Prev post: Church of The Savior on Spilled Blood

Date: 7th April 2012

 

After the (exterior) visit to Spilled Blood, we walked back towards our hotel.

 

We came across more canal:

 

with obviously beautiful buildings (and frozen surface canals):

 

More beautiful buildings:

 

Some of the buildings house embassies, like this one:

 

Many bridges too, like this one:

 

Oh, a T-junction of canals:

 

Hotels too, like this one:

 

The walk was never boring:

 

Scotland Yard in St Petersberg? I’d be darned!

 

with horse-drawn carriages too?

 

Upon checking, it turned out to be some film shooting!

(This was further proven the following day, when the same building no longer had the Scotland Yard signage!)

 

since it was still not dark, we decided to detour a bit and revisit the square in front of The Hermitage:

 

It was almost closing time (museums close much earlier in winter), but there were still crowds of people there!

 

We eventually walked back to our hotel, from the other end of the canal (unlike the morning walk home) and saw The Hotel Moika 22 Kempinski that looks so grand (I wonder what the rate is like?):

 

This time our hotel is on the left of the canal:

 

If you can see the maroon colored signage, that’s where the entrance to our hotel is:

 

Next: A long Walk to The Blue Mosque

 

 

 

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Prev post: More Inside The Hermitage

Date: 7th April 2012

 

After the visit to The Hermitage, we got back to our hotel for a brief R&P (rest and pRay). Once we felt better, we started to take another walk in Piter. This time our destination is the Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood.

The name of the church is quite a mouthful, so most of the time it is referred to as “Spilled Blood”

If earlier in the morning we turned to the right at the main street, this time we took  a left turn:

 

This main street has very nice buildings such as this:

 

and this (some memorial):

 

Not long later, we came across another canal, and looking to the left, we saw the church in a distance:

 

As we got closer to it:

 

The view that we left behind:

 

Another quick photo shoot:

 

The onion-shape domes of the church are so typical of Russian Orthodox design:

 

Every part of the church exterior were well decorated:

 

Being immediately next to the canal makes it look more attractive:

 

As we got to the front:

 

It was almost closing time, so we didn’t go into the church:

 

Long and straight canal:

 

While DH was busy taking shots of the onion-shape domes like this:

and this:

 

I spotted the longest limousine I’ve ever seen in my life:

 

and another one (obviously they are for hire):

 

 

They (the limous) seemed to be popular for special occasions such as birthdays and weddings, like this couple (in front of me) who came out from one of the limos:

 

The church and the surrounding area must be favourite places for wedding photo shoots.

We went to a nearby area where one could find 2 rows of souvenir stalls.

The ubiquitous Russian dolls on sale (I have stopped buying souvenirs quite some time ago):

 

It was freezing cold, with more snow flurries, so I decided to have a jump shot, before we went back to our hotel :

 

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Prev post: Inside The Hermitage

Date: 7th April 2012

 

We kep t on walking though we knew we hardly sat down for over 3 hours now. We wanted to take a break at the cafe, but the place was fully occupied!

So, we continued our walk around the place:

 

I sat for a while whenever I could:

 

Another huge room:

 

One corridor was adorned with the drawings of military leaders of the past (I think):

 

We finally arrived at the Throne Room:

 

Despite having impressive rooms and corridors, the throne is rather simple:

 

Another grand room:

 

We visited the Oriental (China and Japan) Exhibition Room and the ground floor’s Ancient Egypt area very briefly.

While trying to find the Oriental wing, we came across a few rooms that house paintings by great painters of the world such as Leonardo da Vinci, Rembrandt, Monet, Van Gogh, but unfortunately at most rooms we were not allowed to take any pic.

Me with van Gogh’s:

 

Here too:

I can imagine how Arts enthusiasts will enjoy this part of The Hermitage:

 

while I decided to walk my way out:

 

Ah, another elaborate ceiling:

 

The outside view was so gloomy:

 

Came across Picasso’s:

Suddenly I turned Art-appreciator (is there such a term?)

 

Eventually we (heavy-heartedly) left the place… By then it was almost 4pm, which means we had spent over 5 hours in the museum!!

 

A quick view across the river (we would be walking there the following day)

 

a last look at the grand place before we walked towards our hotel:

Honestly, the pix that I have in here (and the blog entry earlier) do not do justice to what this place has to offer!! you have to come here yourself to appreciate the huge collection on display and the well-decorated rooms where these exhibits are placed!

Not so busy traffic for a Saturday afternoon:

 

We sure were glad we finally arrived at our hotel entrance:

 

This is the courtyard inside the building, where our room is on the first floor:

 Next: The Spilled Blood

 

 

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Prev entry: Good morning Piter!

