Good evening, Singapore, and welcome to this ninth episode of Sleepless in Singapore. Today is Sunday, March the 17th, and I am Julian. I'm going to tell you a story about Russia and Ukraine today. And maybe we will even make it to Mongolia. We'll see. And then I'm going to read a bit of Tom Sawyer for you. So please make yourself comfortable. Sit down, lie down, and let my voice be your guide to a restful night.

After our military train ride from Kishinau to Kiev, which I told you about in the last episode, we arrive in the morning in Kiev. The weather is beautiful, and we make our way to our Airbnb, which is run by a guy called Kolja. And Kolja, a very interesting person, his profile says he's Airbnb host slash elf, whatever that means. Kolja is waiting for us in front of the place, and then he is taking us up to our place in what seems to be the smallest elevator I ever used. In fact, it was so small that Philipp and I kind of squeezed in with part of our luggage, and Kolja had to take the stairs. And I think it was on the sixth floor or maybe around that. So surely walking a lot is what kept him fit. Kolja, the elf, was absolutely amazing. He sat down with us, took his time to explain the city, and gave us a lot of recommendations.

The first thing he wanted to do with us was to check out the rooftop. So, Philipp and I thought, yeah, a rooftop, that sounds nice. Probably some rooftop bar or at least some rooftop terrace or something similar. But it turns out when Kolja said rooftop, he meant rooftop. And by that, he meant a rooftop on the 12th floor, we counted, or above the 12th floor, with no rails, no kind of safety, anything. It was literally a rooftop over Kiev on the 12th floor. And we went out this little hole in the rooftop with a ladder, and we went up, and then we were on that rooftop. Kolja was walking around, jumping around on that rooftop. He was jumping to the next rooftop, which wasn't like a big gap or anything in between. But still, it looked kind of risky. Philip and I, not as jumpy, not as runny, a bit more careful on that rooftop. We were allowed up there, and we walked around, enjoying a beautiful view. And Kolja was jumping to yet another rooftop, and I don't know, we watched him. We were a bit scared for him, but he didn't seem to be scared at all. It seems he's doing that a lot. So eventually, we were fine with it. And when he came back, after he realized we were not going to jump over, he sat with us, and we had a really nice view over that part of Kiev. Probably a view that exactly like it was back then nobody will ever see again these days, sadly. So, without becoming political or anything, I still feel like I should mention at least that I condemn that war but that I'm at the same time very very grateful that I could see Kiev as it was in 2017, in fact on April the 30th of 2017.

After we enjoyed that view, we went back down again, and Kolja apologized that he could not stick with us for a bit longer, he was busy with something. But he did recommend a place to eat, a restaurant called Pervak. And in fact, we had read about that. It's supposed to be one of the best restaurants in Kiev. And it was quite the experience. The food, in fact, was quite nice. The waitresses were all dressed like nurses, I'm not sure why, kind of a mix of a nurse and a Bavarian woman wearing a dirndl. They had these nurse costumes and they had their breasts stuffed in there and stuffed out somehow. And I didn't see the reason for it or I didn't see the concept. And we asked Kolja later and he said it's also not actually traditional or something to wear these clothes but it was very interesting and it was different from the usual so that's always good. So we enjoyed our time there and when our waiter came we asked him what he can recommend and I was going for the ginger lemonade and he said no you should take the regular lemonade. So I'm listening to him, Philip is going for the ginger lemonade anyway and what can I say the regular lemonade was horrible it tasted like gummy bears, like liquid gummy bears, the ginger lemonade was actually quite likeable but what can you do sometimes it is like that. The food was like a wooden board with some meats and some chili and... Huh. I don't remember the details. I just remember this board with some kind of shots and some piece of meat, like cured meats, and this red chili on top of it that was quite spicy. So we had a nice dinner there and then we walked around a bit and then we went back because it was quite late. And we went to sleep and we slept well.

And then on the next day, we went for breakfast at the Blue Cup Coffee Shop. Where I had Eggs Benedict and Philipp had pancakes and it was very good. During the day, our first real day in Kiev, we did some sightseeing. We walked all the way over to Saint Sophia's Cathedral, which is pretty magnificent. And there was this little market and we just had had breakfast before. But if we didn't and if we weren't like super full, we probably would have stopped for this food market. Like a food truck kind of thing where people were barbecuing stuff and grilling stuff. And they had this kind of shashliks with meat and with onion. They had these big shashliks and they were just like five onions, well, on the shashlik. And they had all kind of sausages, some of them looked really nice. So we really wanted to try, but we both were really full. We didn't end up trying. Now looking at the pictures I almost regret. I'm hungry now. And then after that we walked to a huge park where hidden in the park, I remember it went up some hill and there was a park and trees and then hidden in there there was this theater that was like left from a long time ago it looked like a theater ruin but it looked kind of cool super cool photo spot and then there was a cable car and then we made it to the actual attraction we wanted to make it to, which is the Kiev Monastery of the Caves, which is a must, they say in the travel guides. And it was interesting, yeah, there are caves, there's like this monastery and the caves and there are coffins and people come and kiss the coffins for good luck. And it's an interesting experience. For lunch, we had a burger, of course, we had a burger, at a place called Old Bar. And while we definitely have had better burgers before, it wasn't all terrible. And then we made our way back through a long, very big, broad, magnificent street. There are markets and there are tons of people and some of them are dressed up. And eventually, we figure out it's the European Song Contest apparently. But it was a very lively, a very nice city. There was this place next to that cathedral again with these eggs. I don't know if that's Faberge eggs or if that's something else, but they had human-size eggs painted in a lot of colorful patterns. And I don't know, it's a bit weird, but it also was a bit pretty.

