Friday, June 28, 2024

Day 9 - Auschwitz - Birkenau + Wieliczka Salt Mine

come here now, you better come fast
come here now, as long as we last
As Long as We Last - Daniel Norgren

Confession: I feel rather ... I don't know the right word to describe it. "Conflicted" would make me sound noble. "Embarrassed" would be closer. This whole entire trip was because I was curious to see Auschwitz, but if I'm going to be honest it's perhaps the same curiosity with the other things that I visited as a tourist, and to put Auschwitz in the same category as other touristy places is downright shameful. So perhaps "embarrassed" is the right word, but I think it's the same curiosity that brings many to Auschwitz too. Of course, there are those who went there to see what their ancestors went through and also there's the many students who went there for a field trip to learn history. Comparing their reasons to mine, my "curiosity" feels frivolous. Then there comes the defence, is it a bad curiosity though? I saw these concentration camps, saw their magnitudes, learned more about history and that is a good thing right? I don't know, I still have that embarrassement in me, also because I felt that perhaps I didn't give enough reverence to the horror that happened there. I guess the only way I could make my visit there not so useless is to share what I saw if people ask what it's like and they have doubt that the holocaust and such camps existed.

I only know of one other person who's been to Auschwitz. It was just a few years ago and I asked her what it's like. I told her I was curious, but I wasn't sure if I'd ever get there. Sometimes you just make things happen I guess, because I did. A realization came to me as I was preparing for this trip and reading on how to get to Dachau and Auschwitz; it's how far I've come that I was willingly going to these places. Me who had to sleep with my parents for a few nights after a field trip to Lubang Buaya. This is a well in Jakarta where several generals' bodies were thrown during the coup of September 1965. I think I was old enough for that field trip, like pass 12 years old and yet I got scared that I insisted on sleeping with parents for a few nights. I recall it was mostly because of the diorama or it could also be that I was scarred enough with the diorama that I blocked out any memory of seeing the well. Bottomline, when I was a child, I would get overly scared with scary things especially movies that I would end up knocking at my parents' room at night and sleeping with them. It's the reason why I don't watch horror movies, even now, because I have no door to knock to. Like, I still couldn't bring myself to watch the movie that used to be shown on every 30th September about that event in 1965. So me now in a stronger mental state that allows me to be able to plan and go to places like Dachau and Auschwitz shows that I guess there's some mental growth with age.

As the title of this post suggests, my day trip that day took me to Auschwitz - Birkenau concentration camp and Wieliczka Salt Mine. The day tour was rescheduled to 06:20 AM, so that's early. I asked the hotel during check-in if I could get my breakfast to go and they gave me a lot that I also had some of it for lunch. I was stunned at the big bag they gave me. Inside there's a small croissant, two small sandwiches, a big bowl of muesli, cereal, with yoghurt, a banana, a pear, and a water bottle (much appreciated). I myself already had a pączki before I left my room. The pick up point that I chose was called Kiss & Ride, a concept which I don't know if it's happening in all of Poland or just Krakow. It's basically a place to pick up or drop off people; as the name suggests you kiss your driver (obviously not your Uber driver) and ride on. Google Maps don't point you to the right place though, it's pointing to like some metres away. Luckily I had scouted the place the day before on my walk around that I managed to find what I think was the correct place and I was right.

Auschwitz is divided into I and II and we arrived at I first where the museum is. Our driver told us the plan for the day and got us our guide. There were many visitors. The first thing we needed to do was to pass security check like what you have in the airport. So that was unexpected. In my group, I was the only one with an actual camera, the rest just had their phones. I wasn't the one who took the most pictures though. I think an American lady in the group took more and I was also respectful of not taking any photo where I wasn't supposed to. I know there's people in my group who sneaked a video or photo in places we're not supposed to. Anyways, after the security check, the first thing we passed was something like a corridor outside where our guide said we'd be passing in silence because there's a reading of all the names of Auschwitz victims being played. I wonder how long that recording plays in full, is it a year? If I'm not mistaken it takes close to 3 hours to read the close to 3,000 names of the victims of the twin towers attack during 9/11, so does it take a full year or more to read the names of all the victims of Auschwitz? It felt really solemn hearing those names as we walked. Then we arrived at the gate with the same inscription as in Dachau, arbeit macht frei (work sets you free).

