Budapest and St Stephen's Church

St Istvan (Stephen) Church in Budapest, Hungary

After the wonderful breakfast at Tibor's we proceeded downtown to visit the oldest and largest church in Hungary, the Saint Stephen's Church. It was built in the 1500hrs in honour of the first king of Hungary, St Istvan, who was later made into a Saint.


Beautiful stained glass icons

Though not as large as the Notre Dame, it is nonetheless a magnificent place of worship in a country which was predominantly non religious for 54 years under the Soviet occupation (from 1945 until 1989 when the Berlin Wall came down). Interestingly enough, Hungary actually supported the Nazi regime during the Second World War, as part of the Axis powers which my friend Tibor said was a 'mistake'. There are signs of the Communist rule in many parts of the city with statues and
monuments dedicated to the Soviet cause.


The preserved right hand of Saint Istvan

The hand of St Istvan was preserved somehow and till today, one can view the shrunken hand in a humidity controlled cabinet in the church.Hungarians are ethnically unicultural and there is only a very small population of non Hungarian people, the Han Chinese who typically keep to their small community in Budapest. They normally run Chinese restaurants and laundry shops as is their inclination the whole world over.


"I am the Truth and the Life" - from John 14 : 6 in the Bible

We were fascinated that Christian beliefs were widespread throughout Europe, making it all the way to Russia though we were not sure how many of the Hungarian population practised Christianity or any religion.I made a mental note to as Tibor the next time we meet in either Germany or China.


Tibor and Tunde outside St Istvan's (Stephen) Church

Budapest is not very builtup as in many other European major cities, like Paris or London.As the capital of Hungary, it is not very populated with a population of 1.7 million, down from a peak of 2.1 million in the late 1980s.Greater Budapest covers 525 square kilometers and is home to 3.2 million people.

Budapest was originally 2 towns one called Buda and one called Pest and became a single city occupying both sides of the Danube river after a unification of the right bank Buda and Obuda with left bank Pest.Regarded as one of the most beautiful cities in Europe its extensive World heritage Sites include the Danube banks, Buda castle quarter, Andrassy Avenue, Heroes Square and the Millenium Underground Railway, the second oldest in Europe.

It is a city with beautiful charm and disposition which we hope we can visit again another time.

Budapest Day 1 ; at Tibor's house for breakfast

May,Tibor and Tunde

Tibor Csombordi, the business owner of Amtest in Hungary, invited May and I to visit Budapest for a few days for some sightseeing and dining which we readily accepted. His wife, Tunde and him live in the suburbs of Budapest. The house is a bungalow in a quiet neighbourhood. One the first morning after our arrival,it was drizzling slightly but we had the most glorious breakfast in a long while made by Tunde.


Photo shows bread baked at home, with ripe strawberries,cherries and raspberries all grown in their garden naturally, without any growth hormones or fertilisers.

The best thing about the breakfast was everything was natural or organically grown, without any pesticices,artificial fertilisers.It was the sweetest raspberries I had ever tasted, same went for the strawberries. We deduced that the fruits found in Singapore are normally shipped before they are ripe and thus are not as sweet.



The scones were made themselves by their breadmaker(reminding myself to get one such breadmaker one day!). The complete spread included ham, cheese, scones, cherries,raspberries, strawberries and the home brewed coffee.

Nice !

Death and all his Friends

Great Song by Coldplay

Eiffel Tower

View from the base of the Eiffel

Built in 1887 to 1889 as the entrance of the World Exposition, the Eiffel Tower has become the icon of France. Visited by a staggering 200 million people since it was built, each year sees an average of over 6 million visitors alone. Imagine the amount of tourism revenue generated,hotel rooms booked, croissants, baguettes,air fares,train rides,and lots and lots of wine drunk just due to Eiffel alone. The Eiffel Tower is an engineering marvel which was once the tallest structure in the world. Its height at the roof is 300 m (986 ft) and at the antennae top it is 324 m or 1063 feet. It was intended after the Expo to be used as a communications tower and after 1920, it was returned to the city of Paris.

From 1889 to 1930, it was the world's tallest building until the Chrysler Building in New York beat it when it was built, reaching a height of 319 m or 1047 feet.


View from the Champs de Mars

Designed and built by the engineer Gustave Eiffel, and his team, it took 300 workers almost 3 years to finish. Using puddled iron, it weighs 7300 tons of iron and its total weight including the non metallic base structure and foundation is only 10000 tons - very lightwieght. He was very careful in his design taking into consideration wind resistance and wind shear. On a hot day, it expands by 18 cm away from the heat of the Sun. Also, it sways about 6 - 7 cm daily due to wind force.


