time to decide...

A Good Apology??

I was watching a video that my friend posted on facebook this morning, and one thing got stucked in my mind. I can't agree more.

"A good apology has three parts - 1. I'm sorry, 2. It's my fault, 3. How do I make it right? Most apologies just skip the third part!"

Can't agree more~

Malaysia - there's where I call home!!!

My biggest regret for my trip back to Malaysia is not taking enough photos!!! I was just too relax there that I don't even bother taking any photos, except for a CNY dinner and my elementary school gathering.

Ok, so I took the flight from Moscow to Kuala Lumpur, transiting in Singapore Changi Airport. The flight wasn't as good as the one from Houston to Moscow, simply because I didn't get three seats in a row. However, the entertainment center managed to keep me occupied throughout the flight. I didn't sleep at all for the 11 hours journey, probably because I was too happy to head home.

The moment the plane touched down in Singapore, I was so happy. I had never been so close to home in over 5 years. I arrived in Singapore airport at 7am, but my 35 minutes flight from Singapore to KL was at 6pm. Of course I'm not gonna wait there for so long, so the moment I arrived, I went to the counter to change my ticket to the next available flight. So I'm all ready to board the next flight at 8.35am.

The flight was extremely short, only 35 minutes from take off to landing. It's a small plane B-737, but I was surprised that they have 8-9 very beautiful air stewardess in that small plane, serving people. One of them, a Malay (I thought she's Chinese, but her name tag suggest that she's not), are really beyond words. Her smile and her courtesy when service can just kill anyone. Haha, fly Singapore Airlines more often! :P

Ok, I finally arrived in KLIA at around 9.15am. The moment I stepped out of the plane and to the land of Malaysia, I was overjoyed. The feeling is just so beautiful. I was so happy that I was literally skipping around the airport. Tears started flowing in my eyes, but I managed to stop them before they get the chance to leave my eyes. Hehe. It's an indescribable feeling for stepping back in my home country after 5 years.

Actually my parents weren't expecting my arrival that day. They did know I'm going home, but they thought I would be home 6 days later. And I arranged to have my friend pick me up from the airport and take me home. When I got off the car, my dad, who was sitting in the living room was screaming at my mom, telling her that I'm back. My mom was on the second floor, and she thought my dad mistaken another guy as me. I guess it was a great surprise for them. :) Thanks to my sister, who kept the secret for me.

Fast forward to the Chinese New Year. I hadn't celebrated CNY with my family for 6 years already. The last time was 2003, before I came to the states. So it was really fun, to meet all my family members again. All my baby cousins that I hadn't met for 5 years have already grown up. Most are already in elementary school. Those who were in elementary school when I last met them are already in high school. Time past so fast. Fortunately I still can recognize them. However, there are at least 8 cousins that I haven't met before. They just join the family during the 5 years I was away.

Following are some pictures taken during the CNY dinner with my paternal family.

My siblings, my cousins and my aunts...



My cousins, the oldest one was a baby when I last met her.. This is the first time I met the other two...



Ain't she cute?


She's cute too... All my cousins are cute...



My elder brother...



My aunt, who always declare that she's in the same generation as us... lol...



My lovely parents....



Me and my parents...



My family + one cousin...



me and my mom...



my whole family - me, sis, dad, mom and bro...



my aunt...



my grandpa...



three generation of tan's family - dad, bro, grandpa, me...



my paternal extended family...



she was still a baby when i last met her 7 years ago...



and my gathering with my elementary school classmates... it was a nice gathering, we should organize more in the coming years....



I figured out a lot of things during this trip back to Malaysia. Even though I had been away for 5 years, it felt like I was just a way for a few days or a few weeks. Everyone still look pretty much the same (excluding the kids).

I'm 25 this year, turning 26 in a few more months. I have been living independently since the day I moved out from my home. But when I'm home, I felt like a big baby. In my parents' eyes, I'm always a kid no matter how I tried to convince them that I'm grown up and I can take care of myself. They treated me like a kid, which is something I missed for as long as I'm away from home. My mom take care of all the household chores.