I'm not sure if you could visit Auschwitz on your own or you would need to be guided. I wouldn't say the guide we had was inadequate, but I think if you're on your own time you may be able to just take a minute to absorb things better, because I was a bit confused about the buildings we entered. Anyways, Auschwitz - Birkenau was the largest Nazi concentration camp and prisoners came from all over Europe (as the map shown below). I didn't take the picture in full, you could see there's line going further north and south. The picture below it also shows how many people died in Auschwitz. Really so few people survived.

The diorama below shows the model of the gas chamber and crematorium. It's horrifying how they packed people to die like that. There were photos that were taken secretly by the Sonderkommando (these were prisoners who were tasked to work at the crematorium) that showed people being marched to the gas chamber and the aftermath, the pile of bodies. The Sonderkommando had such horrible jobs, they literally had to get the prisoners into the gas chamber and cleared the bodies afterwards. It's such a risk taking the pictures and smuggling it out. There's an exhibit that shows the many gas canisters that were used in the gas chamber. There's also other sections where they exhibits the belongings of these prisoners, like their shoes and bags. A section even shows the hair of the prisoners, because everyone was forced to be shaved.

I was truly confused about the buildings we entered because they're really buildings, 3-story high (see below), that I had to ask the American dad in the group if he knew what these buildings were used as before. He said it was used to house the prisoners. I was still confused because it's so different compared to Dachau.

Then we entered the building where it shows what it was like when there were prisoners there. So there's indeed prisoners there. I learned Auschwitz I was previously an army camp so they already had these buildings and I guess they started with housing the prisoners here until they needed to expand and then they opened up Auschwitz II - Birkenau. There's also a wall with photos of the prisoners. Looking at the photos, I was thinking what they must be thinking at that time. I guess they didn't imagine the worst could happen to them? Many of them looked calm and stoic. Among these photographs there were 2 photos of twin girls and I felt sad seeing them there.

Behind the fence below is the SS commandant house. The guide was saying just like how it's featured in the movie, The Zone of Interest. Though there's a fence, the house is actually not very far from the site of the crematorium. The Zone of Interest showed what an idyllic life the commandant's family had and watching it I didn't register that it would be very near to the camp, but it's really so near that it's crazy that one could live happily near such horrible things. Now I actually could understand more the part where the commandant's mother in law in the movie chose to end her visit earlier.

After we're done with Auschwitz I, we were driven to Auschwitz II. Since we're driven, I actually can't figure out how far it really is, like how long it would take to walk there. Auschwitz II is way way bigger. The scale of it really puts one in despair :( When prisoners arrived, they would straight away be sorted out and the weak ones (including many children) would be sent to the gas chamber straightaway. One of the photos below shows the model of the train car they used to transport the prisoners.

On the far end of the camp now stands a memorial with many stones in different languages with messages of remembrance. Side note: here upon seeing one black person, I realized among the many many people visiting that day, I don't think I saw other Asian or other black people and I think there lies the issue. There's this big thing that happened in Europe, this big stain on the western world but for other parts of the world, this may not register as much. To be fair, in Indonesia at that time we're fighting for our own liberation and independence so we're so far removed from the holocaust. The way information travelled then was also not like how it is now. Like, I don't know what's the Nazi news coverage was in Indonesia back then. This big lack of knowledge of this history could be why many people in Indonesia do not think much of the suffering of the Jews during the holocaust because they do not know it and could right now be one-sidedly on the side of the Palestinians which to be fair is not necessarily a wrong stand to take. It's sad, what's happening then and now, all of it is sad. Even after all the suffering, we just can't seem to resolve issues better.

The site of the gas chamber and crematorium in Auschwitz II is now a ruin and nearby there's a memorial. A little pond was like forming behind the memorial and I think there's frogs in them and they were croaking quite loudly and that to me sounded like them voicing out the horrible things that happened there. Maybe it's just me who felt that way.

The last thing we saw were the barracks in Auschwitz II and of all the things we saw that day, this was the one that got me the most. It was worse than in Dachau. Truly heartbreaking. The guide was saying there's not enough space that some people had to resort to sleeping at the bottom on the ground where mice would bite them. Then there's story that during winter, one would wake up with their hair frozen. Can you imagine that? It's so horrible and it really broke my heart. The holocaust was terrible and I wish I could say we are better humans now, but there's still people doing really bad things to other people right now. It's depressing :( For photos from my visit, you can go here.

