During the first 3 years when I was in SQ, I used to get to go Moscow&Houston quite frequently. People used to call me the Houston girl when I shared my roster, cos Houston is not an easy flight to get, like Rome and Athens...which I have not been to, even though I flew with SQ for almost 6 years.
I really love to go Houston...probably more than any other States flights, there is an unexplainable feeling I get whenever I am there. Some crew may say they don't like Houston as it feels "dead" but that's what I like about it. It isn't like New York or San Francisco where seemingly every 2-3 hours there will be the sirens of a fire engine or police car, yet there is everything else that you would look for in the States (i.e. food and shopping).
As for Moscow, I would say a lot of crew dread going Moscow, especially in the dead of the winter period where it can get as cold a -30 degree Celsius. I wouldn't say I dislike Moscow, as to get to Houston, we have to go through Moscow, it is a package! I have been to Moscow in the dead of winter and I have also been to Moscow in the glorious heat of summer, and I used to know the few sightseeing spots (that crew would go) so well, I would bring crew who are not familiar with Moscow out for sightseeing trips.
So when I saw that my hubby is going to Moscow and Houston for work, I jumped at the chance to join him on the trip! This time I followed him from Singapore to Moscow and stayed for 3 nights, then continued the journey with him to Houston for another 3 nights before returning to Singapore by myself.
SIN - DME 06 September 2014 0230 - 0910
DME - IAH 09 September 2014 1040 - 1355
IAH - DME 12 September 2014 1745 - 13 September 2014 1400
DME - SIN 13 September 2014 1520 - 0540
It was a 10+ hour flight and luckily I was able to sleep almost the whole way to Moscow as I was very busy and slept very little the few days before the flight. I got back from Seoul (see: Honeymoon Part 60) only 4 days before this flight and had some errands and housework to catch up on.
Almost landing into Moscow!
Russian planes at Domodedovo International Airport.
Took some selfie on an empty Business class seat before I disembark! ;p
And a selfie as I was waiting for our luggage at the carousel!
On the way from airport to hotel!
Poor hubby didn't get to sleep much on the flight...
Checked in! Yay!
I wore this maxi dress and it is one of the preggy dress that I bought when I was preggy but I still love to wear it cos it is comfortable...but it makes people "congratulate" me when I wear it. -.-
View from our room.
Heat up some food that we brought from Singapore with the microwave in the lounge area.
We stayed in till the evening as hubby had some work to take care of before we could enjoy our time in Moscow.
Our hotel is just beside the Moscow Olympic Stadium which was built for the 1980 Summer Olympics.
Went to the supermarket beside our hotel to grab some drystores (crew term for water/food/necessities we may need when we are outstation).
Sorry for the chui face, I just woke up!
Fishies in a Russian supermarket.
This fish in a tank...I don't know what breed it is!
SO MANY CHOICES for beer, which to choose??
Wanted to buy this back to sell in my online shop: ShopVerarara but didn't change enough Rubles so didn't get it.
My very uncle hubby who loves to go supermarket around the world and check out household items...
Atas Japanese printed toilet paper selling at about S$15 for 4 rolls...for backside made of gold.
Day 2, Moscow 7 September.
We woke up and had buffet breakfast at the hotel at 8am where we met some friends and decided to head out for sightseeing together.
Eggs and bacon...nothing fantastic, looking forward to breakfast in the States!
Couple OOTD!
This building outside the hotel has been in construction since I first visited in 2008, it isn't like one of those abandoned half-constructed buildings you may see in Malaysia...it just takes forever to build!
Selfie while walking to the metro.
Group selfie of our sightseeing group!
Seems like it's gonna be a good weather day for sight-seeing!
The metro nearest to our hotel is Prospekt Mira in English, it is one of the stations on the Koltsevaya Line.
We couldn't help taking photos at the metro as the Koltsevaya Line is built in 1950-1954, also known as the Circle Line, is the most famous due to its notable stations built at the height of Stalinist Architecture.
But on hindsight, we probably look silly to the locals...imagine seeing a group of tourists taking photos at Ang Mo Kio station.
The super long escalators are one of the well-known features of the famous stations.
So long you can hardly see the end of it.
So long we can take many photos and selfie!
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Our friends who came sightseeing with us!
Its interior designs are also amongst the well-known features.
