Moscow and St. Petersburg - A 'Great' Birthday Present (Part 1)

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Moscow and St. Petersburg - A 'Great' Birthday Present (Part 1)
April 25, 2016 | Adiek Sarah

It has been a while since our last post. Previously, we have shared about the Russian Visa application.

In this entry, we would like to share our 10 days experience visiting Moscow and Saint Petersburg in Russia, Helsinki in Finland, and Tallin in Estonia.

We flew using Vietnam Airlines with extremely cheap and worth of price. Only RM1,400 return ticket from Kuala Lumpur to Moscow, Russia and stopover at Ho Chi Minh City for both ways. I would skip our part in Ho Chi Minh City.

The temperature was around 8 degree centigrate in Moscow when we first arrived at Demodedovo Airport on 8th November 2015. As an international airport, the airport still have English signboards that enable us to read. The passport counters were confusing, not sure whether we were queing at the right lane or not. We needed to ask a lot of people for that.

We first looked for the money changer. Our country did not sell Russian Currency, Rubles nor in Vietnam. So we exchanged all our money in Euro when we were in Malaysia and exchange it to Rubles at Russian Airport. Not much, only 50 Euros and hope that we could cover it for the whole Russia trip.

We started looking for the information counter to ask about the direction. Unfortunately, NO ENGLISH! Lucky one of our friend had gathered enough information about transportation system in Moscow including downloaded the Metro apps.

From the aiport, we took the bus shuttle or minivan to the metro station for 120 Rubles. It took about 20 minutes to reach the city. Since it was already night, we had no time to go other places rather than looking for the hostel.

Our first bad experience: almost lost when we were looking for the hostels. We stayed in Kangaroo Hostel, quite far from the city. It was located in the middle of housing area which made it confusing to find. We had to walk about 15 minutes from the metro station. Price was only 40 Rubles per bed. No English speaking receptionist. It was dorm for 6 and shared toilets and bathroom. A bit uncomfortable because the toilets were too tiny. Our 2nd bad experience: we were scolded by our roomates when we accidentally woke her up at 5 am when we were asking about the correct Subuh prayer time among us. Too bad, but who cares. We were about to leave anyways.

We packed our stuff and prepared to leave in the next morning (because most of us could not sleep anyway, the lady snored too loud). We prepared our breakfast at the kitchen and checked out. Next, to the Red Square.

We made an advance booking for a Moscow Free Walking Tour in Moscow City mainly covering the Red Square area. The tour started at 10.45 am and we had to be at the meeting point on time. The idea of this free tour was based on tips, you can pay as much as you want which you think they deserve.

The tour guide, Elena was amazing, funny, and made the tour really fun. Our tour group also was very 'international' which consist of travelers from many countries including France, Italy, Korea, and Israel. We ended our tour by having lunch together.

After that, we walked to the Metro station and went to the Main Train Station to catch out train to Saint Petersburg.

To be continued...
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