The second part of the day was lighter. We're going to Wieliczka Salt Mine and we had time before our time slot. So I went to sit down at a bench in a nearby park and ate the remaining of my breakfast as lunch - I did eat some of it in the van. You need to be guided to enter Wieliczka Salt Mine and trust me you would want to because you may get lost. I'm double checking the website as I'm writing this. The tour started with climbing down many many stairs down to level 1 which was 64 m deep. It was like never ending stairs, but luckily we're going down not up. Then throughout the tour we were going from level 1 to 3 which 135 m down. I was impressed by how they set this mine up for tourism. There are dioramas with light show and sound explaining the legend associated to the mine and also about the mining history, for example they had horses working underground. One would think that's animal abuse taking an animal down where the sun don't shine, but I think the guide said the horses were treated well.

One of the highlight, the one that I often see the most in photos, is the big chamber St Kinga’s Chapel (first picture below). There are salt carvings on the wall like the last supper and there's also a salt statue of Pope John Paul II (he's Polish by the way). The miners were really creative. It's also interesting to see that there's a lake. The last photo below is of St. John’s Chapel. The guide was saying that we could book the different chapels for wedding and all :D The salt mine is really an interesting place to visit. For pictures from the visit, you can go here. I didn't do a good job though, many pictures were blurry.

Going back up, we're split into smaller groups and took the lift up. I'm glad there's a lift, but as I said in the lift, if the lift were to break down, I would freak out. One of the girl with me said the same thing. It's because we're all squeezed into the lift, but luckily all went well. It was quite a day. I'm thankful for the opportunity to visit these different places and learn a thing or two.

:) eKa @ 8:25:00 PM • 0 comments

Friday, June 21, 2024

Day 8 - Prague to Krakow

started out on a one way train
always knew where I was gonna go next
Steal The Show - Lauv

Day 8 I was leaving Prague for Krakow. Train was at 10:19 am so I had time. If I had been more of a morning person, I would have woken up early and since my 24-hour ticket hadn't expire, I would have explored more places. I do feel like I didn't see enough of Prague and that's a shame. However, I am not a morning person so all I could muster that day was to go back to the old town square. Perhaps if I had googled more, I could have gone back to Charles Bridge, but my googling the day before only brought to my attention that the astronomical clock performs at the hour, so the aim was to be there to see it at 09:00 am. Despite of my studying, there's still things that I got wrong and didn't understand until I was at the place. That morning I thought I had my direction correct, but I was a bit lost since I mistook a landmark near the hotel as something it was not. I did make it to the square and it wasn't as crowded as the afternoon before. Kinda nice when it's not full of people. I walked around it a bit, took some pictures. In the morning the sun direction is different.

Closer to 09:00 am, I went to see the clock. There's only a few tourists around, so that was nice. I googled on how to read the clock, but I still get confused. Anyways the performance was short. The funniest thing was at the end when the rooster was crowing. So that's end of my time in Prague. For other pictures of Prague, you can go here.

After that I started to make my way back to the hotel, stopping first at a croissant place that I found through my googling. Croissant was never really my thing, but filled croissant does win me over. Over here in Singapore, I kinda like Brother Bird. So this croissant place I wanted to go to - the street it's in happened to be under some work. Side note: I wonder if it's just in the nature of the Europeans that they would always replace cobblestone streets back with cobblestones, like they would never just pave it with asphalt even though it might make it easier for people walking. Another side note, it's always kinda impressive for me as an Indonesian when cars do stop at zebra cross. No one does this in Indonesia that I think maybe they stop making zebra cross there because cars don't stop so what's the point. When Dewi came to Singapore and I told them cars would stop at zebra cross, she said a good think she's not driving here cause she would ignore it. So in Prague, there's quite a number of zebra crosses that I encountered during my walk and cars would stop and I wondered if this was annoying to the drivers having to stop every so often, which then made me wonder why they don't have the traffic light for pedestrians crossing. I don't know, maybe the drivers are not bothered there. Back to the croissant place, I wasn't sure which side of the street it's in, so I chose a side only to find out it's on the other side, but I can't cross the street because of the work, so I had to go back to the end of the street and cross. It's a small place and based on my googling, I was looking forward for the pistachio one but it's not ready yet when I was there, so I had to settle with the coconut one and the boring (for me) pain au chocolat.