So the hard part about travelling in their metro is that the signs are in Russian.
So as I was the "guide" I had to play picture puzzle and match the station names when we were commuting and changing lines in the metro.
Our first destination of the day was the station Park Kultury.
Train is here!
Oh I love it that there is free wifi in the trains!
Walking from the metro Park Kultury to Gorky Park.
Gorky Park is located at Krymsky Val and situated just across the Moskva River.
This is the Moskva River.
Guess who made all the girls pose like this for photo?
This guy in the middle in black polo and sunnies! Paul is 62 years old and retiring, but he's as lively as all of us! (And he's so in love with the selfie stick!)
My hubby insisted on taking SOTD photo!
We have reached Gorky Park!
During the post-Soviet era Gorky Park used to host an amusement park with fun fairs, various amusement rides, a Ferris wheel and one of the mock-ups (test units) from the Buran space shuttle program. During the winter the footpaths flood over and freeze, which allows ice-skating around the park.
Photobombed by the Russian ah pek.
People lazing in the park.
The park covers an area of 300 acres (120 ha) along the river, and has all sorts of activities especially in the summer.
People surrounding a local performance.
Crew have been going to the lavender field in London during the summer, and I haven't had a chance to visit when I was with SQ. Thus when I saw this, I just had to #actlikeiminLondonlavenderfield!
The air smells of lavender, I took one home as souvenir hehe!
I haven't been to Gorky Park in the winter, but I suppose they wouldn't be lounging like this when it is -30 degrees Celsius!
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Photobombed by our friends >.<
Made use of a kid blowing bubbles at the field to take photo!
So what's #HMRussia?
Paul made my hubby carry me for this photo, challenging him that "if you can prove that you can carry your wife, means you can carry her for the rest of your life!"
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Act lomantic.
Russian gaoluck (roasted chestnuts) pushcart stores selling at 50rubles (S$1.80) per packet.
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I bought a cotton candy just to take photo with! LOL.
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100rubles for one cotton candy.
Last group photo before we leave Gorky Park!
Walking out of Gorky Park, heading towards the direction of Red Square.
Hubby's teeny weeny tom yum soup with white rice.
My medium rare roasted tenderloin...pretty good.
Took a pit-stop and had late lunch at Shakti Terrace (Address: Bolotnaya emb., 9, Moscow, Russia)
Food portions were tiny, the guys had to order 2 main courses to have their fill. Bill came up to approximately 400USD for the 10 of us, which is rather pricey.
Sorry Bernice, this photo is from Andrea and he cropped you out of the photo!
My hubby was so fascinated by this he took a million photos of it.
Tiny scoop of Movenpick ice cream for 120rubles.
Continued our walk towards Red Square, rushing to get there before sunset.
Paul's very distinct blue bag photo-bombed a lot of our photos lol..
#actyigeshuaige
#actonehandsomeboy
This is the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour.
The Cathedral of Christ the Saviour is a cathedral in Moscow, Russia, on the northern bank of the Moskva River, a few blocks southwest of the Kremlin. With an overall height of 103 metres, it is the tallest Orthodox Christian church in the world.
After almost 45minutes of walking from Gorky Park towards Red Square...we were only halfway there.
It was around 6.45pm when we finally got to the vicinity of Red Square.
And guess what? The whole compound in green around the Red Square is fenced up for the day as there was a Moscow's military music festival - 'Spasskaya Tower' and you need to purchase ticket for entry. We were later told by another group of friends that all tickets were sold out.
I don't know why Andrea's head is in this photo haha!
The statue of the man on a horse is of Marshal Zhukov outside the state history museum at the north end of Red Square.
Marshal Zhukov somehow managed to survive the bloody purges Stalin ordered against his own military forces before world war two, and became the leader of the Russian forces in a largely unknown war between Russian and Japan in 1939, and was later appointed to defend Moscow in late 1941 as the Germans closed in on the city. He was also involved in the battles of Leningrad, Stalingrad and Kursk.
We could only take photos from the outside, and the guards hardly speak any English thus there was a huge language barrier when we were trying to find out how come we couldn't get into the Red Square.
(Googled for this photo)
Members of Russia's Squadron of the Special Guards perform during the closing of the International Military Music Festival 'Spasskaya Tower' on Moscow's Red Square, Russia. The festival, held yearly, showcases military marching bands from across the world.