Underneath the Eiffel Tower

Gustave Eiffel's creation was met with alot of criticism with many calling it an 'eyesore'. However, his brilliance as a designer and an engineer saw his product stand the test of time and is today the one of the most recognisable structures in the world. He used a non-linear differential equation when designing the structure based on counter - balancing the wind pressure with the tension between the construction elements at the point. A most recent engineering study showed that in fact, there were 2 non-linear equations being applied to the tower, one for the base till the lower structure and one for the upper structure.

Sheer brilliance.

Paris June 18 - 21 2009 Pictures

Eiffel Tower taken along the Champ de Mars 

Church of the Sacred Heart (Sacre Cre)

Statue outside the Ecole Militaire (Military School)

May at the open air market near the Notre Dame

Me on the Alexandre Bridge across the river Seine

The Louvre - World's Largest Museum

Leonardo da Vinci's controversial self-portrait, the Mona Lisa.

The Louvre in the 1st Arrondissement (district) in Paris is world famous and has been a museum since the early 1500s. Louis IV was known to have a large collection of artifacts and it built up from there. The entrance of the museum is dramatic with IM Pei's pyramids occupying centre stage and is its official entrance. Today, easily 15,000 visitors, 60 percent of whom are tourists visit the Louvre every day.The day we were there, it was no different, thousands upon thousands of tourists of every hue and destination with their handphone cameras,SLRs and digital cameras taking in the sights and sounds of the more than 6,000 exhibits.An awesome and indescribable experience.



Nike (winged victory) of Samothrace

The exhibits are located in 6 areas ranging from the Egyptian and Middle Eastern, Renaissance Masters,Greek, Roman and Far Eastern. We had spent a total of 3 hours at the Louvre and only managed to cover barely 10% of the whole museum,that is to give you the size of the whole museum. According to our tour guide, if one spent 1 minute at every exhibit, it would take a whole 9 months (!) before covering every exhibit of the muesum !!



Centaur, Half Man Half Horse and Cupid

All the works are kept in airconditioned rooms with humidity under control. This is to prevent the formation of moss and aging of the works prematurely.







Venus de Milo or Goddess of Love

There are many mythological Greek Gods, of which the Venus (Love) is the most popular. Set in marble, it is an awe inspring 6 feet tall and one can even see the toned definitions on her body. Even in those days, the concept of 'body beautiful' or scultped body was already in vogue.

Truly, if one is into the works of sculptors,painters and artists, this the THE museum to visit.

Paris Day 3 - Drama at the Eiffel Tower

The lovely Eiffel taken just below the structure

On the 20th July,while my wife was shopping, I went to catch a glimpse of Paris' most famous landmark, the Eiffel Tower.
As I approached the tower from the Metro, there were many vendors of different origins, I imagine they must be immigrants from the past colonies. Algeria,Senegal,French Guinea and Vietnam spring to mind. The most prevalent were the African vendors probably from Senegal, selling all kinds of trinkets from small Eiffel keychains to silk scarves.


His countrymen are screaming but as more police and reinforcements come up,they back off.

At the foot of the Eiffel, I am reminded that this structure was once given to America as a gift between the French and American Governments and it is now back at its rightful place. Seeing the thousands of tourists there, I decided to take snaps of the Eiffel from various angles just for fun. At the base of the Eiffel, I milled with many photographers and tourists who were queueing to buy tickets to either take the elevators to the 1stbase, 2nd section or the top. There was the presence of armed soldiers - special operations weapons specialists who were patrolling the place to deter any suspected terrorists or any people causing trouble. Some were on foot and some were on bicycles, a smart thing given that there are masses of people in close proximity and a home made bomb or detonating device can cause massive collateral damage. So the need for heightened vigilance.


A second vendor is arrested while the first guy is still wrestled on the ground - all this in full view of about 2,000 tourists just standing metres away

Suddenly, without warning, I heard shouting and the soldiers made a beeline for someone, before I know it, 2 soldiiers wrestle a Senegalese vendor to the ground and pin him there. What I didn't expect next was that, in a flash, ALL the Senegal vendors started screaming and became very hostile swinging their goods and taunting the soldiers.There was a tense standoff and I, bouyed by my karate training and slight sense of bravado, started taking pictures barely 10 feet away of the standoff. All this in front of thousands of tourists and onlookers !


Verbal taunts and tense situation with army people with submachineguns

There a few pushes and staring going on and the vedors told some tourists to backoff. Police reinforcements started filtering in - seems like they were prepared for this kind of situation on a regular basis. The vendors got really angry and one guy who shoved the policeman got caught and was handcuffed.


Suddenly about 20 vendors start to faceoff with the army

The rest of them started to shout and curse and the police came in in droves. The Senegalses started to back away and made a hasty retrest,but you could see the killer stares. Calm was restored and the Eiffel looked as resplendent as ever in the morning Sun.


A Senegalese vendor is wresteld to the ground by 2 army personnel, he had stolen something

It was going to be a lovely day.More of that in a later blog.