day 3: budapest (7/12)

we went to the opera house first thing in the morning to buy tickets for "madama butterfly". the tickets were really quite cheap - 400 forints (just over 1 pound) per ticket. but it meant we got rather crappy views of the stage, but oh well, cost trumps everything else =)

we then headed for the magnificent st stephen's basilica. this basilica was named in honour of their first king, and apparently it houses his mummified fist..

we detected something was amiss that day, as most of the people at the basilica were wearing black.. but we still decided to go in and have a look.

it was the state funeral of ferenc puskas, recognised to be one of the best footballers ever, and definitely hungary's best. he was laid to rest in the st stephen's basilica, according to wikipedia.

outside of the basilica, a tv crew approached us to interview us - not surprising since we were the only bunch with black hair that actually entered the basilica - and asked us whether we knew who puskas was. out of the 9 of us, only jack did, so up he went on national airwaves =)

we split up again at the main subway station - deak ferenc ter - and the four of us visited the underground museum.

dunno why i'm fascinated by it, but it's interesting to see how "deep" the underground trains really are. actually, hungary had the first subway line running in continental europe (uk beat them to it by about 50 years).

we then went to the largest synagogue in budapest (or hungary, for that matter).

quite nice from the outside, but we didn't go into the synagogue proper as we had to pay an entrance fee.

we then met up with the other bunch for lunch at the christmas market at vaci utca. had a rather expensive lunch, but it was well worth it as we had tons of grilled meat. yum.

we split up again after that - we went to the hungarian national museum for a look.

looks rather nice from the outside, but too bad most of the exhibits are all in hungarian. we sped through the exhibits on hungarian history.. can't remember a thing about what i saw that day haha.

it's only 3:15pm, and the sun had sunk so low already. we had only about 8 hours of sunlight (or even less, if we decide to sleep in) to do our exploring everyday, but in a sense that's good cos we can have ample rest in between =)

we then crossed the bridge to visit the cave church.

it's called that way because the church is built into the cave.. which is a refreshing relief from the magnificent built up churches you can see everywhere in europe. on the extreme right, you can see the liberation monument - it's cos the church is just at the foot of gellert hill.

the main hall for worship, with an electric organ player in the foreground.

my traveling companions - hk, jh and chris - apparently loved climbing high places, so up we went climbing gellert hill. contrast this to the day before, where we took a bus up half of the hill.

view up half of the hill.. the cross of the cave church is actually perched on a rock not far away.

more aerial pics from the top of gellert hill =)

chilled with the gang for like half an hour there. quite fun actually, but it would be much better if the weather was warmer haha.

on our way down, we saw a gigantic slide that presumably provided a shortcut for the younger members of public. our childhood instincts then seized us - we actually went up and down the slide at least three times each, but it was fun! =P

we were supposed to meet the others at a bath at the foot of gellert hill, but we weren't able to meet them.. so we went off in search of food.

after eating in a cafe and buying some groceries, we trooped back to our hostel.. and played 24. it's supposed to be played by 2 people only - the deck of cards is first split evenly, the cards being placed face down. each player then reveals two cards from his hand, and attempts to make 24 out of the four values revealed, using +, -, x, / and (). cards with a picture are all considered to be 10. the winner then scoops up all four cards, and wins the entire game by reducing his opponents cards to 0.

to accommodate 4 players, we tailored with the rules - instead of four cards, there were eight; instead of 24, we were supposed to make 48. when one person ran out of cards, it became 36 with 6 cards. it was quite interesting to see how each of us arrived at our 48s and 36s - we each had our own ways to get there =)

after the other group came back, we swapped stories, and then headed to bed.

day 4: day trip to esztergom and visegrad (8/12)

we bidded goodbye to the other five traveling with us, and the four of us will be traveling together for another 8 days. we had an extra day in budapest, but as we'd already seen most of it, we headed north to esztergom by train, which took about an hour.

esztergom reminds me of ipoh - small, quiet, half-dead =)

we happened to pass by their market - pasar malam style, where a road is cordoned off for vendors to sell their stuff, but in the morning - so we decided to walk through it.

looks quite fresh haha.

town hall of esztergom, nothing much really. the main attraction here is the basilica, which we did visit later.