I guess it would have been a great experience if we had been able to get the tickets for the festival but the thing is we didn't even know there was a festival going on as the guards didn't speak English. All they could say was "tickets!" So we decided to head back to hotel area for dinner and call it a day...our batteries were also running flat. We would try our luck at the Red Square again the next day.
Dinner was at Il Patio (Address: Mira Ave., 33/1 | (Shopping Center "Olimpic - Plaza"), Moscow 129110, Russia) which was around 0.5miles from Azimut Moscow Hotel. I used to frequent this Italian restaurant whenever I had Moscow flights as it's a good place to go when it is -30 degrees.
Parma ham rocket leaves salad to share.
Hubby's seafood pizza.
My all-time favourite - squid ink pasta in cream sauce with salmon roe!
5 out of 7 of us ordered squid ink pasta and maybe the chef ganchiong (nervous) forgot to add mussels into our pasta, but they were honest to admit it and give it to us even though none of us noticed.
Day 3, Moscow 8 September.
Breakfast: pour boiling hot water onto meekia, drain, then add sauces that I pre-mixed in Singapore. Voila, meekia dry in Moscow!
This time we took the hotel's shuttle bus which dropped us off at Pushkinskaya Square or Pushkin Square. It is located at the junction of the Boulevard Ring (Tverskoy Boulevard to the southwest and Strastnoy Boulevard to the northeast) and Tverskaya Street, 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) northwest of the Kremlin. Thus it was a good walk for us to the Red Square.
Pit-stop for coffee first!
Paul excitedly exclaimed "eh Chinese restaurant in Moscow, where's the selfie stick??"
And then, Paul went "eh eh Mr Lee's shop, take photo also la!"
WOW Magnolia Bakery in Moscow?!
I guess in all the excitement, we do love Moscow.
YAY! Today Red Square is free again!
Actually I have been to the Red Square a lot of times but I just wanted to go back there one more time, to take photos with my hubby.
This is the Resurrection Gate which is the northern entrance to Red Square.
We were using the selfie stick when a Thai auntie approached us and asked if we needed help taking the photo at the entrance.
Here's the Thai auntie with our Thai friend...555
A small orthodox chapel at the entrance.
Inside the Red Square, back of the entrance.
The Monastery of the Epiphany was also built in Russian baroque style, in the 1690s.
Apparently it is said that Stalin was somewhat superstitious, even ordering a special service in one of the Kremlin cathedrals during the Great Patriotic War in the hope of keeping the encroaching Germans at bay. Thus it seems surprising that the communists allowed so many cathedrals and churches to remain standing.
The red building at the back is the State Historical Museum.
The set up for the festival the night before was still at the Red Square, thus photo-taking wasn't as easy as it used to be.
The colours look so pretty on my friend's camera!
You can see on the right corner of the photo a glimpse of the set up of the festival. It is a pity that the set up has blocked the Lenin's Mausoleum (a.k.a. Lenin's Tomb) and half of the square.
The Spasskaya Tower is the main tower with a through-passage on the eastern wall of the Moscow Kremlin, which overlooks the Red Square. The Spasskaya Tower was built in 1491 by an Italian architect Pietro Antonio Solari.
This is how big the set up was, blocking a big area at the Red Square! Such a pity! :(
This is the Cathedral of Vasily the Blessed, commonly known as Saint Basil's Cathedral, is a former church in Red Square in Moscow, Russia.
As the set up from the festival occupied the square, everyone had a hard time taking photo with the cathedral. And this is one of our best shots, but this oblivious China auntie in photo-bombed us! :(
SEE?! The rest of the shots didn't fully capture the cathedral in the frame. SIAN!
St Basil's cathedral is the iconic building in Russia, and deservedly so.
This style of church is uniquely Russian. There are nine separate chapels, one under each of the onion domes, but the tall central tower unifies the structure into a single whole.
The cathedral is old, having been built between 1555 and 1561 to commemorate Ivan the Terrible's defeat of the Tatar city of Kazan.
Basil himself, after whom the cathedral is named, was one of those barefoot "holy fools" who periodically turn up in Russia, perhaps the most famous being Rasputin. Basil correctly predicted Ivan's ultimate downfall, but died while Kazan was still under siege. Somehow the cathedral ended up named for him, rather than for the victor of the battle which is commemorated by the cathedral!