After that, I got my stuff and went to the train station. The board would only display the platform number like just 15 minutes before departure so people would stand around by the big board waiting. Obviously I waited anxiously because I had that worry that as my luck would have it, the train would be cancelled, but thank God it wasn't the case. When I saw the platform number, I dashed off like a horse off to the races. My planning came with careful studying right, but again some things you would only discover on the spot. I was pleasantly surprised that the luggage rack was really by my seat so I could always keep an eye on my luggage. Also quite lucky that there's space for my big luggage when I got on. When the train was really on the move and departed, I just couldn't stop praying thanking God that it worked out, it's happening, we're on our way. The train had a number of stops and at one stop a lady came and she sat with me for some time during the journey. The train had wifi and I spent some parts of the ride watching YouTube. By the way, does the EU have a deal with YouTube or some sort that limit the ads that can be shown? I rarely got ads when I was watching YouTube there. Like videos after videos just started without ad. No ad during the video too. It happened so often that it couldn't be a coincidence. It's so different compared to here in Singapore when I would be so lucky if a video starts without an ad. There's too much ads here. Anyways, it's a long train ride. The train did have some delays, arriving and departing later in the stops but I didn't mind it because the train was actually going. Delay is way much better than cancellation. I had my croissants as snack. I was apprehensive about the coconut one, but it's not bad. Pain au chocolat as expected was boring for me. At one point, I tried to find if there's a snack bar, there should be one, but I couldn't find it, maybe I didn't walk further enough. There's no security check between The Czech Republic and Poland, if fact if I hadn't checked Google maps, I wouldn't have known we had entered Poland.

I think I arrived close to 5 pm. Arriving in Krakow, I was aware that I would exit out into a mall. Then I immediately found the exit to the street outside and was happy to find that my hotel was just across the street. Smooth sailing. I checked in to my hotel and the young guy receptionist told me they're upgrading me to a suite. I was like, okay. Perhaps I didn't appear excited enough that at one point he repeated that again and told me so you would be more comfortable and I was oh great, thank you. I tried to put in more excitement then :D Truly it didn't matter to me. I think the room I booked was okay enough and the hotel was not like some big 5-star hotel, so I knew the suite wouldn't be super luxurious. I got in the room and it was nice. There's a separate living room and bedroom. It wasn't very big. Reminded me of my hotel room in Vienna but the design was way nicer in here. First thing I saw was a big tv in the living room and me and my priority, I was like please let there be a tv in the bedroom too and there was so all was good :D The bed was smaller than all the beds I had in this trip though. The toilet had a bathtub which I used a few times I was there, all the while feeling rather guilty because it's like an obscene waste of water, but I could indulge sometime? Overall the room was good and I tried to lock in memories of it, of me sitting by the window looking at the people outside the mall / train station, of me eating take-outs while watching CNN. Oh a thing about the mall. It's like the most generic thing in this world, but at the same time you (or at least me) then noticed things that you come to associate with a mall but not there. The mall is very big, but I think it didn't have a cinema. Then everytime I see its facade, I felt like it's missing Uniqlo because the sign is not there. Maybe there's no Uniqlo yet in this part of Europe.

I had plan to explore the old town, so off I went. As I started my walk, there's this feeling that I love this city. I don't know maybe it's because I wasn't walking on cobblestones. Found the gate to the old town and it's a straight street to follow to the square, Rynek Główny. The church below is St. Mary's Basilica. Unfortunately, as you could see the left tower is under scaffolding. If it hadn't been, the view of it from the gate would have made a good picture.

I didn't enter St. Mary's Basilica, but I entered the smaller church nearby, Church of St. Wojciech, and said a little prayer of thanks to God. There's a few people praying inside, so I didn't feel good taking photo of its inside.

Then on I went until I could see Wawel castle. I didn't enter the compound though. I had received message that my day tour to Auschwitz for the next day had been moved to 06:20, so I thought I should just end the day early and rest.

From the castle, it's back to the square. Walked around it a bit more and took a few more pictures and decided maybe to just get take-out for dinner and enjoy my room a bit.

One thing that caught my eye as I was walking around was the Polish donut. I didn't even know what it's called, only know it now as I googled it while writing this. It's called Pączki. The dough is nothing special. I'm convinced that everywhere in this world there's some variation of fried dough. The thing that got me was that these are filled donuts. That is for me the best donut! Your original donut with hole, I don't think much of them no matter what their glazing are. Filled donut? Well that's like my thing. The Pączki are big, not really round, and they have many different fillings. It took a lot out of me not just to get many different ones at one go. I told myself you'd still be here tomorrow so you could still get them. So I bought just one. Actually I couldn't remember if I got just one or two. There's definitely one that I purposely left for the next morning since I would be leaving before hotel breakfast. Anyways as mentioned, the dough itself is nothing special but with the filling, well I just love love these things. They're not so expensive either and man if only they're available here too. My regret is I didn't manage to try all the different fillings by the time I left :( For dinner, I went with KFC. I ordered through the machine and I was curious that though they have chicken wings, they didn't seem to have other chicken parts. They had chicken tender and stuff, so perhaps the people there prefer these boneless things? Another curious thing was the drink was served in a small cup, like kids size, so I wonder what's going on. Is it some diabetes prevention thing? Anyways, I had a good day. Things worked out perfectly that day. I got a really good room. It's like God was saving the best for last.

