Trip to Russia in August 2009

And the second one...

Another trip with a tour group. Moscow and St. Petersburg are beautiful places with a lot of history and culture, although I wasn't able to communicate with the locals or read the signs well. The only Russian word I learned was "spaicima", Russian for "thank you", but I never actually heard the word said by any local. Some tourmates were horrible. Meal time was a disaster. Though the trip itself was good and Russia beautiful. Weather was also great at the mid teens with some clouds and rain patches.

We watched the Swan Lake ballet performance and the Moscow Circus. The ballet was good and the circus was quite enjoyable. There was more acrobatics than animal shows, which was good, for when I watched the chimps dance I was having goosebumps all over. I felt uneasy watching animals do unnatural things and couldn't help but imagine how many beatings they received. The funny part of the show was making cats do tricks -- and cats are definitely not good at being trained -- you could tell even right at the show! There was another show with folk dances and music and that was a good show as well.

The so-called Russian meals were... shall we say... catered to the HKers' palates? We were fed with pork stroganoff and chicken a-la-king. Go figure. Let alone the soggy western rice that's as soft as the Chinese rice. Yikes! And even so, the table manners and eating habits of our tour mates were so unappetizing that I had to be careful with where I laid my eyes on throughout the meals. I had to be glad, eventually, that most of the meals we had were Chinese afterall.

Photos here.