we went to the castle as planned - cos the guidebook said that there was free entry on mondays (which was also why we were chionging both auschwitz and the salt mine the day before). took a lot a lot of photos along the way... cos the fog was such inspiration for emo photos heh. and well... free entry = happy
gordon's contemplative look
chinese female ghost + uh. man thing.
tell me. what do you see beyond this wall...
look we're at the castle!
i love the expression on gordon's face! (this was taken wrongly... haha but it's more funny than the proper one!)
testing the macro function on my camera... but i still can't get the effect i want half the time (like now.)
flower girls~
castle grounds in the fog (depressing rite!?)
BUT when we got there we found that cos of the seasonal change, the free entry day was sunday as of 2nd november 0.0 and that it was closed for one day a week - *ahem* monday. so it was wasted =(. ohwell. most castles look the same i'd imagine... but i was looking forward to seeing the armoury... and so pek chek that we planned properly and it didn't work out. at that point everyone was pretty annoyed (and i was praying that the rest of the day would turn out well) but no choice... so we went to the cathedral (which was the only thing open), climbed the bell tower, then headed off for lunch.
gordon needed to go meet our taxi driver to get his specs between 2-5 and get back so we could catch the train... so we attempted to rush so we could eat together. but that didn't happen lol. cos we walked through this nice park stretch... and were inspired to take photos! (i guess krakow is really a pretty place... just that there's nothing much to do)
wow... autumn leaves... (and the colour accent on my camera)
this is SUCH a JILYN pose!!!!!!
emoooo (i really like the composition though, lampost and tree)
contemplative?
so we finally got to the main square.. after taking photos for close to an hour! and were inspired.. to take even more photos... with a head. granted... it was the signature sculpture for the square
and then gordon had to run off... and we went for lunch as one of the local cafe 'economy rice' type places. after that, we didn't know what to do cos the most touristy thing left to do was closed...
mark decided (and tried to convince us) to go to this soviet town thingy... which required 1 hr of travelling time... and the tourist center person(s) all made faces when he mentioned it! kind of 'uh well... there's nothing there really, but if you're the kind tt likes to wander around, well no harm going'. he did in the end... alone.
us gals went to eat ice cream & shop for souvenirs. the ice cream was pretty good... but the no-smoking section was still really smoky! and we came out smelling like oil (from lunch) and cigarettes... like we were chain smokers. haha. the rest of the shopping time was spent freezing as we opened all our coats to try to let them air. heh. awesome time buying souvenirs though... cos there were some really nice quaint wood carving shops and stuff. after all the drama, we met back at the head at 530pm and exchanged stories over dinner.
guess what?! gordon had the most exciting story!he caught the bus 2 min before it left... took photos with some random guy who was following him and was excited (to see an asian maybe?)... met the taxi guy and got his specs back (and took another photo)... and make it in time to get the next bus back. and met this lady who could speak english and was an educator... (and took another photo. lol.) so i guess he learnt the most in the day trip. mark on the other hand was wandering around lost until he found a couple of signs lol.
dinner was at the chicken place again... then we went to get our bags and board the train to prague.
amazingly cramped on the inside!
taken from well... i was kinda balancing on the 2 bunks
i took the top bunk... which i found comfortable... but i was really quite thankful for my flexibility... so i could just fold over if i needed to get stuff rather than rolling/ squirming around to turn on the bunk. smacked my head a couple of times on the light though (but everyone was knocking their heads on the higher bunks anyway)uber exciting day! talk about new experiences man...
we kept watch in shifts, so i got to do 1 1/2 hours of quiet time during mine =) *awesomeness* and i had quite a good sleep throughout too =) though interrupted. at least i didn't get the graveyard shift... the guys volunteered to do it =P
anyway. the tram brought us to the train... and this was the park leading to the train station... pretty right? (krakow was pretty... just maybe a bit too chill-out cos the two days were holidays =S)
oh.. right... and while we were trying to buy tickets to prague... the guys found out that the train to auschwitz was leaving in uh... 10 min. so we got the tix... 5 min left... and ran to the station, up the train... and 1 min after we got on it left! Gosh.
so the train ride took 1 1/2 hrs (wow.) and after we got off we had to trek to the concentration camp... getting directions with lots of weird hand gestures on the way. it was quite hilarious really. and it was yet another 1km walk. (i guess we're quite used to walking after being in london...)
and finally we're here!
planned giordano shot: we could be models!
train tracks are really good for emo shots
and more emo shots
cos of the holiday people were going around lighting candles in front of graves... emooo
and check out the difference between colour with beautiful skies
and greyscale... the whole character of the pic changes
i really like this one
the long road ahead: but i can't decide whether the b/w one or colour is nicer leh
and i want this kind of nice slim legs =P
so after the 2nd concentration camp the taxi man (who was really nice) drove us to the salt mine in under 2 hrs... i think he was travelling at double the speed limit at one point 0.0 gosh. but we got there in time for the tour... and even got to sleep =). really blessed. and really an adventure... cos in the span of 36 hours we took a plane, bus, tram, train, taxi - not much more transport we could experience in krakow i think -.-"
the very clean bathroom... lol. my salt mine pics didn't turn out too nicely so i can't be bothered to put them up. 
and we got driven back to krakow... where we went to get train tix to prague. at the counter we realised that the price had changed since that morning - 3 pounds more expensive! and the ticket was quite expensive to begin with... ~ 40 pounds after conversion. gosh. our flights to krakow and back from prague were about the same price as that ticket =S. but we got them anyhow... and went for dinner. thank God the place we tried to go to on the 1st day was now open (and it was quite the cosy cute cafe! alliteration hehe.)
da vinci chicken
chicken scream~ don't eat me!
after dinner was dessert... *yum*
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.
polish 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. 
oi. 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.