The first day I was home, she got me the bed sheet and everything. I told her I can make the bed myself, and she kept asking me if I'm sure I can do it, if I need her help. It was funny. I have been taking care of myself for so many years, but she still doubt my ability to make my own bed. But the feeling is really good though, that you have someone who love you unconditionally. My family are not the type that say sweet stuff to each other. We never say "I love you" or "I miss you" or hug each other goodbye, etc etc. But everything is shown in a different way, and I can definitely feel it.

I was treated with a lot of good food back there. The great seafood in Klang, countless chicken rice, nasi lemak, burger ayam special, chicken chops (it's a western food, but I can never find it in the states), wantan noodles, teh-o-ais limau, gu lou yuk, shark fin, nai yau ha and too much others to be listed here. It's making me hungry now! I should have taken the photos of everything I eat back there.

Also, I met up with a lot of high school friends. It's weird, we hadn't met for so long, but when I met them, it feels like we hadn't met for just a few weeks. It's great to be able to catch up with them again. Many are planning to get married soon too. Haha. Wish I had more time to spend with them though. Some I didn't even get to meet due to time constraint.

The four weeks I spent in Malaysia felt so short. I wish I could stay a lot longer, but unfortunately, I need to work. I'll try to go home every year start from now. A place where you can leave for years and go back and still feel at home, that's what you call HOME. There's no other place on earth like HOME!!!

St. Petersburg - Санкт-Петерб

This should be my longest post ever....

I took an overnight train from Moscow to St. Petersburg. The 3rd class tickets (~$20) were sold out, so I have no choice but to buy the more expensive 2nd class ticket ($70+). 2nd class sleeps four in a room, while 3rd class' bed arrangement is more open (no room) and sleeps 6 in an area as big as 2nd class room.

I was fortunate enough to be placed in a room with a very helpful and friendly Russian girl, Carina, coincidentally same age as me. The other two in the room were an old couple. She's from St Petersburg, which means she speaks pretty decent English. She told me a lot about St. Petersburg and Russia in general. When we got to St Petersburg the next morning, the line to buy ticket for the subway train is too long, she decided to give me a token that she had in her purse. Of course I felt bad and wanted to pay her back, but she refused. On the day before I left, we went out for a dinner and I wanted to buy her a dinner to thank her for her kindness, but she refused. Instead she paid for me, she said I'm the guest. I can't beat her since the waitress can't speak Russian and she won't take my money.

Anyway, my first day went crazy after we went our own way after the subway train. I booked my hostel with Crazy Duck Hostel. This hostel is listed in my Lonely Planet guide, so I didn't bother to find out how to get there from their website. UNFORTUNATELY, the hostel had moved and the information on my guidebook is outdated. I walked to the old location, there's no signboard while the building number is hidden. I walked up and down the street a few times, asked a few local people, but to no avail. No one know where the hostel is. After 1 hour walking in the cold, I finally found someone who told me that Crazy Hostel had closed down, judging from her hand language since she doesnt speak English and I dont speak Russian. I then moved on to another hostel listed in the guide book. It's the Cuba hostel, one station away from where I was.

Once I got there, again, I couldn't find the Cuba Hostel. Walking up and down the street a couple of times and still couldn't find it. So I was really clueless and didn't know what else I can do. I almost decided to stay in one hotel that I saw down the street, but it cost $110/night. That's like WTH, I can stay in hostel for 7 or 8 nights with that money. While walking around helplessly in the -15degree Celsius weather, suddenly something brighten up my life. I saw an "internet cafe", apparently it's a cafe with only one computer using dial-up connection. Can't believe I will see such thing in a city like St. Petersburg.

I finally managed to figure out where the hostel had moved to. It was three blocks down it's old location. Someone was trying to play game with me. Since I was already in a location that will take me the same amount of time to walk back to the subway station as the amount of time to walk to the hostel, I decided to walked to the hostel. The whole process took me 6 hours! It was crazy, but well, I call them adventure maybe. Hahaha. What doesn't kill you, make you stronger. So by the time I checked in, it was almost 3pm. I took a rest, and decided to just go for a walk since I would have nothing to do in the hostel anyway.

The first place I went to is the Mariinsky Palace. It used to be a palace, but is used as seat of the city assembly. I'm standing on the blue bridge, which has the highest width/length ratio... it's probably only 10 meters long, but it's almost 100 meters wide...



St Isaac's Cathedral...


The typical huge door of European cathedral....

