Krakow (Part II)

Day 6, 7: Krakow, Poland (continued)

The best thing about Krakow was the opportunity to see slivers of non-touristy stuff (museums, churches, and the like). We were lucky enough to stumble upon a Polish Renaissance Faire, which totally made my day!! It was a weekend event along the Vistula River under Wawel Hill, and most of the people there seemed to be from the area.

This was a station where you could make those traditional Polish hair wreaths.

Now you see why lots of fashion models come from Eastern Europe...

The Old Town square was pretty fun for people-watching. As I mentioned earlier, I liked this area a lot because it was really really big and clean, lined with cafes and their brightly colored potted plants. It was a real local feel. Of course there were some touristy stuff, like...

I love the expression on my mom's face, it's like she's seeing a leprechaun or unicorn... except this is a sad old trick, commonly executed in Times Square, New York! To be fair, their costumes WERE the best I've seen on a "human statue", and my mom was so tickled that she paid to take a picture with them. Stimulating the local economy is never a bad thing. :)

Pigeons. Also known as cockroaches that fly.

I yelped while taking this photo... some guy thought it'd be hilarious to start throwing bread crumbs at me.

Here are some unavoidable jumping shots, which were fun for the first minute until I realized that my mom had nooooooooo idea how to take a picture, making me jump literally a hundred times with no air to show for it. (I seriously think that 99.99% of Asian mothers are technologically incompetent, often choosing to physically unplug the TV rather than push the on/off button on a remote control.) This is one of the less awkward ones that she took, which doesn't have me looking like I'm squatting to take a crap. My mom looks fabulous though. :)

We also went to the weekend flea market in Kazimierz, the old Jewish district. The market was at their main square called Plac Nowy, which was actually quite dirty and unkempt. If you only had one day in Krakow, I'd recommend you skip out on Kazimierz. The stalls did have a few interesting things, but New York also has some pretty kick-ass flea markets and at the end of the day, unless you know what you're looking for, your eyes start to get swirly real fast.

Knick-knacks.

FACTOID: Did you know bagels originated from Krakow?!

An obwarzanek krakowski stand with its sour-faced owner. I asked his permission to take this photo, actually. I'm also probably the nth person that day to do so (but no I didn't buy a bagel, haha).

I was tired of Polish cuisine at this point and all their pierogi Chinese dumpling business, so I decided to try some Russian fare for change since I figured this was the closest I'd get to its borders. Since I couldn't read the menu, I asked the waitress for some authentic dishes to recommend, and THIS is what she brought me:

... freaking Russian wontons. GAHHHHHH!!! After looking this up online, I think they're called pelmeni.

You like pierogi, I like pelmeni. You like tomato, I like tomahto.

Pierogi, pelmeni, tomato, tomahto... let's call the whole thing off!

But then I had a splendid dark Ukrainian beer, got tipsy, and forgot how much I disliked pierogi/pelmeni in no time. :)