Linkopi @ Linköping

Pearline came to visit from Stockholm on thursday till sunday. We had a plenty lot of fun and the weather was great!

we had lunch at this pizzeria opened by the iraqi man in the bottom right photo. he has a vietnamese wife! he offered us a great deal..55Sek for a pizza and a canned drink. and the pizza was huge and delicious.

here's our ryanair flight! we eventually got there at about 6pm.

Riga airport which is relatively small for such a rich country. Now i know why singapore airport is one of the world's best.

and on our bus ride to the hostel. the buses there still operate with a conductor going around collecting money and issuing tickets. and this is their central bus and train station which houses a shopping mall and is much much bigger than their airport! and it's open till 10pm! so much better compared to the other european countries where everything closes by 6 or 7.

This is the hostel we stayed at. It's in a quiet corner 10 mins away from the bus station. and it was quite difficult to find it. but it's a really nice place with clean and big rooms.

there was an asian restaurant in Origo (the trainstation) which was quite expensive but has surprisingly good business. there's also their version of watsons! and cuttlefish to go with beer!

dinner was at one of their fast food chains, chicko chicken. haha. it's quite cheap. like about 1sgd for a burger and it's not too bad.

and we returned to the hostel after dinner with some really really cheap beers to have a beer sampling session. the beers were really good for their 1sgd prices and there were about 20-30 brands of beers on sale! and that's Kristelle, a french teacher based in estonia whom we met at the hostel and i had a nice chat with. a couple of shots of the surroundings of the hostel. and the super expensive money. haha. you basically just need to use coins over there. and a huge crowd waiting outside the cinema for it to open at 10am on a Sunday!

there are alot of casinos around. like about every street and corner. maybe that's where the money goes to.

and alot of Art Noveau buildings. Art Noveau is a style of architecture where they use alot of expression. like the very expressive face in the photo. here's the opera house and it's surroundings. it's one of the nicer buildings around there. and clean looking too. the weather then was perfect. sunny and not very cold. this is the freedom monument near the opera house. there are 2 guards standing in front of the monument and alot of flowers at the base of the monument. it's like their version of statue of liberty. this is the Laima clock near the monument. It was donated by the Laima chocolate company. and it supposedly appeared in the llama song?? haha. and here's in the park nearby too. there was a really cool bridge there where people locked alot alot alot of locks on the railing. i think it's some love bridge or something. and there were very old locks..probably 30 or 40 years old! cool. this is the gunpowder tower which is now the museum of war. the exhibits are quite interesting but all in latvian so we didn't understand. the auntie is one of the many working over there and she was so happy that i took a photo with her. damn cute. haha. the porcupine at the bottom is made of dried pines i think. interesting.
some random shots around the old town. an old building given a new lease of life with a coat of purple paint, their parliament right next to a church, church in service, and the 3 brothers which are just 3 buildings from different times. and a BMW police car! europeans and their european cars. by this time, the weather had taken a turn for the worse. drizzling and windy and cold! =( that explains the disgusted look. and just shots of nice looking buildings and a super old one. we sought refuge in a little bakery by the road. the pastries we bought were not more than 50 cents each and were delicious! just look at that cute little boy staring at the cakes. i love that photo! we next hid in some random building. then we found the house of blackheads after we went out. and visited the museum next to it. it had exhibits about the war, like real nazi flag and stuff. and this is my favourite photo of the trip. this man is actually a guard there but he looks like a life exhibit! and this is st. peters church. you can pay to go up the tower for a birds eye view of the place but the shitty weather wasn't worth it. we had to pay to go into the place and to take photos too so we didn't go in. just at the entrance. looks like any other church anyway. the linkoping cathedral looks nicer. a materrazzi parked at the size of the road! i know my spelling is wrong but i can't be bothered to find the right one. and a cheap but good chocolate bar there. i think it was about 50 cents sgd. and the "cat house" which is basically a black cat perched on the top of the building. when the owner of the place got exiled, he ordered the cat to be turned the other way. but it has been turned back 'coz his exile got lifted. i bought a pair of earrings from this granny. she's adorable isn't she? haha. i miss my ah ma! and my sugar overdose in the form of an amaretto ice cream and cakes! the ice cream was yummy and about 2sgd while the cakes were about 1.50 each and delicious! we had some latvian food for dinner. it was kind of like marche, where you take what you want then pay for it. the food is quite good. bb had his sa zham ba. haha. which isn't the belly meat but the ribs over here. the place was very nicely decorated and it was a good meal for about 10sgd each. and we abandoned the plan to go clubbing after dinner 'coz the streets were quiet and we didn't want to risk it being the only asians there and very easy to spot. instead, we went back to the supermarket to get some beers and food but it was after 10 and this cashier started walking around and taking beers out of people's hands. it's crazy. but we still had some jim bean and great fun playing blackjack and drinking weird concoctions like milk, apple juice with coke. the next morning, we went to check out the central market behind origo. it's a market place spanning a few old hangars and it's really a market. there are meat stalls, pastry stalls, bread stalls, cheese stalls, fruits, veges, clothes, everything! we ate a cake and a pastry there. yums. about 50cents sgd each again! that's like about the only good thing about the place. oh! and the butcher stall sold huge pig ears..bigger than ur palm and pig snouts and also ox tongues. gross.

luv, jL