day 1 - krakow (1/11)

speaking of rushed trips - i think this was the craziest.
there was work due... and ocf prep... then my small group came to my house for the decentralised meeting... and we cooked dinner. and then we had bible study... and then after everyone left at 11pm i started packing my bag... and we left the house at 3am for the airport. sleep? about 20 min..
still... we were all hyper (though k.o.ed super early at night)... and reached krakow! (i wonder what happens if at the olympics either the indo or the polish athlete picks up the flag and wears it the wrong way around... hmmm)some problems finding the hostel... (well not really, just that it was a really long walk. 1km? and we didn't really know where we were going). and it was raining... and didn't stop raining the whole day - GREY DAY =(. we found it eventually.. well. in krakow they have this interesting way of putting a bit of park into their road dividers... in this case it was tram tracks outside of our hostel. pretty =) i can imagine what it would be like in spring/ summer with blue skies. a real chill-out place.at the hostel we discovered why everything was closed and why there were practically no people on the streets: it was the 清明节 equivalent for 1st and 2nd nov.
us tourists on a tight budget: 'oh crap. the attractions may be closed' - so depressing
but in the end no loss - super blessed trip =)

next stop was to satisfy our stomachs:
the most expensive meal in the whole 5 days! it was really quite authentic... though perhaps not to our taste (very very gelat food. the dumplings were like eating flour cakes...)

4 types of souppolish dumplings (3 flavours i rmb: potato/ starch, jui queh, minced meat)meat wrapped in cabbage, we also bought this plate of meat and a pork knuckle but i don't have pics =(

it was pretty late after that... so we went to our first touristy area - the Jewish Quarter of town. BUT. cos of the holiday... we were practically the only people around. and cos we were giam siap we didn't take a tour and just wandered around looking at run-down buildings wondering what we were doing there. finally gave up and made our way to the city square (which was also devoid of people and quite desolate in the rain). and FINALLY we found a pretty enough spot to start taking photos in - though it was just a square with lights... lol.

the ghosts of krakow boredom: gordon, hui xuan, mark, jilynoi. patriotic to wrong country sia.and i ended the day with my first artsy photo of the trip! (so pleased!)

went for dinner at the place gordon researched and found that it was closed - but we got our dinner anyway at another touristy cafe.. and then we went back to the hostel at 730pm (note: winter = sun sets at 4pm) and crashed. haha. amazingly early.

our conclusion of krakow: we don't understand why all the people who've been here say it's beautiful... all the locals look at us as if we're on display (like they've never seen asians before -.-")... and the food *er...*

my conclusion of krakow: i'm just glad to go to sleep after running a fever the whole day -.-" sucks to have a head of cottonwool on holiday. and Daddy... i want nice weather tomorrow... *whine* lol. talk about a lousy start.. bad weather, timing, food, health. right. (but it got better!)