The spiral stairs going up to the top of the dome... From the top of the domes, you can get a 360 degrees panoramic view of St Petersburg...

The Mariinsky Palace viewed from top of St. Isaac's Cathedral...



some governmental building...


The Admiralty...



Church of the Savior on Blood...



When the signs say no parking on the street, it means it's ok if you drive up the curb... That's my guess... hahaha..



some governmental building that i forgotten the name....



The Bronze Horseman...


The major canal of St. Petersburg... It's snowing heavily...



The business district is across the river...



in front of the Admiralty...



The General Staff Building....



It's a really huge building....



The most famous landmark in St Petersburg, the Hermitage, or better known as the Winter Palace...



The Alexander Column....



the frozen canal....


Church of the Savior on Blood, my favorite building... It resembles the St. Basil's Cathedral in Moscow...


the inside of the church... tall columns, fully painted...




the museum... it was dark when i get there... never intend to go in anyway... museum is not my cup of tea...



saw some ice carving outside a 5star hotel...

 

 





a roadside bar made of carved ice blocks...



The Kazan's Cathedral, resembling the St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City...


Matrix... hahaha...



One of the many gorgeous subway station in st petersburg...



anyone planning to visit St Petersburg, please make sure you take two trips to the suburb... First one is to visit the Peterhof, only if you go in summer.... I'll tell you why later...

To get here, you need to take one of the minibus-taxi, known as mashrutka... One tip for you if you can't speak Russian, request the receptionist in your hotel to write a note in Russian to tell the driver to drop you off at Peterhof, because the driver can never understand you if you don't do that...

Why I said don't bother to visit in winter? Look at those grey boxes! Those are built around all the beautiful golden statue in the park!!!



super straight tree lines...



The Grand Palace...



 

This is the biggest reason why you shouldn't even bother coming in winter... The biggest attraction of this palace, in my opinion, is the Peterhof fountain... It's ok that they switch off the fountain since everything froze... BUT why the heck they cover up all their beautiful golden statues???



this is how it should look like in the summer... stunningly beautiful!!!



I didn't visit the interior because I was told that it will be pretty much similar to the palace I was going the next day... In fact the one I was going the next day is more attractive, or so I was told...

Oh yeah, if you can read Russian, you only pay 200 roubles... Just kidding, only Russian pay 200, all foreigners pay 500...

  

Right across the street from Peterhof is the St. Peter and Paul Orthodox Church....

 

There's a beautiful creek next to it...



and it's filled with colorful canadian ducks...





My another favorite landmark, the Smolny Cathedral, baroque style... It looks much better in real though...



Another shot to shows Russian parking style... Always one tire on the curb...



The famous Nevsky Prospect at night... It's a shopping street, similar to the Magnificent Mile in Chicago, except that it's a long longer and a lot more beautiful...



It was on this street where someone attempted to steal stuff from my backpack when I was crossing the street... I felt it and I turned over, he just walked away pretending nothing happened... Then I checked my bag and the zip was opened... Fortunately my stuff are placed well enough and he failed to get anything....



The next day, I took a trip to another suburb, where the Tsarskaye Selo is located. It's a very beautiful park that house the Catherine Palace...

Christmas trees....



Which path should I take? Look at how deep the snow was at the place I was standing...



Another romantic drama scene...



another one...



Once you walked past all these trees, you will be greeted by the magnificent Catherine Palace!









the interior of Catherine Palace... kind of disappointing...







If you visited this place a year later, it will look much better as they are repainting the building... Look at the difference between the new gold (right) and the old gold (left)...



Apparently Russian watch Jacky Chan's movie too!



On the last night I was there, I chose to brave the cold and take some night pictures of the beautiful buildings around this Capital of Art...

Along Nevsky Prospect...



A frozen canal....



 

The Gostiny Dvor, one of the first departmental store in the world, built in the 1500s.... Now it's the biggest in St Petersburg...



Church of the Savior on Blood...





Kazan's Cathedral...







The Hermitage (Winter Palace) and Alexander Column....





General Staff Building...

          



The business district...



The frozen river/canal...



Bronze Horseman...



St. Isaac's Cathedral...



The Mariinsky Palace...



St Isaac's Cathedral...

 

That concludes my trip in St. Petersburg... Not really, I did visit the Hermitage Museum on my final day before taking the overnight train back to Moscow to catch the flight to Malaysia the next morning... Nothing to mention about the museum though because I was there just to kill time....

