The Hermitage in St Petersburg, Russia

A documentary on the Kremlin in Moscow I watched last night inspired me to blog about one of Russia's greatest establishment - The Hermitage. It was my favourite of all places in Russia because of how breath-taking it was. So, enjoy!

Here's a quick summary of what exactly The Hermitage Museum in Russia is because I know it's not exactly the type of information one would keep in his or her head. So...


The Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg is, as you can see, a musem. In fact, it is one of the largest museums in the world. The royal Winter Palace of the Romanovs is also now part of the modern day Hermitage. It was started by Catherine the Great, one of the Tsarinas (female Tsar) who was one of the greatest Tsars in Russian history. She had brought the country much success and did a great deal in pulling them together (hence the name Catherine the Great) She wanted Russia to have something to show off, something the people could be proud of, thus she proceeded to construct and create the largest Museum in the world. When I say large, I mean humongous, gargantuan, colossal, Stratospheric!


A documentry once showed a videographer simply walking through the entire place wthout stop from room to room just to show every single room in this palace. It had taken almost 4 hours without stop for them to cover everything. During the revolution when Lenin's men had stormed the place looking for the royal family, they charged in shouting and carrying all sorts of weapons with the purpose of enprisoning the royal family. However they ended up charging from room to room for an hour looking before actually finding the royal family. How anti-climatic is that. Plus, it's filled with such an array of exhibits, purchased from different corners of the world which numbers up to 3 million. It would take 8 years to see if you spent 1 minute on each exhibit everyday. We didn't find it really interesting because most of it was art pieces, I even got to see Da Vinvi's! However it was the history of the various art pieces that really got me listening. I mean, I will never get what impressionists or surrealists are doing.

A proffesionally taken photo of the exterior of the Hermitage.

My own gloomy picture of the hermitage. It snowed later that day even though it's the start of summer.

Here's my sister's way of keeping warm in cold Russia - Bao-ing a spare shawl round her belly.As you can see the interior of the museum/palace is absolutely splendid. The opulant interior architechture was overwhelming (Tourguide's favourite word... Opulant) Parts of the museum were actually copies of Italian or French or whatever country's museums and churches because the Tsars during that time were damn competitive. Kinda like mordern day Ch-eye-na. (oops)This one is supposed to be a copy of a church or something in Versailes I think.This is an entire gallery of war heros. One is taken by me and the other one is stolen from google. You can guess pretty easily because of my mum's head in the picture. HAha.. We were the only Asians around man...And I simply love the fact that when I see this picture online, I know that I've been there. So cool!!Talking about Russia links to Communism right? That's what everyone says when I mention Russia. In case you don't know, USSR is long gone and they have a new monarch on their hands. haha. Lenin & Co. weren't happy that the Tsars were enjoying such lavish lives while they were starving in ghettos, just look at their chandeliars. Most of them are gold plated cast iron, some are silver coated, some are diamond studded, but there was one pretty funny one, it was plaster of paris or styrofoam or something like that painted in gold. Ever wondered how they lit the chandeliars in the past? These babies were mostly more than 15 feet off the ground! Plus have you ever seen the ladders that we use today in history books? No right. Trick is, the chandeliars were retractable! They were released down ever morning and lit, then pulled up by a rope after that! Smart right.

Anyways, to end off, the most hilarious painting I saw during my entire trip. Don't you think he looks like some cartoon? Btw these photos were illegally taken. We had to pay 100 rubles to take photographs and 200 to take videos. (We never paid anything... shhh!!)

Saturated Niceness

I've been getting spoilt at work. I'm still not getting any food and my pay isn't getting any higher, but I'm getting spoilt psychologically because the customers are sooo nice. A few months back I would have considered a day without screwing up to be a good day, and it would be considered bad if I spilt something, or broke something, etc. But now, I consider it a good day only if I've had a fruitful conversation with a customerl, or if someone has tipped me personally, which, I'd been getting for the past week. I've told a couple of people of the very nice (and very cute) customers I'd spoken to a couple weeks back for about a half hour. Monday, when I felt like I would kill anyone who came in my way, I thought to myself, God please make this a less suckier day. Voila! I look in front and see them sitting down in a nother area. I was so happy I literally cleared my dirty plates and cups with such a huge smile me cheeks ached. I think they may be down today again but I've got that sickness hich I get once in a while.

Speaking of which, I haven't gotten this 'attack' in 2 years, the last I got this was while I was a SAJC, and ended up puking my strawberry banana drink all over the clinic toilet. Let me try to create my first Hyperlink: Sick

Oooo it's right at the bottom where you see the bananananana.

Kuantan and Peace!