:) eKa @ 10:36:00 PM • 0 comments

Tuesday, June 18, 2024

Day 7 - Kutná Hora + Prague

turn me around so I can be
everything I was meant to be
Lord I need loving
Lord I need good, good loving
Tell Me a Tale - Michael Kiwanuka

Day 7 started with taking the 08:06 train to Kutná Hora. From Prague, it takes around 50 mins. The purpose of going there was to visit Sedlec Ossuary or Church of Bones. There's a slight of confusion on which direction to go when I arrived at the train station, but I made it. Also found where the ticketing office is and got my ticket to visit this Church of Bones. I didn't really know what to expect. I think I was expecting more like a catacomb. The ossuary is very small, located under a church. When I arrived there's not many people there being early in the day. We couldn't take pictures there, but an Asian guy (I think Korean) was trying to stealthily take pictures using his phone. Then other Asian tourists arrived (I think Chinese) and one of the lady just quite openly took pictures with her phone. I was like oh guys, don't give us Asians a bad name, but then I became one of those bad tourists and followed suit - I'm sorry you guys. Took two pictures using my phone, one of them wasn't good and one of them is below.

You would take maybe just 10-15 minutes to see all that's to see in the ossuary. It is that small and when I was there some part which was actually being covered, seemed like they're doing restoration. I really thought this wasn't a good decision on my part, it's not worth the journey back and forth to see this, I should have spent the whole day in Prague. I guess if you make it to the other part of Kutná Hora where I read there's a beautiful church, it might be worth it, but I didn't make my way there because it's some distance away from the ossuary and I've been to many churches so while it might beautiful, it's also possible I wouldn't be that amazed. So then I had way to much time to kill before my train back at 11:01. So I started by taking pictures of the cemetery just around the church ground and then I visited the small church on top of the ossuary which also has nothing much. It does have a small window that looks down to the entrance of the ossuary and I did manage to take a few pictures of the bones arrangements that are visible from there.

There's another church nearby, Cathedral of Assumption of Our Lady and St. John the Baptist, but being that it was Sunday, there was a mass going on and we couldn't enter. I just saw a little bit of the inside of the church from the small window at the door.

Then I decided to just have a late breakfast at the cafe by the Museum of Bricks. I literally thought it's a museum about bricks which perhaps could be interesting, but it seems like it's a lego museum kinda thing. After that I just made my way back to the train station, stopping first to buy water at a shop which again I think was manned by Vietnamese. I googled this, Vietnamese are the third-largest ethnic minority in the Czech Republic. From Wikipedia, Vietnamese immigrants began settling in the Czech Republic during the communist period, when Vietnam, which sought to bolster its skilled workforce, sent students and guest workers to socialist Czechoslovakia for education and training. How interesting. Anyways, for pictures from Kutná Hora, you can go here. I don't have many though.

Back in Prague, I had a few items on the list, seriously just being a tourist visiting places and taking pictures. I downloaded Prague tram route map before the trip, couldn't really get it, but somehow on the day my brain clicked. From Prague main train station, I took a metro first to a stop that would allow me to get on a tram that I needed. The metro frequency didn't seem to be quite often, I don't know if it's because it's a Sunday or because it's off-peak hour. Anyways, got on the metro and the tram and my first stop was the Dancing House. Yep, that's how much of a tourist I was. I basically made an effort to get there just to take pictures, but there were many other tourists there too. In fact I took a picture for a group of Italians who suspected I could speak Italian because I counted them down in Italian. I wish I could be more fluent though.

Next, it was to the Prague Castle. When I was about to get ticket, I saw they were about to change the guards, so I went to watch that first.

