Warsaw, Poland (Part 3)

February 21, 2014

2nd day - it was raining slightly in the morning; gloomy - dark, heavy clouds, unclear sky. Haih, what to do, we need to continue the journey. Tapi indahnya kalau dapat sambung tidurrrr. 

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We missed the bus again. It was not our fault, but that bus driver! How could he drove away a minute earlier from the stated time? T___T Spent 20minutes at the bus stop, yeah maybe Allah wanted to remind me that I have not read al-Mathurat yet. Alhamdulillah. Aha, I guess most of us know what is al-Mathurat, right? It is like compilation of du'a that we can recite everyday - morning and evening. :) Macam du'a beri kesihatan yang baik, du'a mintak Allah jagakan kita sepanjang hari. Try it, you will feel peace after that. Really. 

The destination today, Lazienki Krolewskie (Lazienki Park), the largest park in Warsaw. What is interesting about the park? It was involved during Warsar Uprising which I mentioned in previous post - a bit destroyed. But the park and the palace were reconstructed after World War II.  

It is really big; 67 hectares! For sure, we did not go to every inch of the park. ;p


Chopin Monument.
If Austria is famous with its Schubert and Mozart, Poland is significant with Chopin; a pianist.






What I love about going to park - is the preserved nature itself. Being in four-seasons country; it is meaningless if I don't appreciate the changes in all four seasons. And now it is winter here (ending soon, I guess) - the trees with no leaves, depend totally on Allah to survive. Well, we learn about what the trees need in order to live? Water, sunlight etc. It is just amazing to see how the look-like-dying-trees start to bloom again when the spring is around the corner. :)

".....Not a leaf falls but that He knows it...... - 6:59

Do you know the exact amount of leaves in this world? We don't even know the exact amount of our own hairs!

MashAllah, He is the Greatest. He knows everything - the thing we express it out loud and also anything we kept to our heart with nobody knows about it. Except Him. 


Journey to Poland will not be completed if we do not go to this kind of restaurant. Polish cuisine - the one that I can suggest; because I have try it - is the pierogi (dumplings). I'm not sure why they are considered to be traditional cuisine - as I thought dumpling is more famous in Asia - maybe China? 

Just try it, yeah. More that 5 menu for vegetarians - so, you can just order each of them and experience the taste. :) Yummy. And healthy too; if you asked to boil them instead of fry. :p haha

Pierogi - cheese


I would like to declare one thing about a part of my previous post - eating meat in Poland. I just read news about there will be no more halal and kosher slaughter methods used there. Plus in Denmark, Iceland, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland.

Reference - http://www.worldbulletin.net/news/128887/denmark-to-ban-halal-and-kosher-slaughter-methods



Yeah, my travelogue to Warsaw, Poland will end here. Alhamdulillah for the journey of improving myself. 

Warsaw; it may look like a modern city; maybe like Kuala Lumpur - but it worth going if you set your niat right, insyaAllah. 

Lets discover the other parts of Poland soon! <3

Ad-Deen, Buzulucka
140220
2124

Warsaw, Poland (Part 2)

February 19, 2014

We woke up not too early, not too late. :) Had breakfast made by juniors - scrambled egg, cereals, milk & cookies (the one she supposed to send for cookies competition) Went out with some zloty borrowed from her. Haha, I told you, we don't have any Zloty, how can we use any of the transportations.

So, whatever it is, the first place we should go was the money exchange at Warszawa Centralna (Warsaw Central), then buy 24-hours ticket and start our adventure! 

Then, we just went around the main train station. From our early reading, it was supposed to be Palace of Culture and Science nearby. Yeah, it is true! It was really obvious even from far. Well, that building is the highest in Poland. The first thing I realised when looking at the building was the base. I mean the building at the bottom. Emm it looked so stable. :p 



It was built during Soviet Union time, and they said that Polish people hate it as it showed they had been controlled by Soviet people. But it remained there, maybe as tourist attraction? There is also information center in the building, so you can just grab any booklet/maps for free and maybe get some tips from the officers. 

