St. Petersburg – Day 1 (round-round Peter)

Saint Petersburg (Peter) nice. I never believed there’s such a lovely place in Russia (Moscow is not lovely, I repeat, Moscow is not lovely!). I won’t put so many words because I neither have the idea nor the time. See for yourself

Day 1

The night before, we took 15-hour train to St. Petersburg from Nizhniy Novgorod (Gorky). Playing card was one of the way to kill time, besides eating and gossiping. Surprisingly, I slept better in the wagon’s upper bunk (despite multiple loud snores) than in my own bed in hostel!

Boat trip along the Fontanka canal. Bright sunny day after a happy brunch. Saint Petersburg is dubbed Venice of the North, except it’s probably much more beautiful and much cheaper than Venice.

With a local St. Petersburg tour guide, Denis Teplygin. We took the boat trip on a Friday. He must either be skipping work or fired. Ngenge He’s a nice person though

On the boat trip, we went under some 400 bridges along the canal.

They call this The Church of the Saviour and Spilled Blood. It looks like one of those Moscow’s St. Basil, but this one is nicer.

The jumping, photogenic, Asian hippies in front of Blood-Spilling Church (Can I say pun intended? Because I never got that right )

We walked along the embankment and found this cute baby bear! Baby bears are everywhere in St. Petersburg and they’re wildly tame! But can’t snap all their pictures though because we have to pay to their masters, else we’ll get snapped by mama bears…

These Hummers are abundant in St. Petersburg…

Winter Palace, one of the six Hermitage in St. Petersburg. Seriously, I’m not even finished one tenth of the whole thing… It’s too huge!

St. Isaac’s cathedral

Nevsky Prospekt – like the Oxford Street of London. Lotsa happenings.

Kazanskiy Cathedral – damn big can’t take the whole picture with my normal digicam.

Inside the Kazanskiy cathedral

I don’t know why, but Kok King likes this dome of the Kazanskiy Cathedral though.

But I like the domes in Hagia Sofia of Istanbul more…

Neva River @ Sungai Langit. The end-pose of the day. My feet were strained because we were forced to walk 12 hours around St. Petersburg by our tour guide Dennis Teplygin.