Hi hi hi!!! Too distracted to do anything else so I'm going to blog about my first day in Russia :D
Day 1 - 5 May 2016
Saliheen and I flew from Singapore to Moscow via Singapore Airlines for 10.5 hours - flight was uneventful but that didn't mean we weren't exhausted by the end of it! It was kind of sucky having to wait for another flight to go to St Petersburg after that but we powered through with what little sleep and coffee we could get. We made the joint decision to visit St Petersburg and Moscow so if we were gonna be jointly cranky while waiting for our flight out to St Petersburg, so be it!
We chose S7 Airlines for our flight to St Petersburg simply because they marketed the right thing at the right time - 3 months ago, we were looking for a trusted Russian airline which does domestic flights and I chanced upon their viral marketing video here (6.2 million views as of today) while watching my favourite internet show (Thanks Philip DeFranco!) Their website is user-friendly and has an English version so we were happy to pay SGD350 for 2 tickets. We didn't get to float around and play with colourful balls in their plane like in their viral video though hahaha nak sue for misrep boleh tak haha!
We didn't want to worry about figuring out public transportation and we read that we'd have to be careful about getting picked up by crooks disguised as taxi drivers at the airport so we pre-booked a car with Welcome Taxi for convenience and a peace of mind. It has fantastic reviews online... and rightfully so! Loved their service.
Anyway, our designated driver greeted us at the Arrivals gate and even though he didn't have to, he helped us translate our conversation with a staff at the airport's mobile shop when we wanted to buy SIM cards for our phones. Eternally grateful! He was one of the much nicer Russians we met during our trip (That should give you an idea of what I think of the other Russians we encountered kat sana...)
Journey from Pulkovo Airport to our hotel in St Petersburg should have taken 40 minutes max but there were setup preparations being carried out for the upcoming Victory Day so traffic was particularly bad and we arrived at our hotel only after 1 and a half hours. Which still isn't too bad la, cuma it is a little frustrating to be able to see your hotel entrance from a near distance but taking forever to inch forward towards it haha.
We stayed at Golden Triangle Hotel in St Petersburg! It is a decent hotel in a fantastic location - only a minute's walk away from the Hermitage and Nevsky Prospekt (where we wanted to spend most of our time) so we were quite happy with our choice of hotel. Ada pros and cons just like any other accommodation of course, but I will blog more in a later entry ok.
As you can see from the gambar above, one of the pros is the fact that this hotel tak lokek bantal. Haha!
Anyway, after checking in to our hotel, Saliheen and I ordered some food in for dinner and then spent the last few hours of the day (and last few ounces of our energy!) walking down to the Hermitage to ambik gambar and marvel at its beauty... as well as gawk at the sky which was still bright out at 9.00pm wtf #apani #mindfuck
More pictures from other days coming up in the next entry! Actually tak sia sia stuck in traffic for the Victory Day setup because being in Russia during the Victory Day period also means we could watch their parade practices in action #muai
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