russia: moscow: manezhnaya square and zaryadye park

Another episode of touring Tuesday in the dark. I left school as dark was falling (which is still entirely too early at this time of year.)

I walked toward the most famous part of the city: the Kremlin, Alexandrovsky park, Manezhnaya Square and Red Squre.

I'd seen photos on social media of the holiday decorations, and I knew they were all still on display.

I'm not sure, but it seems to me that there were more lights and decorations this season than in the past two years I've lived in Moscow.

Manezhnaya Square is often forgotten when talking about the most famous parts of Moscow, but I think most visitors wander through the area at some point, even if they don't recognize it.

There are a couple archways of lights, as well as an entire thematic display with small houses and cartoon like animals, all in a winter setting. Really cute.

Wikipedia tells me the square is locally known as the Manezhka. I've never heard that name, but I don't think I've ever talked to anyone about that area in particular. 

Or maybe the name has been said and I don't remember. I walked through Red Square next, the holiday festival there is still going strong.

I'd seen photos on social media of my next destination as well, Zaryadye Park. The decorations here were definitely over the top.

Zaryadye Park was the first new park in Moscow in 50 years, it was officially opened in September of 2017. It is across the street from one side of the Kremlin, and Red Square.

The entire park is covered in holiday lights, most of them sticking to a similar look.

If I had to describe the lights, I'd call them one half of a Q-tip, with the tip changing colour regularly. The colour change was mostly in unison, so a full hillside looks pretty cool.

On the far side of the park were holographic lights, with the 'pictures' changing regularly. Awesome.

russia: moscow: a little of this, a little of that

This weekend was the first weekend of March. Claire was working at a branch of our school where this was the first weekend of her March holidays, so she flew to another country. Angela worked at a branch that didn't have these holidays at all, and my branch had them a week later, so Ang and I were still in Moscow, and decided to get together.

We met at a mall, I wanted to take a few photos in a space lined with mirrors. The way the mirrors were set up, they reflected each other, so it always looked like there were heaps of people walking through, even if there was just one person.

After taking the photos we walked through the mall, the stores weren't open yet. It's probably good the stores weren't open, because I could see chocolate I wanted, and Angela could see makeup she wanted.

After the mall we got on the metro, I wanted to see the TV tower of Moscow. It's in an area called Ostankino, it seemed easy enough to get to. The walk after the metro ride was a lot longer than I expected, but oh well. The weather was fantastic, so I was happy, and Angela followed along as always.

We walked the long way around to get to an entrance gate to the land on which the tower is located, security just to get on the property was pretty intense. 

I had a water bottle with me, but that wasn't allowed, so I had to put it in a locker. We also had to put our purses through an x-ray machine and walk through metal detectors.

It is possible to go up the tower, there is a restaurant up there and an observation deck. The price for this is 1000 rubles, and you have to have your passport as identification. It didn't seem worth it, especially without Claire, so we opted to wait for another day.

We took photos of the tower, with a lovely snow-covered foreground, then left. Maybe we'll come back as a team?

From the TV tower property I could see onion domes, so I knew there was a church not too far away. I used my phone to figure out where it was, and we started walking again. The church ended up being quite nice inside, especially because there was light visibly streaming through the windows.

At that point both of us were hungry, so I dragged Ang to a place serving 'Asian' food for giant bowls of pho. So good, and pretty cheap. This cafe is part of a store selling Asian food, there are sooo many goodies I miss from living in Seoul.

The next morning Angela and I met up again, though it was almost noon by the time we got together. We decided to see the holiday decorations in Manezhnaya Square, which were lovely. It was the season of Maslenitsa, which is a cultural holiday saying goodbye winter, hello spring.

There was still plenty of snow on the ground, so spring wasn't very visible, but it was fun to take a few photos.

I wanted a snack, so I told Angela we were going to a nearby cafe so I could get a whoopie cookie. The cafe is called I Love Cake, and it's beautiful.

The display case is full of gorgeous cakes. I'm not sure how good all of them are, but they're aesthetically appealing, and I am always happy with the whoopie cookies.

When we'd bought tickets to the instagram museums I'd seen one listed that was basically a big ball pit. Claire had absolutely no interest in this one, but Angela was willing to go, so we chose this weekend while Claire was out of town :)

The ball pit was fun, but much more of a workout than either of us expected. It was easy to jump in, but getting back out was a challenge, to say the least. Let's just say I'm glad I used to be an athlete. I knew I'd be sore in a couple days.

After burning plenty of calories in the ball pit we decided we wanted food. We went back to a place offering Georgian food, and proceeded to order way too much food. Since at least half of what we ordered had cheese in it we also probably were waaaay past the amount of sodium one should have in a day. So good.

A good weekend :)