My Prague Journey III

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Part 3 is finally out. On third day, it was Friday, we woke up slightly earlier.

Having breakfast - sausage, egg, bread and tea. Mummy cooked and prepared, yummy =) See the jeans hanging there? As I mentioned before, the weather is humid, so people there just hang their clothes at indoor and the clothes have got no stink. So good right.

Tesco is everywhere in Prague. Must pay a visit there. Well, things which sold at supermarket are more on pasta, meat, fruit juice, beer, instant gravy and stuff. I love 'Raffaello' chocolate, it's one of the Ferrero company's products, similar to Ferrero Rocher, got a few layers but this one is all in white and coconut flavour, very delicious. But it's not made in Czech, obviously it's an Italian company. I'm not sure it's sold in M'sia though. It was not weekend but still the supermarket was quite full and packed. I wonder why they were so free. But most of them were senior citizens. The cashiers are mostly aged people but they are still quick and efficient. Compared to our country, some cashiers are just twenties but work as eighties and no spirit, no efficiency. After paying, cashiers will give plastic bags according to the amount of items been bought. The plastic bag is in low quality and if you want a better one, you've to pay for it. This encourages people to recycle. Outside supermarket there are many seats. People brought a bag with them and kept all the things that have just been bought inside. It's more convenient to carry when riding tram or subway. I saw a guy brought a huge backpack, carried two dozens of 1.5L mineral water and other items. In order to save plastic bag, some even bring empty handbag inside and throw what they want inside, initially I thought they were stealing!! It's impossible to do it so obvious, then only I realised their intention. Mummy and I were sitting to wait for daddy who went to toilet. Suddenly the fat lady sat next to me standing up, taking her backpack that full of Tesco grocery and talking to me in Czech language. I've got no idea what she was talking about. From her body language, it seemed she wants me to carry the backpack for her. I was so blur. Mummy responded quickly and asked me to help her to carry the backpack. She's too fat to carry herself. Imagine a fat primary school boy wanna carry his small school bag, his hand hardly reaches the shoulder straps. Hope you get what I mean, not good at describing ya. So after helping the lady, she thanked me sincerely, I could feel it, hehe. Well, its a great feeling to help an old lady, and also felt happy that she trusted me, a foreigner =)

This is how the shopping centre looks like, not much different from our Midvalley Megawall.

Lunch time. Variety of restaurants there, finally we chose an Italian restaurant. A main obstacle we encountered in Prague was language!! We can't even understand a Czech word. It's very complicated. I dont think English is their second language. Maybe third or fourth. Few people can speak good english. Slightly more can understand well, while most of them can understand a bit. Others can't understand english at all. It makes extremely tough to communicate. It took quite a long time to get our order done.

It was not surprising to see an Italian flag in an Italian restaurant...

...but we saw 3 different colours of tissue paper which symbolizes Italian flag colours were arranged nicely here. So patriotic?!

Had some brown bread and soup.

Carbonara was served.

We saw a word 'risotto' appears frequently in the menu. Actually it's a dish of rice cooked in broth (like soup or sauce), usually with saffron (a kind of plant), and served with grated cheese. In short, rice with gravy. We ordered one and tried. It looked alike with the carbonara huh, but the taste was different. The portion was big, we shared two meal. Erm, the food was okay, not very impressing.

Next stop was the Petrin Hill. Gotto ride 'funicular' (similar to cable car) up to the hill. This is the station to buy ticket and wait for funicular ride.

Yea, this is how the funicular inside looks like. The speed is low and we grabbed the chance to be closer with nature and the scenery of Prague. Most of the passengers were white men, just a few were Asians.

Snap shot - the beauty of Prague

Well, the sign tells you where we are now.

There's a wonderful garden which is full of lavender. Couldnt miss this right =)

Another view of the garden. Some new planting had just been done.

A close shot of another type of purple plant.

[ 前人种树，后人乘凉] I like this tree very much, not sure why.