The train journey back to Moscow wasn't that pleasant as I took the 3rd class train. Sleeping 6 in an area of 6 ft x 7 ft is not a very good idea. Worst of all, every room in the car is open, which means no door at all. So in the middle of the night, it gets so stinky in the car that I have to move towards the door to catch fresh air.

Arriving in Moscow at approximately 10am, I took subway train to the Domodedovo Airport for my Singapore Airlines flight back to Malaysia. Will blog about my trip in Malaysia next...

Moscow - Москва

Finally I have time to go through my photos taken in Russia, and blog about it.

I have had three failed attempts in blogging about my trip. I couldn't finish blogging about any of the previous trips. I tried to blog about my 3.5 months Europe trip, FAILED to finish it. I tried to blog about my 3 months National Parks road, but don't think I even started it, and I tried to blog about my 3 weeks Alaskan trip, and up to now I still haven't finished blogging about that trip. Now my Russia trip is only week, I'm pretty sure I can do it this time. Haha...

In my previous post, I bitched about how the signs in their subway station are all in Russian characters. This is what I mean...

Having a map that only labels the station in a-z character, how am I supposed to know which way to go? Fortunately everything goes a lot smoother after I checked in to my hostel, which provide me with a map in Russian characters...

This is the name of the station where my hostel is located at...

The state museum, at one end of the much celebrated Red Square...

The 270 degrees panoramic view of the Red Square...

The Lenin Mausoleum is located in the middle of Red Square, next to the Kremlin Wall... The mummified body of Lenin is still in the mausoleum, but no photographing is allowed inside. I can officially said I have met Vladimir Lenin, the premier of USSR in its early years....

In the other side of the Red Square is the St. Basil's Cathedral, with the colorful onion-shaped domes. It's the most famous landmark of Moscow, or so I think.

In just one day I have seen three couples takes their wedding photos here....

The Red Square....

The GUM departmental store, one of the most lavish shopping mall I have ever been to. It houses almost any high-end brands that you can think of.

It also boasts a very impressive interior....

The Red Square... It started snowing heavily later in that morning....

Heavy snow and I was outdoor all the time...

snow flakes on my camera...

The Red Square, viewed from the inside of St. Basil's Cathedral...

The state history museum...

The Grand Kremlin Palace, behind the Kremlin wall...

Some unique cathedral domes at the Cathedral Square in Kremlin...

Onion-shaped domes for cathedral.... I'm sure if this cathedral is built in Malaysia, there'll be people trying to burn it down...

The Tsar's Cannon... It's HUGE!!! It weighs over 38 tonnes, and the diameter of the calibre (bomb) is about 3ft...

Some guard posing for photos... He was walking around, but when he saw me trying to take the photos of the cannons, he stopped and posed!

a frozen fountain near the underground shopping complex outside kremlin...

There're a total of seven skyscrapers that carry very similar design. These skyscrapers are called the Stalin Skyscraper...

Stalin Skyscraper 1...

Stalin Skyscraper 2

The Cathedral of Christ the Savior, another cathedral that would be burned if it were built in Malaysia (because a small group of extremist will argue that it's design will confused the Muslim to take this place as their place of worship due to its resemblance to a typical mosque design)...

compare that to this mosque (Muslim's worship place)... aren't they similar?

walking around in the cold.....

i forgotten whose statue is this...

ice carving outside of the cathedral...

the monument of Peter the Great, which also known locally as Peter the Ugly...

the frozen river the run through the city of Moscow...

stalin skyscrapper 3...

the biggest and most impressive of all Stalin's skyscraper (4)... it's the main building of Moscow's State University....

Stalin Skyscraper 5... i didn't manage to catch the remaining 2....

St. Basil's Cathedral at night...

Red Square...

GUM deparmental store...

the state history museum...

Red Square from North Side...

I have to mention this, even though the subway stations aren't equipped with any signboards in English, most of them have very impressive art works... this is how a typical subway station looks like...

oh and this is a place that has a lot of eye-candies... can't deny this, Moscow girls are absolutely GORGEOUS, not just 1 or 2, but a big percentage of them... walking into their subway station make u feel like walking into a top model recruiting agency...