Yeah, and then in the evening we went for our train, which would bring us to Moscow. And by now we knew the drill. These like formerly Soviet trains, they have their own train guy for every car and you board the train and the guy or the lady is bringing you tea, they are telling you what to do and what not to do. And after only doing that for like two or three times before, we've almost gotten used to it already. So we sit there, we talk a bit, and the people come and they make our beds. You don't have to do that yourself. They make your bed. And we lie down. And we sleep. And we wake up. And we're in Moscow. And Moscow is immediately impressive. I think the first thing we saw of Moscow or maybe one of the first things we saw of Moscow was the subway map, the MRT, the Moscow MRT map, which is gigantic. I don't know the facts from the top of my head, but I will make sure that I will link the Moscow MRT system, the Moscow subway system. Actually, I think they call it the Moscow Metro, but I'm not 100% sure. I will make sure to link that for you, just in case you want to read up on it. I think it has some of the deepest subway stations, it has some of the prettiest definitely. It's absolutely worth taking the Moscow subway to check out the... these are like very nice old soviet style subway stations, really beautiful some of them. In Moscow, we stay at a hostel that is called the Kremlin nights, no the Kremlin lights, in a common room like this bunk bedroom. And Moscow was also the first place where we stayed longer than one night. I think we had two or even three nights. I'm not 100% sure. And it was also the first time and the first place where we made some friends, both Philipp and I, that we kind of very loosely know until today.

So after checking in in the hotel, in the hostel, the first guy we met is Han. Han from China, first time in Moscow as well and we kind of trip over his feet and we get to talk and we decide to go out together and then when we were out we looked for what is supposed to be a very good burger place yep and looking at the map here when I when I when I'm talking about well anything as you probably can tell in this podcast it's not scripted and I don't have a red line and I definitely don't have a written down red line what I'm talking about. One of the main reasons I'm recording that podcast aside from the fact that somebody told me I have a voice that will put people to sleep and I was trying to make the most positive thing out of that. Aside from that, the main reason for recording this podcast is to go through my old memories, through the very nice memories I have of a lot of trips I did, but potentially also other things in the future, and to bring them back and to talk about them. So what I'm doing when I'm recording these podcasts is I'm usually looking at some old pictures because they are there. And luckily, even back then, the iPhone was recording geotags for the pictures. when I don't exactly know where something was I tried to find a picture which right now I found a picture of that burger we had and then you can scroll up on your phone or on the computer in your Apple photos and you can check the location where that picture was taken on the map. And right now the burger I was looking at apparently was taken at Ketchup in Moscow. So at this place, Ketchup, we met two more people and it was the May the 2nd and I only know that because it's the night before my birthday. And it was the first time ever I was, except for Philipp, basically alone without any other friends or without my family on my birthday. I don't remember being alone ever before on my birthday. So we didn't really know what to do, but we met these people in the bar. There was Han, there was another guy whose name I forgot. There was a girl called Mira who I became friends with after even. There was Philipp of course and there was myself. And then there was this very random other couple that was sitting at the bar and I just decided to send some vodka shots over for fun because they seemed alone a bit sitting there at the bar. And so we invited them over, they were very happy, it's a big thing in Russia to invite people to vodka apparently. So they came to our table, we were sitting at our table, we were having the greatest time. I'm looking at the pictures, we were taking stupid selfies and we were drinking and then it was midnight and people told me their happy birthdays and they bought another round of shorts and when the bar was closing nobody wanted to go home. So we asked the locals where to go and they said oh yeah we can recommend this karaoke place we can recommend this karaoke place. And we said, okay, why not? Let's go to that karaoke place. And then we were trying to get a taxi and we couldn't find a taxi. We were walking up and down the street a bit and for quite a while, like half an hour, we were trying to get a taxi and nothing happened neither in the streets nor with any apps but what did happen is when we walked a bit further to this smaller road there was a white minibus the kind of the kind of bus that Nat calls the pedo van, was pulling up to us and a Russian guy was looking out of the window. I don't remember if he spoke English or Russian to the local friends we made, but basically he said, hey, where do you want to go? And we said, yeah, we want to go for that karaoke place. And he said, no problem, hop in the back. And we were looking at each other and it's like, hey, it's in Russia. It's a random white bus. It's 2 a.m. in the morning. What are we doing? And of course we jumped in the bus and the Russian guy drove off and he had a bottle of water there and he shared his water with us. He drove a bit fast, but was all right. He didn't talk much. And then half an hour later he dropped us off at a karaoke place. It was a totally legit karaoke place, not some shady bar like in Hungary. The guy said bye bye. He didn't get any commission from the karaoke place. It was the karaoke place we wanted to go to. And the guy said, like, have a good time, whatever, and left us at that karaoke place. It was a good experience. It was very unexpected, but it was a good experience. And then we spent the whole night at that karaoke place until they closed at 6 a.m. in the morning. I think all of us were pretty drunk. Looking at the pictures I'm 100% sure we must have been. There is a short video clip I'm just looking at where Han, the Chinese guy, is singing a German song on karaoke. Crazy good times. What's even crazier, and what I think makes for another great anecdote from that night, around 4 a.m. in the morning, that Russian couple they said we're so sorry we really appreciate you inviting us with you and all that but we have to go now and every one of us is like oh no come on it's only 4 a.m let's stay longer and they told us looked like every other day we would stay with you, but actually tomorrow is our wedding. And that was obviously a big laugh because it's 4 a.m. in the morning and they got drunk for a very long time with random strangers. And only like six hours later they had to be in church or wherever they got married, I don't know. But it was their wedding. And still they partied with us the whole night until 4 a.m. in the morning. Very impressive. No idea who these people were, never talked to them again, forgot their names, but very, very interesting, very cool of them to tag along.

