable to feel my hands and feet at all! Was at the central market and bought oranges that tasted really heavenly.
Service at Budapest is really bad and the locals don't seem to like Chinese a lot due to some reasons or so. On our third day, we walked around Pest towards Heroes Square where we saw the monument constructed to honour the 100th anniversary(1896) of the Magyar conquest of the Carpathian Basin. Saw many nice surrounding buildings as well. Ate at this restaurant for lunch where I tried the Goulash Soup. It tasted alright, but definitely not fantastic.
The highlight of the day was definitely the caving! We explored a cave that took us 2.5 hours. Some hilarious moments like Jay's fart stinking the whole cave, Jay and I successfully squeezing through a hole that seemed impossible to squeeze through, and Mich throwing stones at my butt. (wth!) The world was really small as we met 2 girls from Copenhagen, Pooi fun and her friend who happen to know Lucas as well.
After caving, we were so tired that we went back to our hostel immediately our really sumptuous dinner at Sze Raj Turkish Restaurant. In the hostel, held a farewell for Lucas as we drank some Sangria with him. The rest, except Mich and I, conked out after a while while we continued talking about Singapore and Brazil with Lucas till 3+am. It's quite amazing how he has been travelling alone for 4 months and this got me a little excited how travelling alone would be like.
Day 4 was just indoors. Mich and I took 3 hours to find a salon to cut our hair. (Too short!) After which, we headed to the market for lunch (the bread was awesome) and went to a thermal bath near our hostel which we truly regret when we saw Szechenyi Furdo on the last day. The feeling was great nevertheless and we just slept our evening away before we met Michael and his Hungarian gf, Imola, for dinner and drinks after which. Went into this club which was really nice, but forgot the name.
Finally on our last day, we saw an Opera at the Opera House which was kinda boring because the subtitles was in Hungarian. Mich and Sue happily fell asleep in the theatre, while Gerrie was smiling her way throughout the whole opera(amazing). After which, we had lunch at this chinese takeaway(bad service again!) before proceeding to Szechenyi thermal bath. I recalled how we cursed and swore when we saw how nice the premise was. We didn't have the time so we gave this a miss. What a pity! Next, we visited the Terror Haza, the once HQ of the dreaded AVH, the secret police, where we had our history lessons on Budapest. As I was really tired, I couldn't absorb much but it was depressing how those captives got tortured during the war period. We summed up our day with the dinner we had on Day 2 before heading back to hostel to get our backpacks.
This trip has been a very blessed one. We met wonderful people who brought us around and Sue was telling me how everything that happens doesn't come by accident (its first time that sue sounded logical) I am just glad that the company kinda make the whole trip better as Budapest, apart from the thermal bath and Danube River, is quite boring.
Will be heading for Berlin this Wednesday. Quite tired of all these travelling already. Berlin better be good. :) Meanwhile, I shall go do some work :P
floated away at
6:42 AM