Then, we took bus to Nowy Swiat; it is kind of a famous street, I think. Because if you walk along the road, you will reach the Stare Miasto (Old Town) - common thing in all Europe countries. Aha, forgot to mention, Polish language is quite similar to Czech language - so, our basic Czech vocabulary helps a bit. :)



From Nowy Swiat, we just took the bus to Centrum Nauki Kopernik (Copernicus Science Centre), it is located near the Vistula River of Warsaw. From the bus stop nearby, we passed through a small park - where there are many shower-look-like-pole; where you can hear lots of sounds from it. Storm, rain, road congestion, etc. 


Meanwhile, Centrum Nauki Kopernik is basically a science museum where there are so many interactive things inside - I have never been to Pusat Sains Negara in Malaysia, so, I cannot say the differences. But, I was amazed with all the exhibitions! Why I don't have all these things when I was struggling to understand the Science subject? 

Sila bersyukur, Nina. Allah gave you the ability to have the same imagination; when you was a kid - with the real Science concept shown there. :D 




This is the place I loved the most; they put some sounds related to few beliefs & religions. And when it came to Islam, it was azan inside! Well, I haven't heard azan a lot since I was in Czech; except if I go to the masjid. :) *tears*

We spent about 4hours in the centrum, then our stomach started to make loud noises. We decided to have lunch - since we aimed to eat at Pizza Hut, we need to go to Old Town; that was the nearest Pizza Hut, I guess. But the distance was not that short. :p We walked 2km there. I felt like I was wasting my 1-day ticket. Haha. But, since we were going to be there for about 1 1/2 day, we need to be fast :p




Zamek Królewski w Warszawie | Royal Castle in Warsaw

Was expecting the Pizza Hut to be similar with Malaysia with its menu. But, nahhh, totally different. I want seafood :p Ordered the similar pizza like we used to eat in HK - quattro formaggi, it is for vegetarian. But of course, it was tasty. Yummyyy. 

That night, we went to Stadion Narodowy (National Stadium), just to capture few moments in front of it. Do you know that the facade of the stadium resembles a waving flag? - with Poland national colours; white & red. Wah. It was built for UEFA Euro 2012 last two years - in which that was the first time I watched Czech team. Online je lah ;p

National Stadium

The stadium was quite empty, actually - I thought there will be a lot of tourists.

The rest of the night, we spent time enjoying the nightlife in Warsaw :D


Palace of Culture and Science at night

The building below is Warsaw Rising Museum; based on what I read, the museum shared lots of previous events (mostly in 1944) that lead to today's Warsaw; how development in Warsaw is influenced by etc. Basically it showed the chronology of World War II; when Polish army had operation to liberate Warsaw from Nazi Germany. If I'm not mistaken, they worked together with Soviet people as both looked Nazi Germany as their mutual enemy.

But both Polish army & Soviet people have different goals - Polish army wanted to free Poland as a democratic capitalist country but Soviet leader wanted to make a communist country in Poland.

Warsaw Rising Museum




So, Warsaw Uprising was told to be failed as both Polish & Soviet people do not trust each other and due to lack of outside supports. German continued to destruct the city. I think, that's the main reason, buildings in Poland are not as old as other countries. 

Suddenly I remember how Islam prohibited destruction of buildings during war. There must be something behind it right? Memusnahkan bangunan tu menunjukkan seseorang tu berlebih-lebihan dalam berperang sampaikan bangunan yang tak bernyawa (baca; tak bersalah) tu pun nak dimusnahkan. Apatah lagi nyawa-nyawa innocent yang tergadai. T___T 

“Orang yang kuat bukan kerana mampu mengalahkan lawan, tetapi orang yang kuat adalah yang mampu menundukan nafsunya di saat dia sedang marah.”

Ad-Deen, Buzulucka
140218
2127

Warsaw, Poland (Part 1)

February 18, 2014

Hi! Assalamualaikum. 

