moscow day 2

day 2:

so after sleeping at a late 3am (i've been sleeping 13 hours for the past 3 nights, minus the train night ride), i woke up feeling slightly shitty, because i knew i had to get registered in moscow. it's not such a simple thing, as registering at the post office involves a great deal of trouble for our host deric, even after we leave moscow. so, we decided to register at a hostel, which means that we have to pay a sum equal to staying 3 nights at the hostel, which also means 1000 roubles, or 50usd. see what i mean when i wake up feeling shitty.

good thing is, we don't have to get registered, since the regulation is to be in a city for at least 3 working days. we're there for 2 working days, since sun mon and tues are holidays, due to tuesday being national day.

we left for the really big arts and craft market in izmaylovo, about 7 stops from where we were (oktyabrskaya). so we step out of the metro and as i'm looking around for the market (or any signs of it), k sees a medieval tower rising out from a distance.

thus the trio set forward for that tower (might there be a dragon to slay?)

and as we near, we see a sight so familiar to us. stores sell sunglasses, clothes (aber ombie?), shoes, bags, perfume (ever heard of luckost?). except it's at least 3 times more expensive. naohiah. anyway, i'm going to china, land of the pirated plentiful, so i'm not really regretting that prices here are that high.

izmaylovo market charges a 10 rouble (0.50 usd) entrance fee to enter. once you go in, stores and stores (think chatuchak market, minus the heat and the asian people, add a lot of white not very smiley people and take away the large overhead roof) of handicrafts spread out before you. matryoshky dolls, khokhloma (lacquer bowls), linen, jewellry, those fuzzy furry warm hats that look like they've been made out of puffy animals, soviet posters and badges etc abound. there is an upper level selling icons (paintings of the saints of the orthodox church) and paintings.

the main draw for me were all the old cameras. a friendly russian guy was showing me a medium format camera that captured 2 frames in a single shot (the camera opens up like a cupboard does when you open the 2 doors simultaneously), a really old lomo, a tiny german made camera about 2 matchbox widths apart, and a gigantic camera lens (about 1000mm) that was made in 1956 and used in Grand Prix races. interesting eh. i wish i could speak russian, then i would be able to talk to him about where he got these cameras. i'm sure he would have stories behind almost of all the things he had on display ( or maybe i'm just dreaming too much eh.)

as we are 3 growing men, we are hungry most of the time. the smell of a bbq caught us and we soon saw faint clouds of smoke billowing from a side of the street. kebabs! but were they grotesquely expensive. a stick of meat, 200 roubles. with pita bread, an additional 20 roubles. after that night of a 8usd beer, i wasn't feeling too generous with myself. so we opted to walk out to find cheaper food. i suggested shaslyk, but the rest wasn't feeling too sure of it, since it was out in the open.

we found a stall selling humjingpeng lookalikes, and for 0.50usd, i got a piece of fried dough with some unknown meat inside. and it was pretty good! there was this suspicious barrel next to me, and the guy was asking me if i wanted some. for another 0.50usd, i got a small cup of kvas, which is fermented rye bread water, served gassy, cold, and therefore refreshing. it was seriously pretty shiok. rye bread is a dark dense bread, that has a herby, sprightly, slightly grassy but quite a refreshing taste. kvas is made from rye bread, and has quite a similar taste. and it's damn shiok when it's cold and the sun is hot, bright and shining in a sky with no clouds. and it becomes even more shiok when you have an oily piece of dough with some unknown meat inside (what an adventure eh).

further on we went, and we saw this couple eating a boat shaped piece of dough, with a half cooked egg nested in the boat (khachapri po-adzharski). a got 1. the old ladies were pulling out batches of the dough, baked a golden brown and shiny like a waxed car. surely they (the dough lah!) were calling out to me, all the while winking with buttery goodness in the sun. so i got another 1 that looked like a pita, but had cheese inside (khachapuri po-imeretinsk). the ladies inside the store were smiley and were trying to pose for k as they made a new batch of dough. the just-mentioned food is georgian. and the deep fried cheese i had with the dark lovely belgian beer (that had a lovely price too...) the other time is also georgian (very unlike the mozzerella cheese sticks).

one bite and i was taken. seriously. imagine a crisp, slightly salty shell giving way to dense soft warm dough that could cushion your fall from the sky. and then the climax of salty salty tasty midly sour cheese that bites your tastebuds and sends you reeling into paradise. well not yet. you're lacking the magic of kvas, or baltika no 7, to send you on a one way ticket to happiness (or until the food and drink runs out). that seriously made my day. the salt of the cheese, the coldness of the beer or kvas, the warmth of the bread, the sun on my face and the oh-so-familiar smell of freshly cooked dough, made me very very satisfied with life then. all was well.

we headed back, me still a little giddy from the elation of food and drink, and got food for dinner. pangang currym, sweet and sour chicken, nonya sambal prawns, beer, wine, ice cream, delicious soft cookies and chocolate liquer and a company of 7 made dinner a really enjoyable affair. fish sauce exudes an interesting smell, which our guest alex, a russian, found, um, unique. we managed to asianise him by making him do that finger posing thing as we took pictures of him. and we also convinced him to try the fish sauce. pity there was no durian.



*actually, i have a confession to make. since there was no coconut milk for the curry, i used cream and milk. and the milk i used smelled fine. unfortunately, someone remarked 10 minutes after i added the milk to the curry ( i was alone in the kitchen then), that it was off. all was fine, although i got the shits later. k & a remarked that it was my fault that they had the shits too. but the rest of the food was spicy right....(excuse my weak attempt at justification)

-l