Birthday in Russia: Moscow (Part 2)

Our first day in Moscow was largely uneventful but it was a lot more festive and colourful on our second day! We decided to pay extra for hotel breakfast because we were told we could watch the military flyover at the hotel's restaurant located on the 8th floor. It was WORTH IT. Their military planes were magnificent and it was so surreal seeing Russian planes whizz by just above our heads. 

Day 5 - 9 May 2016

Watched the Victory Day parade and President Putin's speech on this big screen while having breakfast. We sat at the alfresco area initially, but moved in to catch the festivities on screen - because bila lagi kita dapat tengok Putin broodingly address his citizens while knowing he is a few metres away from where we were?????

AMACAAAAAAAAMMMMM PUTIN! Senyum la sikit. Kan hari baik bulan baik ni.

After his speech, we went out again to the alfresco area to see people milling around kat bawah while waiting for the military flyover. No pictures of the military flyover itself because aku busy Snapchat and ooh-aahing bila the planes buat formations whereas laki aku busy ambik video and taking in the sights and sounds haha. Dua dua tak terpikir to take pictures seh apakah maksud semua ini.....

HAHAHAHA can't stand the above picture, I told Saliheen nampak macam gambar targets!!!!! You know how in action-packed crime movies, the authorities/lead characters will always have a picture of their targets and the gambar always looks like that??? So secretive and very private and confidential kind. Tak ke sama??? Haha!

Picture of an elderly lady clutching at a picture of her husband dressed in military wear, whom we assumed died in the war or has a life story along that line :(

The rest of the other pictures above are of people waiting around and lining up to enter the parade square. We thought we could just jalan masuk together with them but turns out you need to have a ticket to masuk the square (where St Basil's Cathedral and other attractions are) on this day because there were Victory Day festivities (on regular days you can just go and walk around as per normal la). Meh.

Since we couldn't get in without tickets, and we didn't really have any itinerary planned on this day, we decided to just have lunch at the one and only cafe that was open during Victory Day (and within our hotel premises compound, which was barricaded). Thank God they had English menu and English-speaking staff! The croissants look biasa but they were yummy!!! Bread, pastries just taste lagi sedap in Europe somehow. And it was nice to look out of the window from where we were seated in the cafe while having a slow and relaxing lunch.

Some of the other stuff we saw after our late lunch, while heading back to our hotel:

Streets around our hotel were sooo quiet and look terbengkalai by 4pm! I think it's because (1) most people are either staying indoors or out at the parade square and parks for celebrations; and (2) our hotel area was barricaded for safety and the public couldn't masuk without any reason, anyway.

Actually we could have left the barricaded section if we wanted to la (since we had proof we were hotel guests) but almost all of the shops and malls and cafes were closed anyway so I didn't see the point - I anticipated this already when we were planning to go Russia during Victory Day week!

So we spent the rest of our time in our hotel, which was still muai since we paid a little bit more than usual for our hotel stay in Moscow heh. Might as well have some quality time together in the jembu hotel room la gitu. Little did I know I will have more "quality time" dalam bilik hotel in the next two days. Nasib kentang. Haha!

If you follow me on Snapchat, you'd already know why la. If you don't then too bad. Kau nak tunggu Instagram jadi macam Snapchat baru nak follow aku on Snapchat pe??? ............................. Eh???