Prague is an extremely pleasant city. I loved it here. You really get the European feel from the cobblestones and narrow streets. The city itself is relatively safe but there are some corrupted people like taxi drivers. I was stopped by polices once and asked for my passport out of a few dozen people. I guess being Asian stands out, and a dark one is even easier to spot. I stayed in a wonderful hostel with good service and company. The people I dormed with are a group of German tourists and they were awfully friendly. We shared many interesting stories; I told them that Chinese people are superstitious of the number 4 because it sounds like “die” in Chinese and they told me about the midnight sun and polar night. Midnight sun and polar night are a phenomenon that is only affected within the Arctic Circle (i.e Alaska, Canada, Scandinavia). Midnight sun in the summer is when the sun is out for over 20+ hours, that is, the sky is always bright throughout the day (speaking of jetlag). Polar night is the opposite, in winter the sky is dark for whole day, hence magnetic fields bring out light refractions such as the Aurora Borealis. Did you know that Iceland, Finland, and other northern countries have the highest suicide rate in the world? We blamed the polar night for the depression. Imagine having a dark day and night for over 5 months. How sad is that!?

So on my second day in Prague, I went to a historical district called Old Town that housed the only astronomical clock in the world. This clock (using astronomy) predicted the Prague flood in 2002, this reminded me of the octopus that predicted the world cup a few years back. Old Town is very lively with music entertainment and expensive good food. Prague in general is a very touristy, so taking a good picture is difficult. I often time had to smell people’s armpit in the subway because it was simply too crowded. I also went to the Dancing House, a famous architecture in league of the Sydney Opera House and other famous buildings. As a structural engineer, I LOVED this building. I didn’t go inside because it’s a building for financial offices but I did spend a long time outside taking pictures. A few blocks away is the Charles Bridge. Crossing the bridge is like walking down the golden lane of art and music. Across the river is Prague Castle whose main façade is actually a cathedral. The admission to the castle included bunch of museums and churches. I climbed the castle bell tower to have a better view of the city. This is something I usually do in most countries. It seems like there is always something you can climb on, like the Tower of Pisa in Pisa, the communication tower in Sydney and Auckland, the Marino Bay Sands in Singapore, etc. I had such a great time at the castle. I grew up playing RPG games like Final Fantasy and medieval-related theme games so it was really cool to experience the very birthplace of Bohemia. I saw the old-school toilet, dungeons, alchemy and swords. It really gave me a good perspective of how people here lived in the 12th, 13th century. If only I could see a dragon, my life would be complete.

The next day I went to the outskirt of Prague to a town called Kutna Hora. It’s only an hour away from Prague but I had to take 4 different trains. That was my fault for not researching the place earlier and catching a lame network of trains. Anyways, the place was very deserted but worth the trip because I got to see the Bone church. It is (or so they claimed) the only church in the world that has decorations made entirely out of 40,000+ bones. The church used to be a cemetery (still is, sort of) but then one day some guy decided to decorate the interior (i.e walls, chandelier) with bones. At night I went to the museum of torture because I had done everything a tourist could do. The museum was fascinating but gruesome. Like there’s an instrument that looks like a long spike; a woman accused of fidelity would be impaled to the mouth. Did you know that the chastity belt is not what most people think it’s for? Men would force their wives to wear the belt to assure loyalty when they go off war, but it was almost impossible for a long duration because the metal would contaminate them. Therefore, it was used more as protection against rapists and male abusers, not for sacred abstinence or anything like that.