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WONDERCRUST

hard on the outside... (Part 4)

By Carolyn Chon

February 23^rd, 2014

mockba

Arriving at the station in Moscow after 60 hours on the train, was a nice feeling. It of course was great that we arrived during pretty awesome weather. After Kazakhstan, we both packed some pounds…on our backpack. Somehow, it felt harder to walk around. After Jules’ quick Cyrillic deciphering of how to get to our hostel, we made our way to the subway.

When we got to the station, we were both kind of dumbfounded. The station was effing gorgeous!! Then I remembered my one friend that I know of that has been there, funnily his name is Ivan…he told me to make sure I checked out their subways. As we were standing with our backpacks looking at the subway map to find out which line to take, we also noticed a big tour group of Asians. The minute one of us spoke loud enough it was like hey! Malaysian! and Hey! Singaporean!. So, it turned out to be a big group of Singaporeans who were doing the subway tour. One of them even invited us to join their tour (for which they probably already paid for). We of course declined, seeing we had 15kilos on our backs each.

We checked into our rooms, which was the most expensive we’ve spent on thus far, but worth every dollar! It was a nice end to our trip, really nice room, nice kitchen, nice shower… a sign that you’re almost close to home. We laid down for a bit before we made our way out into town.

While we were seated down enjoying some buskers’ playing music, a middle aged man approached us and asked where were we from… This story? Well, it turned out to be another pleasant memorable one.

Next up was Kremlin Square, we got there when it was slowly getting dark. I remember being mesmerized the second we laid eyes on it. To be totally honest, I was a little teary and I think Jules was too. Perhaps it was the beauty of Moscow, perhaps it was also because we were on our final destination, somehow we both were overwhelmed.

We then went in to this old but beautiful shopping mall right next to the Kremlin, though we had no intention whatsoever to shop, we went inside to see if the interior was just as exquisite as it was on the exterior. Nope, I didn’t take any photos inside even though it did live up to expectations, it was just a pretty mall. However, we were really in awe with their supermarket. It was as though only the billionaire Russians were allowed to go in, we did feel underdressed for a bit but who cares?! We’re backpackers, not high flyers!

that story with the middle-aged man

So, while we were watching the buskers perform, the man that approached us and asked us where we were from…

in the end asked both of us out on a date.

We were both hesitant and slightly cynical about it at first, I mean who wouldn’t be? Despite our better judgment, we went a head and said yes. Our date was set early in the morning and we were to meet him at a subway stop somewhere slightly outside of town. We both agreed that if he was still dodgy to us, we’d just make a run for it at the subway, we should be safe.

He turned out to be completely legit and not the psycho-rapist killer we had imagined and he took us through the scenic route to get to our date venue. Ahh, the beauty and serenity that morning coupled with this view was just perfect. I have to say though, that I was still very alert the whole time, keeping my distance while we were walking… just in case we needed to make that run.

And well, after about a half hour walk in the beautiful morning, we finally reached our venue. Took our sweaters off and got ready for our game of badminton date!

Yup, so when we told him we were from Malaysia, he said he’s met with a famous badminton player before, Punch Gunalan. Curious, we asked how and why, before we found out that he was the official umpire in one of the Russian Opens. After a little bit more chit-chat, he asked us to play a game of badminton with him the next day and that’s how we ended up here.

Playing badminton in the middle of a beautiful park, with an ex-official umpire!

We obviously got schooled and tapaued big time. He won all sets and told us bout the rules as well as new rules. What a great morning it was. Who would’ve thought that we’d be playing badminton all the way in Moscow, when we didn’t even play it back home. What a wonderful memory! Very randomly playing badminton with a Russian umpire in Kuskovo Park.

Mucking around.

bolshoi

On that evening, we decided to walk over to the Bolshoi to try our luck with any available shows and luckily for us, Swan Lake was on! Tickets were really affordable as well, though it was probably because it wasn’t in the main theatre, but in their smaller one. Still!! It was kinda awesome, Moscow really was giving us a perfect ending to our trip.

saint basil's cathedral

We called it the marshmallow church, cos the colourful bits on top does look like marshmallow in real life. We only stayed in Moscow for 3 or 4 nights, but we somehow made our way to check out the marshmallow church every night.

wondercrust, out.

And with that, we have to an end of the Wondercrust series. At times, I wished I had shot more photos, but hey that would mean I would lose out on moments if I keep looking through the lens. Sometimes, some things, some places, some faces, and some moments are just meant to be kept as archive in your head and not in a hard disk I guess.

We covered approximately 15,000km in five weeks. For the regular travelers, you’d know how short and rushed that was, for those that don’t travel so much, well five weeks seems long, but for the distance we covered, it really wasn’t. In the end, I suppose this trip could also be used as a recce, for future plans of travel to China and Kazakhstan. :)