It's spring, why havent the leaves started growing ya? But this outlines the uniqueness of the tree. Nice view huh.

We reached an astronomical musuem. The statue represents a famous astronomist, probably from Czech, not sure who he is.

Did you realise I love taking photo of different trees? It's called 'dialogue with nature' =D This tree looks like 柳树 which is well known and common to be seen in China.

The main actor appeared, not me but the tower =P

Hey, I'm in Prague, not Paris eh, why is the Eiffel Tower here?

Yea, this is the mini Eiffel Tower - Petrin Tower. Prague is often described as the 'Paris of the East' by travel publications. This tower is now used as television tower.

Can see tourists climbing up the staircase? Yea, it's not too high up, approximately 60 meters and 299 stairs to climb. The real Eiffel in Paris is 324 meters high, 5 times taller than this. Actually we planned to climb Petrin Tower but I wasnt feeling well that day, so we just took some photo and walked around.

There are a lot of wall like the picture above around Petrin Hill. It's all about religious story.

The Church of St. Lawrence

The building beside, it's part of the church i guess. I admire its design.

What's next? Disneyland? Just kidding. Honestly, I dont know what's this building for.

Capture whole buidling, seriously look similar to Disneyland, especially the roof.

This is the wall which is remained after World War II. Prague was not destroyed as other countries such as Germany after World War II and its castle is quite complete and well protected.

Now we move on. The old tram looks like this.

The new tram appeared. Fully air-cond and comfortable seat.

Riding tram and going our next destination. We started to get used to living in Prague. Luckily the transportation system is great.

There's not only one bridge in Prague. There are quite a number of bridges other than Charles Bridge. Most of them are for vehicles to cross the opposite bank.

There are a lot of artists in Prague. We often see the drawings are sold beside the street. They are all beautiful pieces. Only excellent skills produce nice pieces. Well, my uncle is actually a technician who works for Japanese company. His job is to repair the big factory's machine if its broken down. He's tranferred here for 3 months as there's no technician here. So he had to interview and hire someone who can continue his repair job. Guess who my uncle had interviewed? A musician - full time guitarist!! This guy is either bored with playing guitar or feels that be a musician cant make money, therefore he wanna change his job!! Woah, from musician to technician. Dont you think it's a bit too far away? From this incident, I guess artists in Prague are more than other job takers.

Yeah, we are here at Parizska - Paris street which is located at Jewish Quarter.

From the street name, we can expect what kind of shop will be found here. Must be pricey and classy shops eh. But it's so special to see the coat is located outside the shop.

Apart from the shopping style...

...the design of the buildings at Parizska are similar to Paris style.

Another example of it is here.

Modern and traditional blending? Stylish and classy sports car. Behind it, relaxing and enjoyable horse car XD

In Europe, if you wanna pee, dont search for 'toilet' or 'washroom', you'll never find it. It's WC - water closet. The picture above is not a giant lamp for decoration, it's so-called public toilet - at a busy street!! Just insert a coin and go inside. We actually didnt try it. Not getting used to pee at a street, haha. Honestly, it's very convenient though but have to keep the hygiene well.

Mummy said to me any statue I would not want to miss. It's true. Luckily I captured this. Though by that time I didnt know his background, when I checked my travel guide, I found that this is the statue of Moses in Josefov. As I mentioned before, this place is in the Jewish Quarter where still quite a lot of Jews living here. Moses was the prophet of Judaism (Jewish religion) who born in Egypt.

Another clock tower can be seen in Josefov.

Tea time. Walked half day already, had a seat and rest for a while. Second time been to KFC. Had some salad and ice cream.

We took subway back to uncle's apartment. Have to walk 5 minutes.

This subway station is quite high up at the little hill. Nice view. See the tower? It's TV Tower.

This is not the normal highway. Besides cars are crossing, the rectangular part below is for subway to cross!! Meaning there are two uses of this highway - for car and subway. Save place and money. The engineers are so intelligent and brilliant.