So that was the first night in Moscow, and, or the second night, no, it was the first night, right? And that was my birthday, and actually on my birthday, I feel like we slept through most of the day, and only in the afternoon we walked around and did some sightseeing, and the friend I made, Mira was nice enough to show us around a bit and also what was funny in that hostel like when we were all coming back quite a bit drunk in the morning the very early morning to sleep I went to my bed and i fell asleep and then later when i woke up the guy in the bunk under me like the the bottom bunk when i got up he said like hey do is this maybe yours and and he gave me like some some underwear that must have fallen down last night. I'm so sorry. And he's like, yeah, don't worry. By the way, I'm Juan. I'm from, where was Juan from? I think Juan was from Mexico. Remember Juan from Mexico? Because later on in that story, he probably will play another part again anyway so we got to talk to Juan because apparently some underwear dropped on his head while I was sleeping and Juan decided that he wanted to hang out with us and so he did and so we did our sightseeing and and he became good friends with Mira the Russian lady we met and who was so nice to show us around and everything and well the fun thing about that is Juan was like talking to Mira if she doesn't have like a pretty Russian friend or something. He wanted to meet a Russian girl, basically. And as it turns out, well, Philip and I had to leave that night. So with heavy hearts, we bye-bye to everyone, and we left with the train to, well, with the first leg of the Trans-Siberian, Juan had I think two more nights and so he and Mira and Mira's friend whose name I kind of forgot because I also I never met her in my life but they went out, and apparently it clicked, and Juan and her friend, they really liked each other. And, well, to make that long story short, they got married, they got two kids, they are still married until today. And that is only because some underwear was falling on his face when he was sleeping in a hostel in the bottom bunk.

Yeah, very, very interesting. Juan, Mira, Han. That was quite the virtual friend group for a while, while our trip proceeded. So now I feel I talked a lot about the stories and the experiences we had in Moscow, but I did not say anything about Moscow. Moscow, but I feel like I've been to Moscow a couple times more after that. And during those times I have had the chance to visit a lot more local stuff, like restaurants and sites and so on. So I guess I will keep that part for a future episode of CityPlus in Singapore. Oh, I guess one thing I should mention about Moscow back then is that May 3rd is pretty close to a very very important public holiday in Russia which is the liberation of the Germans and so while we weren't there for the actual holiday we were there on May 3rd, May 4th, which is very close to it. And in Moscow back then they had a military parade right in front of the Kremlin. We were staying like around the corner of the Kremlin. Our hostel was a very nice location. And we didn't know, like nobody of us really knew. So we walked down the street and we thought like huh everything here is like blocked off and suddenly there were tanks rolling down the street and we were a little bit confused maybe not only confused but also a little bit scared because when I say tanks it's like proper big Russian tanks and rocket launchers with actual rockets on them. And you have no idea, if you don't know what I'm talking about, or if you have never seen that before, there are giant rockets. I never thought a rocket is that big. There were rockets, like one single rocket, as long and also as big, like circumference-wise, as a whole truck, like a proper, whatever, 40 tons truck. Only one single rocket on that, a giant rocket. And they didn't have like one or two of them, they had like 20 rolling along. And then there were the tanks and the military and the soldiers coming out of the tanks and waving to the people at the sides. And of course once we knew what it was, it was all fun and all interesting. I got some nice pictures of some pretty big military machines. But it was interesting, it was impressive. I have never seen anything like that before. I feel in Germany, for good reasons, we don't do military parades and I never have been to any other country which does. So yeah, I'm glad that I could experience that.

And then we finally left for the train station for the Trans-Siberian. And that part, the Trans-Siberian Railways and what we did and who we met. And how it is in the Trans-Sib, I will tell you in another episode. Because now I think it is time for some Tom Sawyer.