:)

I'm back and hopefully I will not ignore this blog again. 

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Just got back from Warsaw the day before yesterday. Yep and today I have started my classes for summer semester. Penat belum hilang sepenuhnya, tapi alhamdulillah okay je, mampu cergas lagi :D

Sooo, how was the trip? I can say Warsaw is quite amazing, with beautiful architecture, infrastructures; I mean it is so modern; not a typical European city - compared to Prague (quite classical with its heritage). ;p We went to Warsaw by train from Hradec Kralove, Czech with two transits - Pardubice and Ostrava. The journeys started with not good time-management (mine). T___T While buying few Fornetti (small breads), I made my group missed the train because of less than one minute late. Sorry :( Then, we supposed to stop at Ostrava hlavni nadrazi (main train station), but we went out at an earlier station. Lol. Fortunately, the train that we need to board to go to Warsaw, also stop at that station. :p



We arrived at the Warsaw Central at the estimated time :) Hehe thanks to Qina, the junior who welcomed us at the train station - otherwise we do not any Zloty money to even buy the tram's tickets T_T The money exchange was already closed at that time. 


In Warsaw, there are a lot of buses & trams; while underground metro do exist but we didn't use it at all. Aha, the ticket price; 3.40zloty for 20 minutes, 15.00zloty for 24hours. The currency at the time 1Euro = 4.11zloty. It is quite similar (a bit higher) than Malaysia (1Euro = RM4.50).

Since we arrived at night, there are not so many things to be explored; actually not with the backpack :p. So, we just went to have dinner at Arkadia - one of shopping malls in Warsaw. To be honest, there are loadssss of malls there! Like seriously a lot! - Same with cafe, fast food restaurants - name it - you can get it almost at all streets. I'm not a shopaholic, so I don't really see that as attractions.


We planned to eat at a Polski restaurant - Zapiecek; but it was already closed, so we ended up in Sphinx restaurant. I ordered spaghetti bolognaise - in which I feel so noob for not realising all bolognese contain meat T_T (it is not stated there though!) I just ate up some portion of my friend's food :p 

Some people and even an ustaz said that meat, chicken in Poland is halal - due to most of Polish people are commited to Christianity (they said the way of slaughter kind of similar to 'ahli kitab'). But it depends on how you believe about it. I am not sure it is for the whole Poland or only KFC. Since I don't really set my mind to accept/reject that fact - I just choose not to eat. 

"Dari Abu Abdillah An-Nu’man bin Basyir r.a.  berkata : Aku mendengar Rasulullah SAW bersabda : ‘ Sesungguhnya yang halal itu jelas dan yang haram itu jelas, antara keduanya terdapat perkara-perkara yang syubahat ( tidak terang halal atau haramnya ) yang tiada diketahui oleh banyak umat manusia. Barangsiapa menjaga diri dari perkara-perkara yang syubahat itu, maka ia telah menjaga agama dan dirinya. Dan barangsiapa yang jatuh dalam perkara yang samar (syubahat) maka ia akan tergelincir masuk ke dalam perkara haram. Sepeti seorang pengembala yang mengembala di kawasan daerah terlarang, sedikit lagi ia akan masuk ke dalamnya. Ketahuilah, bagi setiap raja ada tempat larangan, dan tempat larangan Allah itu adalah perkara-perkara yang diharamkanNya. Dan ketahuilah pada setiap jasad itu seketul daging. Jika ia baik, baiklah seluruh jasad itu dan sekiranya ia rosak maka rosaklah seluruh jasad itu. Ketahuilah segumpal daging itu ialah hati." (HR Bukhari dan Muslim)

If you do believe you can eat it, proceed. :) I was expecting more cheaper seafood in Poland - because it has its own sea. But looks like Poland is similar to Czech in this case. 

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We reached our junior's apartment nearly midnight - by walking through cold wind to save money. 

Lets the adventure continues; next entry. :D

Ad-Deen, Buzulucka
140218
0714


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