I've just had left over Beehoon and Durians for lunch, which, compared to the hawker food I've been having for the past 4 days tastes like dry oatmeal. Kuantan was fantastic because

1) the food was unbelievably good, hence I engorged myself almost 24 hours a day

2) The service apartments we stayed at rocked cos there was aircon and the close proximity we had just made things much easier compared to hotel rooms, but much better than sleeping bags. A right amount of personal space in my opinion.

3) The people 'taking care' of us were simply lovely, driving us to and fro, bringing us to all the sights and sounds (mainly the beach and the megamall) and not complaining one bit. Plus they fed us sooo well!!

Anyways, this is a proper post compared to my previous few, I didn't even blog about Russia as much as I am about to on Kuantan, perhaps it's because it was a time I was truly happy in a long time. With the people and energy around me, and the kids which make you laugh your socks off. My baby guitar got a few knocks here and there, but it was hell worth it.

Oh yes, I bet several of you are probably wondering what Kuantan? Ok, Last Friday, a bunch of us from church (a huge bunch of 30+) sat on a lau pok, shaky bus for 8 hours driving along the malaysian east coast to Kuantan for a mission trip. But honestly, this didn't feel like one because of all the food, lodging, and shopping we did. :D Basically we put up a skit for the kids over at Kuantan about the importance of.... Ok no worries, I'm not going to blabber a sermon right now.

Pictorial!!

We needed to cast 3 girls as bimbos. and Cons kena-ed! Muhahahaha...

Guys stop drooling, 2 are taken. Haha, the bimbos trying to look as brainless as they could. After the show, they actually had a whole beeline of boys lining up for a 'meet and greet'! It wasn't part of the plan though, but it sure was funny! One went up to them and pai sehly said they were pretty. Haha!! But... Even bimbos get exhausted, candid shot of the head bimbo Cons, aka CRISTABELLE.

Oh yes, they had planned on calling themselves Cristablelle, Tinkerbelle, and Dingdongbelle.

Camwhoring lor....

And get ready for this....



The 2 resident nerds I guess. Those are cons's specs, so lets see who's the nerd in real life! :D
his mum did my eyebrows, and she was dying to draw his too, haha.. really funny

I had sooo much fun! :)

As I sit here at 2am, listening to Pink's 'Dear Mr President' for the gezillionth time, even if my computer can't play it so many times, I've been hearing it inside my head replaying itself without my permission. It's there when I work, when I walk, and even when I sleep. Yes, I had an entire dream with that song replaying and replaying and repaying and replaying so much that I was exhausted in the morning. Still, I can't get enough of it.

I'd spent my last Sunday evening watching a couple perform an acoustic set at the Ben & Jerry's at Cathay which encourages live performances. I did this with an entire Waffle Sundae to me, myself and I. (yes I went alone) I was feeling pretty sucky, the suckiest I'd ever felt, and having the financial ability to gourge didn't help much except for making me an inch wider. I love acoustic sets, especially when the vocalist is good, so I couldnt help but sit my ass there for a whole good hour listening to the emoest of songs, such as 'All or Nothing' or 'The First Cut is the Deepest', 'Collide', the songs that can really make the heartbroken break their hearts even more. But those are the songs with the 'kick' which many lack these days. It actually made me feel slightly better listening to emo oldies, I just wished I could have sat there even longer and just had the pair sing songs I wanted.

qwerty

I'll get over this, everyone does eventually.

I wish I would.

A song that really means something, I'm surprised she's not arrested though.

A song that really means something, I'm surprised she's not arrested though.

Lights

Im having lousy cheap biscuits. I've never had such lousy biscuits that aren't soggy. (just imagine how they'd taste if they were)

Anyways, I have so much I want to tell you guys but I just don't know where to start, and I'm not really keen on doing that random update that I always do, I think you're quite sick of it. Haha...

Don't you think the Lights are taking over the world?not the fluoroscent or incandescent, but the lights we get with Coca Cola, Pepsi, cigarettes, milk and I reckon it's going to be hitting pork pretty soon. It's just so expected of humans, to come up with something, and than later come up with an alternative which is supposedly healthier than the previous. Skimmed milk, Low fat sugar( if there's ever such a thing) Marlboro Lights, (it's called that not because the cigarette lights up as so I thought but becase one stick contains less nicotine/tocacco than a regular stick) , Less sweet Ribena (why don't you just use less?) It's a gimick I think we've all fallen prey to. Now instead of one sachet of sweet white sugar, we add 2 packets of less sweet brown sugar. Instad of smoking one cigarette? We smoke 2 light cigaretts. You know what I mean.

Coca Cola Zero (Then what was Coke Light all about?)