pancakes & bananas?: 9 Sept: The Bone Chapel

Today we headed to Kutna Hora. Founded in the early 13th century as a silver-mining town, the name comes from kutati 'to mine minerals' and hora 'mountain' or 'rock', a reference to the fact that at this time minerals were mined predominantly in mountainous country. This town really honors its miners alot with many symbolic references to them even in the church.

The tour was informative and we had a great guide by the name of Filip, a local who works with newpraguetours. The highlight was of the day was the Church of the Saints, which is made famous with the Bone Chapel. Decorated by the bones from forty thousand people it looks pretty cool (dont know if im sick or what) but its a pretty unique chapel. It originally had 6 pyramids of bones stacked up without support but later 2 pyramids were used to decorate the chapel including the bone chandelier to what we see today. However, i think the bone displays in Cambodia are more interesting compared to this one. Maybe cos of those bones collected in Cambodia were from the holocaust of the Khmer regime and had a more gruesome story behind it. Again, I found this chapel too touristy that it loses the feeling of eeriness that is meant to be inside. The message this unique bone chapel puts across is that the body is insignificant to God. When we proceed to the afterlife, our body decays and whats left is our soul which we should have nurtured during our time on Earth. With the church as the final stop, we proceeded back to Prague.

I thought that the tour was quite worth with us paying only 540 CZK (with ISIC discount) compared to other companies which charge 1100 CZK. Whoaaa. Also checked out transport from Prague to Berlin, apparently, the bus is almost twice as cheap (~25 Eu) and slower by 15min. What kind of sorcery is this! The only downside are the timings. We depart 730 am and arrive in Berlin at 1230.

Well, i guess after staying 6n in Prague, we can't wait to get out of the place. Don't know why, but we were kinda of sick of the hearty meaty czech food that we decided for some chinese food next to our accommodations. Wouldn't say its the best asian food but the feeling of using the chop stick again with some fried rice and fresh vegetables just reminded us how much we miss home and singaporean food.

Actually the day was great, but i think i didn't really enjoy it as much as i should is cos of my stupid cold. can't taste much, can't drink beer and worst of all, my nose is leaking now. think i should be getting some rest. tmr is another lepak day with activities only starting after noon.

nights!