Date: 7th April 2012

 

If this entrance is not impressive, I don’t know what is:

 

Waiting for my “cameraman” to join me upstairs:

 

The view from where I stood (as in the picture above):

 

There are so many original paints of the royalties, but what really caught my eyes were the elaborate ceiling fresco like this one:

 

One of the famous rooms (The Emerald Green Room?)):

 

Many times I just couldn’t resist looking at the ceiling:

 

Another beautiful room, with well-stocked show-case cabinets:

 

Ceilings and walls, all well decorated:

 

Trying to imagine how  life was, a few hundreds years ago:

 

Since the place is so huge, obviously there are a few entrances/exits. Here’s one of them:

 

Many beautiful corridors too, like this one:

 

View from another angle:

 

It was just sooo impressive, from one room:

 

to another:

 

and another:

 

via many corridors like this one:

 

The view of the other end of this particular corridor:

 

 

I looked out a few times, and saw the queue kept growing!

-

 

Next: More Inside the Hermitage

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Prev post: On the Way to St Petersburg, Russia

Date: 7th April 2012

 

We woke up that morning, to be greeted by this view out of our window:

 

Not deterred by the cold weather outside, we were determined to go out for a walk. But, first things first. Breakfast:

 

Our hotel is along this Moyka canal, with the entrance near the maroon-coloured signage, on the right of the picture:

 

It was about 9am, wet and cold Saturday morning and the main road was still quiet:

 

At the end of the street, we turn right. Lo and behold, what a view:

 

Our first stop would be the greenish building, known as The Hermitage, once the Winter Palace of the Russian Tsars and Tsarinas, but now is one of the greatest museums in the world!

 

Facing the Hermitage, a bit to the right, is no less impressive (government office) building:

 

Another building directly facing The Hermitage, and I decided to jump :

 

It was freezing cold, and jumping helped to warm me a bit :

 

We walked into the courtyard of the Palace Museum, the ground was white with fresh snow:

 

We even had a pic of our feet:

 

The museum opens at 10am, so at 9.30am we followed the crowd and headed to the entrance, to queue for the tickets.

(We made the mistake of not booking/purchasing online. Those with pre-purchased tickets were the first to be allowed in)

 

At almost 10.30am, we finally managed to go in and purchase our tickets:

At 400 Rubles per person, that was not cheap, but definitely worth it!! Will tell you later…

 

Next: Inside the Hermitage

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-

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Date: 6 April 2012

Our flight out of KLIA was via Emirates, in the wee hours of the morning. The night before, we arrived at the airport at 11pm. Soon after we checked in, Bok came to spend some time with us:

 

When it was almost midnight, we decided to clear the immigration and headed towards our departure gate. The surrounding area was very deserted and quiet, except near a couple of gates including ours, Gate C26.

Me accessing the Internet for the final round:

 

 

Soon after airborne, we were served some snacks, after which we decided to get some sleep.

 

We woke up a few hours later to be served breakfast:

 

(I think so far, the food served on Cathay still ranks first )

 

We arrived at Dubai the following morning Dubai time for a few hours transit.

 

Our next flight would be at Gate 201:

 

Two meals later ( lunch and snacks)  we were ready to land in St Petersburg:

 

Cleared the immigration, took a cab and we eventually reached at our small but cosy hotel room:

 

We were to spend our first 2 nights and the final night of our trip here (By The Hermitage Hotel)

Next: The Hermitage

-

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I’ve not updated my blog for over a month now… Not that I was not up to anything, in fact I was up to so many things that I didn’t have the time to update my blog .

 

Some of the excuses:

1. I was ultra-extra busy mixing “business with pleisure”, LOL!
2. I had a 12-day trip to Russia, Helsinki (can’t claim Finland), Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania
3. I updated my whereabouts on my Facebook wall
4. Despite wanting to stay at home and enjoy life, I am now back at work…
5. My notebook had lots of problem (which ended up me getting a new one! yeah, I am using a new notebook now)

Anyway, I transplanted an orchid from the pot to the ground a couple of months ago (because the stem was getting too long)  and 2 weeks ago when I came home from Russia I saw it in full bloom!

 

That’s all for now…

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Previous post: Jigokugani Park

Date: 11 December 2011

 

As we walked up to where the other monkeys were, we looked back, and saw ” the place for man/human” (the onsen):

 

Behind me was where the hot spring pool was:

 

where monkeys soaked themselves to keep warm:

 

or do other monkey business:

 

While a mum fed her baby:

 

the others enjoyed the warm water:

 

or bug-searching (and eating) activity:

 

here too:

 

This guy sure knew how to keep warm:

 

Must be very comfy:

 

And there I was, mesmerized by them (occasionally wishing that I too could warm myself up in the pool):

 

There’s also a dry way to keep warm, i.e. by being near the fire:

 

This I could join in!

 

Eventually that too was not comfy enough, I had to go back to the building at the entrance to the park, to warm myself up while DH continued to take more pix of the monkeys:

 

After quite a while there (almost 2 hours, I think!), we finally left the place:

 

It was another long walk, definitely over 2.5km one way, back to the bus-stop:

 

Cute and clean bus-stop:

 

With bus schedule and useful information too:

 

Soon our bus arrived, and we were on our back to our hotel to collect our luggage and head to Tokyo International Airport, Hanida.

 

Hence that’s the end of our Japan trip…

 

 

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