Torino

the winter olympics ended a while back and today i popped over to torino to check out the place. it was a horrible day. the weather was cold and wet and silly me decided that italy was tropically warm when i woke up this morning. so i didnt bring a thick artic jacket. rather i merrily popped on a cute little cardigan and ran to the train station cos i was late for my train. perfect timing though, hopped on the train 1 min before it pulled away from the station.

froze when i stepped out of the train at torino and realised it was drizzly. ran into the nearest shop (Mango) and bought a sweater (cashmere-silk blend) for extra warmth. didn't help very much although it was nice shopping at 9 am.

i went to the egyptian museum in torino. it's the second best museum in the world for egyptian artifacts, because the first is actually in egypt itself. they had a fantastic exhibition and a whole floor of statues in mirrored halls. beautiful and eerie. best experience ever. have loads of pics on my hp but too lazy tp upload them.

the shroud of turin was pretty much a letdown. they only had a photo of the shroud and that was it. good thing i didn't have to pay for that! (singaporean surfacing) i was freezingly cold because it was raining, but i found a great little cafeteria and had a full lunch for 5 euros. risotto with prawns, salmon with a caper sauce and artichokes stuffed with cheese. yum yum. except it wasnt the best quality but im not complaining... best food i had in ages! followed that up with a bicerin and a cookie. bicerin is a really rich drink with a layer of froth like a latte, except that the layer is cold. i tink what they do is that they froth a mix of cold milk and cream then add it to a mix of cocoa with espresso. so what u get is a really rich, chocolatey drink with bitter undertones from the coffee. the soda water they serve alongside that really helped to cut through the richness that proved cloying at times. Nice drink but not really my type.

i bummed around in a bookshop reading for a bit and met a nice old man around 70 and is studying japanese. that brings me to another pt. everyone in europe tinks all asians are japanese. It was nice having a quick chat with him, which brings me to another point. Europeans are always so beautifully dressed, especially the older Europeans. How lovely.

on the way back to the station, there wwere loads of little stalls selling chocolates. it was the turino ciocolate exhibition!! how good was that? now, i have to mention i'd alredy bought a bottle of gianduja which is gourmet nutella which was invented in turino. yes we must all thank the turinese (hehe) for nutella. and a bar of chocolate which u smash up add hot water and get fabulous hot chocolate. but chocolate fair... must try and buy. so i got a toothpaste style tube of gianduja (emergency rations) and some 99% cocoa lindts which i ahve never seen before and a small bag of lindts truffles for my brother. so ex though. no wonder im running out of cash., europe is not for the poor or faint hearted.

so now im finally back in milan and going to venice tml.