Birthday in Russia: Moscow (Part 4)

Banyak sangat enjoy on Day 1, Day 2 and Day 3 in Moscow sampai I jatuh sakit on our 4th day in Moscow :( 

Saliheen and I have a habit of bringing medication (Panadol, po chai, plasters, minyak kapak, etc) on our holidays but turns out our local Panadol dosage had no effect on the virus affecting me in Moscow wtf. Had to get Panadol from a local pharmacy baru jalan seh... somehow their local Panadol punya dosage felt higher and stronger??? Kecoh. Dah la leceh nak dapat medication for fever, flu and cough in Moscow (more details on that later)

Day 7 - 11 May 2016

Popped some Panadol pills before leaving our hotel to start the day - first stop was Museum of Cosmonautics! I don't have a particularly strong interest in the mechanics of space travel but Saliheen very much does, so what's a supportive wife to do, amirite...? Not like Saliheen had any interest in sickeningly sweet cupcakes when he willingly followed me to dessert spots all around NYC, amirite..................

Took a private car ride via Welcome Taxi to the museum - we wanted to cancel our transfer from hotel to airport for our flight back to Singapore actually (because we wanted to use the hotel's airport transfer service instead) but turns out we could replace it with another trip. So we used that for our ride to Museum of Cosmonautics heh:

Very interesting to see how an actual spaceship looks like on the inside (there was a true-to-scale model in the museum, siap dengan lobang jamban), to see pictures and watch videos of how astronauts did their work in space and to see exhibits of food items and other things they bring out for their regular day-to-day living out in space. Also, last picture is of the actual spacesuit worn by one of the astronauts on the iconic Apollo 11 trip i.e. first spaceflight that landed humans on the moon. That was pretty cool to see!

I wouldn't necessarily recommend this museum as a 1st choice but if you're like my husband and always wanted to be an astronaut when you were a young child, then by all means. (I guess it's true you learn new things about your spouse everyday.................) Plus the museum is small so you can complete the whole thing within 1 hour. 

Also, I just wanted to add this in because I think it's fun to get other people's reactions (Saliheen's eyes widened SO HARD when I showed him this hahahahaha) - nothing to do with the museum we went to, but just something sort of related to space travel:

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Hahahahahahahahaha!!!!! Sorry, I'm just dickin' with ya ok. Tapi tak kelakar ke?????

Ok la ok la, I've read that this was a fake meme created by a satire website similar to "The Onion" (apparently those pictures are of real astronauts but captions are made up) but that shit is still hilarious to me la. Lolol. Even if the actual astronauts are the ones who made those captions, I think it'd be more out of dark humour - which I love and appreciate - than an actual experience la. I think... and I hope...?????

ANYWAY. Back to real life where loser me and Saliheen couldn't figure out which train station to go to after that haha! So kita tried our luck again and booked an Uber - nasib baik our luck tak kentang sangat because we got a young Uber driver who could understand simple English... again! A 25-minute ride for 315 rubles, which is SGD6.50 wtf takde lagi murah lagi pe sak. Kalau aku tinggal kat Moscow, hari hari aku naik Uber! (Oh wait...)

Dropped off at Teatralnya Square, which is directly opposite Bolshoi Theatre (very famous opera and ballet theatre in Moscow), took some pictures then settled down for lunch nearby. Took some pictures of the Karl Marx stone monument too but I can't find any pictures now so here's a sample off the internet:

Last remaining monument dedicated to Karl Marx, which was erected in 1961. Inscription reads "Workers of the world, unite!" by the way. Haha. Hidup pekerja! Kerja la kau sampai kau mati! Oh tak eh hahaha.

Had grand ideas of going to Upside Down Cafe after that for a slice of birthday cake for myself heh, but I started feeling really ill and nauseous and didn't think I could make the 12 minute walk to the cafe and then back to our hotel (when I could have, under normal circumstances) :( 

Cheered up a little when we got to our hotel room and saw this on the desk:

Very tickled by the "Dear Mrs Binte" on the card! I'm amused at the thought of there possibly being a confused discussion between the hotel staff while they tried to figure out which part of my 5-part name is my surname (Which technically I don't have as a Malay person anyway haha)

Slept for a few hours, in hopes that my fever, flu and cough will subside. But I woke up still feeling sick so we washed up and went out in search for a pharmacy! We've been going in and out of convenience stores and supermarkets throughout the day and the day before, you see, but couldn't find any Panadol! Which puzzled us at first, but when we Googled, it turns out supermarkets and convenience stores in Russia aren't allowed to sell Panadol or lozenges, etc off the shelves, like we have in Singapore! We had to go to a pharmacy, get a queue number, wait in line to get a prescription and pay for the medication at their dispensary what what..............

Oh, the things, the things! The things we take for granted in Singapore. Sigh.

Maybe because their medication have stronger dosages than our local ones eh??? I don't know la, I just didn't want to be sick for the rest of our holiday so we went to a pharmacy behind our hotel to get me some medication. The staff who prescribed and dispensed the medication didn't understand English so we tried our luck and typed in our message in English to Google's translator app and converted it to Russian before showing it to her. Boleh paham pulak dia tu! She nodded and gave us a thumbs up and I was so relieved. Phew! And betul betul she gave me Panadol for fever and lozenges for my sore throat (which was causing my cough) haha. Tak balek modal seh kalau dia salah paham and kasi aku obat untuk other ailments. Tak pasal pasal lain pulak sakit aku nanti.

Went back to the same cafe we went to during Victory Day since it was just opposite the pharmacy, ate dinner then walked back to the hotel because I was feeling in the dumps and just wanted to crash. I knew Saliheen wanted to walk around St Basil's Cathedral area and explore somemore though :( But he didn't insist, God bless his sweet husband soul, so that made me even more determined to recuperate and recover by the next day. It was going to be our last full day in Moscow  the next day anyway, so all the more it was important I baik sakit!