we ate lunch, then headed to the hill where the basilica is perched on.

en route..

view of esztergom from halfway up the hill.

crazy traveling mates, i have.

them in a less dangerous pose - from top to bottom, hk, jh and chris. the basilica is in the top left corner of the pic.

after reaching the basilica, we split and wandered in its gigantic compound.

interior of the basilica. it was really big - not surprising actually cos it is the largest basilica in hungary.

the basilica overlooks river danube, and on the other side, it's slovakia already.

they seem to have a penchant for high places..

we then went down the hill and went to the bus station, then took a bus to visegrad. traveling from place to place is actually quite cheap, to our relief. in hungary, buses charge according to the number of kilometres you travel, unlike in malaysia where bus fares drop if you travel much further.

after reaching visegrad, which is a super ulu-ated town, we then asked for directions to fellevar - a castle perched on top of a considerably higher peak.

this was the kind of path we were following. ulu? yeah.

the castle had, actually, nothing to shout about. it was just fun to trek up and down the hill leading up the castle.

view from the top of castle. it would have been much nicer if it wasn't that foggy.

yep, that was the castle we were at, viewed from a bus stop at the bottom of the hill.

we traveled back to budapest to catch "madama butterfly", tickets of which were bought the day before. the trip back was rather eventful, cos the bus broke down and smoke billowed from the engine. we were herded into another bus, which took ages to reach budapest cos of the jam near the city. thank goodness i slept most of the way, else i'd be darn bored.

a view of the hungarian national opera! we couldn't take pics during the performance cos it was banned.. it wasn't that enjoyable cos a) the view was crappy, but that's what you get with 400 forints, and b) we were clueless about the play. it was in italian with hungarian subtitles, neither which we understood. if not for the program booklet that hk bought, we would have left the opera scratching our heads.

had a late night snack in burger king before leaving for the hostel.. and more 24.

day 1: budapest (5/12)

actually this trip was planned only like 2 weeks before the actual thing.. but in a sense it was fun cos we didn't really have definite plans about where we're going, and it was flexible enough for us to modify the schedule as we saw fit..

we first flew to this an airport in balaton - a place 150km away from our destination, budapest.

our trip was eventful right at the start.. there were four of us who were supposed to go to the airport to catch this flight, and two of them managed to wake up late. one managed to catch a taxi to the next bus stop, and then boarded the bus after it; one had to take a taxi all the way to the airport, which cost him 40 pounds. ouch.

then on the flight, we met this senior flight attendant who made really weird announcements. before the safety announcement: "please keep quiet, or else the airplane won't fly", and after the plane landed and was taxiing to the airport building: "please sit down, this is not a school bus" (cos we're only supposed to stand up after the plane stops completely). classic.

yes, this is what the entire airport looks like. we're guessing it's built on an ex-military airstip.

there was only a couple of flights to and from the airport.. originally we wanted to see the balaton lake, but we junked the idea when we knew that there was only one minibus ferrying us to budapest from the airport per day.. and the transport doesn't come cheap, abt 10 euros. ouch.

the bus brought us to the deli train station, and after some time we figured out that we had to take a metro to our hostel.. after buying our ticket and sitting in the train for 10 seconds, suddenly all lights were switched off and it stopped moving. we didn't really know what was happening, until the crowd gave a collective groan after an announcement in hungarian. it wasn't until later that we knew that an accident happened somewhere down the line, and as a precaution all trains on that line were shut off. worse, we couldn't get a ticket refund! grr.

it was this time where we met another bunch of camb-ers who emerged from a 9 hour train ride from ljubljana (in slovenia), which we orignally planned to meet at the hostel itself. we split up again as some of us took a tram and some took a taxi.

after meeting up in the hostel, we went to a rather posh restaurant to makan.

so posh that even our water is served this way. thankfully it was free.

after makan, we went to walk around budapest. thankfully it wasn't that cold, else i'd have ran back to the room and stoned.

the keleti train station. there are three train stations in budapest - deli, keleti and nyugati, each handling trains traveling in diff directions.

a view of river danube at night. river danube cuts budapest into buda and pest, which were originally two distinct cities that grew too large and merged into one. on the left is the parliament building (in pest); the middle one is the buda castle (in buda); and a random hotel on the extreme right.

