Random Pics from Prague

The following day Ching Yee and I went our separate ways. We hadn't extended our stay at Sir Tobys and they were full for the weekend, probably due to their Halloween party. Ching Yee went to some place super cheap and I went on to Prague's Heaven as recommended by my Lonely Planet book. I mainly just relaxed on this day. I took a few random photos.

I randomly came upon St. Cyril Church.

St. Cyril Church

Crazy Pigeon lady

Prague has a mini eiffel tower.

My terrible picture of the monastery.

The view from the monastery was incredible.

Prague Castle, again. I told you I took like a billion pictures of it.

Some bar.

This is the bar's attraction. I wasn't compelled to go in.

Beware of pick pockets.

Rubin Office center

Lennon Wall and a few other Random Pictures

After visiting Prague castle and eating a bad meal from a restaurant Ching Yee picked out we went on to visit the Franz Kafka museum. Actually, Ching Yee wanted to visit it, I didn't. We decided to meet up again in a hour outside the museum by the pissing statues.

The Pissing Fountain, pissing into the shape of the Czech Republic.

While Ching Yee was in the museum I wandered around, as I enjoy doing, and found the Lennon Wall. It's a wall of graffiti of John Lennon inspired lyrics and has been this way since the 1980s.

Lennon Wall

What the hell is "China" doing on the Lennon Wall? Out of place! It's not Lennon inspired. Someone should paint over it! Yes, that says China, or more precisely "Zhong Gou" in Chinese. See mom and dad, all those years of Chinese school paid off. :P

We ended the day going to the new town area and getting some food. I was my usual fatass and kept eating. Below is a picture of the Natural History Museum. Ching Yee already went and said it's just like any other natural history museum; I find them pretty cool but I've already seen some nice ones state side so a picture of the outside was good enough for me.

Visiting Prague Castle

The next day Ching Yee and I decided to visit Prague Castle. Like you guys have seen, Prague Castle is amazing, beautiful, gorgeous, whatever aesthetically pleasing adjective you can think of works here. Like I mentioned previously I took what must have been a billion pictures of Prague Castle, but I'll spare you guys all of them. I'll probably just show like 10 pictures of the same castle. =P Just kidding... I'm trying really hard not to show the same picture over and over.


Just a reminder of what Prague Castle looks like from a distance. We'll be going a little more up close in this blog entry.

Prague Castle is the largest castle in Europe. Its history dates back to 870 AD. Of course over that span of time it has been added upon, destroyed and rebuilt. The castle has been home to Bohemian Kings, Holy Roman Emperors, and is still in use by the current Czech Republic government.


One the way to the castle I got hungry so I stopped to get a Eurohotdog. This guy working the stand tried to rip me off by short changing me. I'm not sure if it was an honest mistake or if he was just a jerk. Anyway after that we walked up to the castle.


Holy crap, is that truck going to fit? Plus check out the guards, they reminded me of cold war style guards.


It fit, just barely, but check out the scurfs at the top of the arch... apparently not everything fits through there cleanly.

You can get some incredible views of Prague from the castle. Here's a couple views:





Continuing on into the Castle...

You'll find this statue of a naked guy by some toy musuem as you walk past those guards from earlier. Check out which part of his body has turned gold from being touched. I'll give you a clue: it's his wiener. Pretty good clue huh?













Not everything was open in Prague Castle because when we were there it was their independence day. Oh well.

Ching Yee's expensive journalist camera broke on her trip. She'd been without a camera for some time already. She basically said I took a bunch of stupid pictures, which to be fair, is correct. :) She took a few pictures with my camera, I'm sure the quality of he photos were hampered with my simple point and shoot camera, but I still love my old cannon SD400.

Prague!

"Go to Prauge!"
"Oh! Don't miss Prague!"
"I'm going to Prague too!"

Everyone I met along my trip recommended I go to Prague. "Prague is beautiful!" Well, they were certainly right. Prague wasn't in my original plan, but I had the flexibility of going anywhere I wanted between Amsterdam and Athens. I'm glad I was able to meet so many travelers that made this recommendation to me. If you're even close to the Czech Republic I would recommend you not miss Prague.

I actually met this nice former journalist while in Munich. Her name was Ching Yee and she was from Hong Kong. We met in the lobby of where we were both staying. It was an opportunity for me to practice my Mandarin, which of course I welcome these days. Luckily for me, when my Mandarin failed, her command of English was pretty good. Anyway it turned out that she was going to Prague too, only a day earlier than me. We decided to exchange email addresses and see if we could meet up in Prague.

I was still searching for a place to stay in Prague online. My first choice was all booked which sucked. Luckily for me I ran into another traveler. Her name was Clara and she was from Oklahoma and had a really cool accent which I liked. She was a Taiwanese American Happa, and I guess she could tell I was American by my mixture of Mandarin and English. She had actually been to Prague already and gave me a card of the hostel she stayed at: Sir Toby's. I decided to take Clara's advice and I'm glad I did. The hostel was nice, safe, and the location wasn't too far from the sites.

By pure luck it turned out Ching Yee was staying at the same place. We decided to see the sites together that day and wandered around Old Town. Man, talk about a beautiful town.

Old Town Square

Old Town Square

Old Town Square

The Astronomical Clock. It has a little mechanical performance every hour I think. The performance, like the Glockenspeil in Munich, is quite underwhelming.

I find this statue quite inappropriate! I don't mind naked people, but a naked little girl that's just hitting puberty??? It seems wrong to me.

Prague Castle. I took like a billion pictures of it cuz it's gorgeous. It's also the biggest Castle in Europe and it's still in use by the Government.

Charles Bridge, one of the best examples of gothic bridges in Europe.

Medeval dress

People walking on Charles Bridge.

The view from Charles Bridge.

One of the many statues along Charles Bridge.

There's a saying that everyone in the Czech Republic is a musician. This band was playing Jazz on the bridge and attracted quite a crowd. I walked by them later though and they were playing the exact same song. I guess they didn't have much of a repertoire.

Prague Castle again.... it's it just amazing?

What the hell is that thing on their heads?

A view of the other side of Charles Bridge.

Discko Duck!

A begger. Beggers in Prague generally do not show their faces. Maybe it is due to shame?

Towards the end of our Day Ching Yee and I decided to take a canal cruise. It was just before sunset and we thought we could get a great view of the castle as the sun went down. Well we were the only people to book and so, just like in third world countries I have been in, we had to wait for more people to show up. We didn't get onto the cruise until the sun set, so I had to settle for my view of the sunset without the cruise. At least the people let us wait inside the warm boat which wasn't going on the cruise.

Damn boat got in my shot of the sunset!

Obama! (the exclamation point doesn't mean i'm happy with him. quite the contrary, even though i made sure to send in my absentee ballot for him while I was in china and watched him win in cambodia, i'm quite disappointed with him. legislatively he and the dems got a lot done, but they conceded so much it's like we have the republican party from the 70s and the crazy conservatives. i don't regret my vote though because the alternative was much much worse. i'll take the least bad when it comes to politics this day in age.)

Damn! Bin Laden's a celeb here too?!?!?!