The Prague Castle ticket that I bought covered the Old Royal Palace, St. George's Basilica, Golden Lane, and St. Vitus Cathedral. They're all inside the compound of this castle, so the castle compound is very big. The first thing that I visited is St. Vitus Cathedral because it's the nearest to the ticketing counter. The cathedral is big with a lot of things inside it. When I was there, it's also quite full of tourists. A point that might be useful for future visitors - there's a toilet just outside the cathedral and it's free :D

After that, I went to the Golden Lane first because that day the lane was closing earlier. I didn't know what to expect, but it was quite interesting. It's basically an area where people used to live. It's one long alley and there are different houses and inside the houses are exhibits showing items belonging to the people who used to lived there from way in the olden times to the more contemporary time. Google told me that the last residents moved out in 1953 and there were many famous people who used to live there too. I just remember there's a famous fortune teller who used to live in one of the houses. She had some tragedy in her life and then she became a fortune teller.

At the end of the Golden Lane was some dungeon or punishment area. I googled, apparently the name is Daliborka Tower. I looked at my photos, I took some pictures of really scary instruments of torture. You can see it in my Flickr album. After the Golden Lane, I went to the St. George's Basilica. Again I couldn't remember much, so I'm trying to remember what it's like by looking at my photos.

The last thing I went to is the Old Royal Palace which I think is the least interesting thing compared to the rest. I remember there's a long hall. Then there's a room where there were many crests of what I assume the different royal families.

After that I was done and I made my way out of the castle and on to the next points in my list. Getting out the castle, I passed an area that gave a good view of Prague.

The next points in my list were the Waldstein Garden and Lennon wall. Somehow I got lost on my way to the Waldstein Garden that I gave up. I reached Malostranska metro station though and Google map shows that it should be nearby, so maybe I wasn't lost, it's just it really takes that long to walk there. Either way I was tired of walking and trying that I just took the tram to the next point in the list, Petřín hill. Honestly, I think it's too much of an effort to get there, but my transport ticket was a 24-hour ticket and it covered the funicular that gets you up there, so I thought might as well get the most used of the ticket. If I wasn't that tired, I think Petřín could be quite nice to explore. There was a garden and when I was there were many roses. There's also a tower. Being up on the hill, I thought it might give me a good view of Prague, but I couldn't find any vantage point. Maybe you need to get up on the tower or maybe walk around more. I didn't do any of that because I was really kinda tired of walking. In the end I didn't spend that much time in Petřín, I didn't see all that it has to offer.

Next was to fulfill the definitely must-see places of a tourist in Prague. First stop was Charles Bridge. The way there was filled with tourists. Looking at my picture, before walking the bridge, it seemed I entered St. Francis Of Assisi Church. The picture below is of St. Salvator Church which was also nearby.

I actually didn't take any picture of the bridge on its whole because it's just filled with many people. I did take pictures of the many statues lining the bridge. Below is a picture of the castle as seen from the bridge.

After I reached the end of bridge, I thought why not try for the Lennon wall again. The walk there was quite quiet, to the point I wondered if I was getting to the right direction. I think there was moment of being lost a bit, but I got there. Though there were some tourists, it wasn't a lot. Most were young people who I'm sure needed the photos for their instagram. One guy was like a bit exasperated his friend couldn't frame him the way he wanted it to be :D The wall itself is not very big. I didn't really get a close look at it because I think people needed their space for photos.

Then it's back crossing the bridge again and when I reached the other side, I saw a Hare Krishna procession. I don't know if they do this every Sunday. After being told the day before that most Czechs are atheists, it's interesting that there are those who found their way to this. It was definitely my first time seeing this.

Last point of the day was Prague Old Town Square and also to see the Prague Astronomical Clock. It was also filled with tourists. A while after I reached there, the Hare Krishna group also got there. It was a tiring day, a lot of walking. I checked, I clocked in more than 25,000 steps.

Dinner was italian pasta with non-alcoholic beer. Chose that because I was curious and it was cheaper than like other non-alcoholic drinks and I have to say I like it a lot. Okay I don't drink a lot of beer so for me to say it tastes like beer, well perhaps don't take my word for it, but for me it really tastes like beer and I like the fact it gave you nothing, no buzz, nothing, which is perfect for me who travels alone and needs to be alert. I was already so tired so my alertness level was perhaps already going down, I couldn't be impaired more. I think non-alcoholic beer is quite common in Europe, but I never find this being offered in the menu in Singapore. Side note: the first time I drank beer was as a toddler when my dad asked if I would like to try his. This was usually when he's about to finish his beer so he offered me a little before he finished it off. I wonder what he would think of non-alcoholic beer, if only he could get a chance to taste it. Gosh, I'm gonna tear up writing this, but there are moments when things happen when I wonder what my dad would think about it *sigh*

:) eKa @ 8:59:00 PM • 0 comments