Furthermore, it's not a short one, but it's at a hill, whenever I looked up to see it, I was amazed by the engineering. This highway is nearby uncle's apartment. Everytime we walked to tram stop, we would pass by it.

Had to cross a tunnel to go back apartment. It was quite smelly inside. Urine smell, must be doggies' urine. After going back, I was too tired so I caught some sleep before uncle fetched us to dinner.

'Mana'? So surprised to see a Malay word. I missed it, hehe. Uncle's colleague - Kado san wanted to belanja us dinner. Actually it's not a Malay word, it's just a name of a korean + japanese restaurant.

Looks more like an underground pub ya.

It's very neat and comfortable inside. Some koreans and local people are having meal there.

Not only Kado san, but there were still other colleagues. The girl on left who answering a phone call is the company staff whose name is Evana. She's a Czech and works as - erm, a job like secretary. Beside Evana is her mum. When I just sat down, she spoke Czech with me. Cause she thought that I'm a Vietnamese!! Usually Vietnamese in Prague can speak Czech. What??!! Do I look like Vietnamese huh?? Well, to them, Asians look the same. Nevermind. Next to me obviously is my mummy. Evana speaks English but her mum doesnt. So it's difficult to communicate. Evana translates to her mum throughout the dinner time.

I ordered my favourite drink in Prague - Peach ice tea!!

Told you before it's korean + japanese restaurant. 2 in 1. We had some 饺子 at first. Quite tasty. Next was kimchi. My first time to taste it. So spicy. It was actually my first time to try korean dishes. In M'sia, I often eat sushi and japanese meal but havent tried korean food before. Cant believe first time to try it was in Prague, so far away.

Yummy sushi served. The salmon was so fresh.

Hmm, I guess this is a korean dish. It looks and tastes like our chinese 冬粉. But Kado san said its made by potato. I'm not sure its true. What I'm sure is it tastes good, hehe.

Typical korean food, stone bowl and it's still hot. Gotto stir it before eating. Delicious.

Beef in hot plate. Beef in Czech isnt as good as countries like Australia and New Zealand according to uncle. The beef here is more 'ngen'.

Well, back to japanese style - tempura!! My favourite. Czech Republic is a landlocked country, meaning no ocean, no sea for sure. Just some lakes and rivers. It's very rare for them to eat seafood. Czech eat fish only on christmas eve!! To be honest, Evana hasnt eaten prawn before, it was her first time. Sounds pity right. Guys, you are in M'sia, a country which is full of seafood, please appreciate it huh, there are people never try prawn and crab in their lifetime okay.

Another hot bowl, rice with 鱼卵 and egg. Very nice and tasty. Mummy loved it.

At last, let me introduce everyone. From left, my lovely daddy, my generous and kind uncle, the typical Japanese-look Kado san, the pretty korean girl with her husband. This girl is an acountant who works with uncle. Her name is Miami if I'm not mistaken. She's very very very polite, warmhearted and charmed. When I saw her, she's exactly the same like those Korean drama actress. Big, pretty smile on face, always nod her head and bow a bit, very well manered. Then it's Evana, an active, friendly, honest, laughing loud and beautiful big-eyes girl. Quite a typical european girl. We asked her a lot about Prague. Which choc is nice, what other outskirt to visit and so on. That night it looked like a mini United Nation dinner, Korean, Czech, Japanese and Malaysian =) I havent tried things like this before, it was a special night, I couldnt forget this dinner. A memorable night. Best wishes to Evana and her mother, Miami and her husband and Kado san. The world is so big, someone meets one very often, while someone meets one once in a lifetime, someone never see one before. It was the first time maybe the last time as well we wet each other, my pleasure to know you all. All the best in future =)

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I would like to take this opportunity to thank each and everyone of you for reading my posts and leaving precious comments. Any feedback dont hesitate to leave it on comment box ^.^ See ya

...to be continued...