This Rugged JoyFull Home: 09/01/2016

Kolomenskoye Park is a breathtaking 390 hectare scenery overlooking the Moskva River that was used to be a royal estate located a few kilometers southeast of the city center in Moscow. I was given the privilege the other day of visiting this beautiful place and even tasted some honey at the Honey Festival which happens once every September at the beginning of autumn. Mrs. Svetlana, my Russian Language teacher brought all of the beginners on a field trip including Noah and myself to practice what we have learned in our class. Basic sentences like:

Russian- "Я хочу купить этот мёд в эту банку."

English- "I would like to buy this honey in this jar."

Russian- "Можно попробовать этот мёд?"

English- "May I try this honey?"

We rehearsed these dialogues in class and I felt more confident as we headed to the Honey Festival. Hopefully I'll be able to share more of what I've learned in my Russian class soon, but for now I'll just show you what I've seen at the Honey Festival.

This is the Church of the Ascension which was built in honor of the birth of Ivan the Terrible in the year 1532, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

We had our lunch by the banks of Moskva River before heading to the Honey Festival.

My impression of honey has changed after today. My whole life I thought that there was only one type of honey—the extremely expensive one that you can buy at the supermarket—but boy, I was wrong. They actually come in different varieties! This is especially because in a cold place like this, having four different seasons, flowers can bloom at their fullest giving plenty of time for the bees to do their jobs.

I think this structure is dedicated for when they're having tiangges or bazaars showcasing their specialty products. This time the spotlight was on the honey.

I felt like I was a kid again as I saw the different varieties of honey on display at the stalls. Different colors of amber, gold, white, and different consistencies from gooey to runny. I've always dreamt of being in a room full of honey to slurp the sticky sweet hunny like Winnie the Pooh. Today, that dream just came true.

Can you spot Winnie the Pooh?

But I need to warn you that eating a hefty sticky honey like Pooh Bear may cause dizziness because that's what Noah experienced. Oh, bother.

I ended up buying two jars of honey and Noah bought a pack of honeycomb.

This honey has a thin consistency and it has a flowery aftertaste like jasmine which Dad liked. It only costs 570 rubles (PhP 420 / USD 9).

I never knew that white honey existed until I saw this one. It said it contains МОЛОЧКОМ (malachkom) and I'm not quite sure what it exactly means. Maybe milky? For МОЛОКО, that one I know. This honey has an extremely thick consistency and it tastes like condensed milk, but not quite. Mom liked this in particular and I also liked it. Maybe I can combine this with butter on sour dough bread. What do you think? It has a nougat aftertaste. It costs 800 rubles (PhP 600 / USD 12) I thought it was expensive? But I think it's worth it.

This honeycomb is light and sweet, but you can't eat the whole thing because it's beautifully lodged in beeswax.

I took a picture of the honeycomb with a macro lens.

It was brave of me taking this picture because I have trypophobia or fear of small holes, nonetheless, I overcame my fear. It gave me chills but it also left me in awe of what bees can do and how the Lord created them in a marvelous way.

The best part of this trip was tasting all the honeys, the white condensed milk-like honey as my favorite. Unfortunately, when you're in a class field trip like this you're like in a moving train—everything is in a rush and you can't keep your iPhone steady and the honey-tasting was overwhelming. Overall, this trip made me appreciate the Lord's Creation of bees because if not for them, I won't have a taste of this sweet golden syrup to please the rumbly in my tumbly.

We're at the beginning of the cold autumn season and the lush green trees sprawling the parks and. streets here have started wilting. I thought the word 'wilting' best describes the look of greens here as we transition from the summer to the autumn season. It was a lovely display of colors of pale green to deep orange to pale yellow and brown depicting an ombre. The temperature would range from 14º to 10º celcius all throughout the week with occurrences of 10 minute-rain showers that would make the atmosphere even colder, and how about the blustery winds of Moscow? And then there's the whirlpool of dried leaves dancing on the damp pavements. It had been fantastic so ~~brrrr~~ far.

Anyways...

It was Moscow's 869th happy birthday celebration last weekend and the city bustled with colorful festivities and spectacular fireworks display for the public to see and enjoy. But on this special day, we decided to take the opportunity to visit the Memorial Museum of Cosmonautics located in Prospect Mira. According to the museum's website, most of the collection of relics related to the history of space exploration that are on display for public viewing can only be found here. And as promised, here are the photos that we took on our recent trip there.

(Note: The words in red are sourced from the information given at the viewing aisles of the museum.)

Hello, Mr. Yuri Gagarin, the Russian Soviet pilot - cosmonaut hero and the first man to travel into space in 1961. He greets you at the museum entrance. Hello, Noah's solar flairs darting out of his head, his thick, bushy, uncut hair greeting you. Entrance fee costs 250 rubles per person ( PhP 180 / USD 4 ).

Hubble Space Telescope. NASA - ESA ( European Space Agency ). 1990

FOTON - M3 Satellite 2007

A giant statue of Gagarin which is the focal attraction at the museum lobby.

Spacecraft Sputnik 2 which carried the first living creature to outer space, the dog named Laika, which never came back. 1957

Automated Inter-Planetary Venera-1 Station: It was the first space probe to be sent to Venus. The Station passed by Venus by approximately 100 thousand kilometers and became a solar satellite in 1961.

Automated Luna-3 station was the first in the world automated station with attitude control system in outer space. It was launched on Oct. 4, 1969 and orbited the Moon for the first time. It transmitted photo televised image of the dark side of the Moon.

A wall dedicated to a timeline of French and Russian cooperation in space explorations that dated back to the 1960's.

A wall dedicated to the Russian cosmonauts.

Some photos taken inside the International Space Station which was a result of cooperation between Japan, France, Canada, USA, and Russia to advance space research and exploration.

Flexible Spacesuit SK-1 with open type ventilation system. It was designed for cosmonauts on-board Vostok spacecraft. It was used during all cosmonauts' missions aboard Vostok spacecraft during 1961-1963. Spacesuit mass - 20 kg.

A miniature satellite...

ALMAZ Rocket and Space Complex. For the first time in Soviet Union this complex consisted of a multi-purpose manned orbital station, a transport supply spacecraft with a reusable re-entry vehicle and a capsule to bring information carriers to the earth. The complex was designed to perform defense tasks, to bring information to the Earth inside descent vehicle or using radio channels and to perform national economic and scientific tasks.

A miniature of the ALMAZ Rocket and Space Complex.

Can you spot the Philippine flag? Or Ms. Philippines?

PROTON Rocket is an expandable launch system that was first launched in 1965. It was used by Russia for commercial and space launches.

COSPAS-SARSAT System Satellite. 1982

Spacesuit 'Berkut' for a short spacewalk. In 1965, A. Leonov made the first in the history of exit from the spacecraft into outer space. Duration of his stay outside the spacecraft was 24 min. and 12 min. under conditions of outer space.

Reusable Transport System ENERGIA-BURAN. It consists of a heavy-lift expandable system ENERGIA and a reusable orbital spacecraft BURAN (BLIZZARD).

MIR was a space station that operated in low Earth orbit from 1986-2001 run by the Soviet Union and later by Russia. It served as a microgravity research laboratory in which crews conducted experiments in biology, human biology, physics astronomy, meteorology and spacecraft systems. It was succeeded by the International Space Station when it was deorbited in 2001. ( Wikipedia )