The statue in front of the cathedral dates from 1818 and portrays Kuzma Minin and Dmitry Pozharsky, who drove Polish invaders out of Moscow in 1612, 200 years before the French under Napoleon came to grief in this same place.
This statue was originally in the middle of Red Square, but the communist government moved it here in 1936 because it was impeding parades.
I just have to share the beautiful colours of St Basil's from my friend's camera.
The name "red" square didn't come about as a reference to communism, or even to the large amount of red brickwork around the square, instead it was originally a reference to St Basil's. The Russian word "krasnaya" can mean either "beautiful" or "red", and it was the term "beautiful" which was originally applied to the cathedral, but then shifted in meaning and location to become Red Square.
Souvenir shop shopping!
(Yay! You can stand a chance to win a Russian souvenir! 5/5 still available! Click here to find out how! )
OK, first part sightseeing of the day done, let's go hunt for lunch!
Beverly Hills Diner
(Address: Sretenka St., 1 | Metro Turgenevskaya, Moscow 107045, Russia)
Couldn't wait to go Houston for some American food so we got lured to this American style restaurant!
My 3 eggs and steak lunch...I didn't eat any of the yolks cos I hate the smell, but I love egg whites! The irony.
My hubby's vegetarian burger.
The meal at Beverly Hills Diner was better than the lunch we had at Shakti Terrace the day before. The portions ain't as big as what you would expect in the US (we aren't in the US yet anyway) but definitely bigger than at Shakti Terrace. The food was pretty decent though and the price is reasonable. As we have been splitting the total bill with our group, I can't remember how much exactly is the steak or the burger, but we paid around 650rubles (S$23) per person.
The next stop was to go to the VDNKh (aka All-Russian Exhibition Centre) to visit the Upside Down House that recently opened in Moscow. We took the metro to the station also named VDNKh.
Memorial Museum of Cosmonautics
The Memorial Museum of Cosmonautics is a museum in Moscow, Russia, dedicated to space exploration. It is located within the base of the soaring Monument to the Conquerors of Space in the north-east of the city.
The museum contains a wide variety of Soviet and Russian space-related exhibits and models which explore the history of flight; astronomy; space exploration; space technology; and space in the arts. According to the Russian tourist board, the museum's collection holds approximately 85,000 different items, primarily from the Soviet period, and receives approximately 300,000 visitors yearly.
Though the space monument's tower was erected in 1964, the memorial museum did not exist for another seventeen years. Opening ceremonies took place on April 10, 1981, to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the day Yuri Gagarin became the first human to orbit the Earth in space.
We passed by the museum while walking from the VDNKh metro station to the VDNKh (All-Russian Exhibition Centre) and we didn't go into the museum as time didn't permit.
The main entrance of the VDNKh.
There is a market-like place outside the VDNKh which sold fresh food and had an open-air restaurant too.
The acronym VDNKh stands for Russian vystavka dostizheniy narodnogo khozyaystva, or the Exhibition of Achievements of the People's Economy in English. The picture above is the acronym in Russian : ВДНХ.
Central Pavilion
Fountain "Friendship of Nations"
The stone flower fountain.
The fountains at the entrance boulevards
Pavilion of Armenia
The Pavilion of Atomic energy
Pavilion of Karelia
Pavilion of North Caucasus.
Pavilion of Leningrad.
Pavilion of Ukraine
Pavilion of Uzbekistan
It was an hour walk from the metro to the end of the VDNKh where the Upside Down House is, including the time we stopped to take photos along the way. It costs 300rubles (S$10) per person to enter the Upside Down House.
The inside of the Upside Down House.
Living room.
Toilet.
Kitchen.
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Dining area and kitchen.
Laundry.
Bedroom.
Spiderman in the house...looking at...bird?
Kid's room.
Kid's playroom.
Sitting area.
While walking back to the VDNKh station to take the metro back to our hotel...the sky is getting dark.
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:)
We bought roast chicken back from the kiosks nearby our hotel, for dinner. You notice the SQ logo on the kiosk...a lot of these eateries overseas that have SQ stickers like this means that crew frequent this place or joint - as crew will call it.
I remember during winter, I would buy this back to the hotel to eat, and along the way back to the hotel I would hug it close to me cos of the nice warmth from the roast chicken.
*** To be continue in Part 2! ***
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