parliament at night. police presence was rather high that day, dunno whether it's a daily occurrence or something special happened that day.

after walking for close to two hours, we headed back to our hostel.

day 2: budapest (6/12)

explored buda first by taking a bus up castle hill. while exploring the pharmacy museum, hk and i lost contact with the main group. after searching for a while, we gave up and thus continued exploring on our own.

those look like bullet holes to me..

far view of the matthias church. the church has a long and colourful history before it, but i shan't bother with it here =)

interior view of the church. i somehow prefer gothic churches like this to opulent baroque ones - it's supposed to be a place of worship after all, instead of an ego-boost to the king that ordered its building.. simple is beautiful =)

the crown of st stephen. we didn't realise its importance until we visited esztergom, where tombs with important people inside had this crown engraved on its side. also, coins and the national coat of arms bear the same symbol. apparently, a king is only considered legitimate if he's crowned with this. wah.
the fisherman's bastion, was supposed to serve a protective function to the church but it never served its function.

view from the fisherman's bastion. foreground is buda while background is pest. pretty eh =)

ruins of mary magdalene church, the patron saint of my college =) only the tower stands now, the rest was destroyed during world war ii.

the buda castle houses the national gallery. we browsed thru two floors of it before giving up and proceeding on from the church.

view from the castle. the bridge you can see here is the chain bridge, the first bridge that connected buda and pest together. was built in the 19th century, but kena destroyed by the nazis during the war. it has been rebuilt, that's why it doesn't look that old.

we went down castle hill in search of the museum of medical history. it took us ages to find it cos it was really ulu.. but it was really worth it. kudos goes to the museum guide, although she only knew hungarian and german, she enthusiastically pointed out the stuff worth noting in the museum to us, even though most of the time we nodded back blankly at her. one of the museum exhibit was rather interesting - as this museum is the place where semmelweis was born and buried (don't worry, i don't know who he is too, but he's quite an important person in med), it showcased his red gown he wore when he graduated from cambridge.

we then went up gellert hill, as we saw the citadel prominently marked on the map.. but it turned out to be a disappointment as the citadel was converted to be an art museum, which you had to pay to get in. being scrooges we opted to see the scenery around the area =D

a view of the citadel. the statue on the right is the liberty statue, erected in remembrance of the soviet liberation of budapest (when it was built, public sentiment to the soviets were rather favourable.. but it changed after a few years)

more aerial photos haha.

we then headed back to the hostel we stayed in to leave a note for the other guys, in case they were looking for us. after that, we headed to the heroes' square.

this picture was taken about 5:45pm, but it's totally dark by then already. as for the history behind it, i leave it to wikipedia to explain it =)

we walked around the area, and saw this gigantic outdoor skating rink. we wanted to skate, but too bad we didn't understand the price list pasted on the entrance.. and the people there didn't know english. oh well.

after walking past the agricultural museum (the building lighted yellow in the previous pic) and a nearby bath, which is fed by hot springs, we went back to town to have our dinner - burger king. in our defense, we ate there cos it was cheap lor. where else can one get a full dinner at only 3 pounds?

feeling adventurous, we went up castle hill again, too see the night view of budapest. more aerial pics coming up =P

bottom part got cut out by my bag, which i used as a tripod stand. oops.

cool leh =) the bridge in the pic is the chain bridge.

we were lucky enough to see the funicular in operation - it brings pple up an inclined slope of 60 degrees at an affordable price. if my memory doesn't fail me, this funicular was operational since the 19th century.

feeling quite tired after walking so much in a day, we took the bus back to the hostel.. and were quite surprised to find that we came back earlier than the other group. hk and i then played 24 (a card game) while waiting for the rest to come back; when they did, we swapped stories on our days. went to sleep at about 1:30am.

.. from hungary and slovakia. awesome trip man, so many things happened during it haha.

really tired now. sleep first, blog later =)

haven't been up to much during the hols, basically pigging in bed until late morning, have brunch, game/watch movies till evening, then after dinner continue procrastinating. really fulfilling life, i have.

anw will be flying to budapest in 9 hrs' time, whee =) trip will take 11 days, so am not sure when this blog will alive again haha. but when it does, there will be tons of pics hopefully..

haven't started packing, so off i go packing my bags! =)