Part IV - Sopot

I hate it when the people living below me cook stinky food, which is unfortunately rather often. It smells so bad. Why o why must you use so much vinegar!? Or has your food simply gone bad?

I may have to split these entries up, since I’ve got too many fantastic photos here. Poland is SUCH a photogenic place, and I was lucky to have wonderful weather (for most of the time, anyway).

I ended up going to Sopot, which forms the Trójmiasto (Tricity) along with Gdansk and Gdynia. Remember that hilarious 200kg bomb they found from the second World War? (Probably not so funny after all, now that I think of it. I do apologise.) The train station opened again after noon, so I decided to go after all. The trains that run to Sopot and Gdynia are on the same line, and are operated by SKM. You can get the tickets in the railway station, and they cost 3.80 zloty for a single journey. I love how cheap the transport is over here. The trains run every ten to fifteen minutes, and it’s a half hour journey from Gdansk to Sopot. I wanted to see Sopot mainly because of the Krzywy Domek - a wonky house built in 2004. The pictures on the Internet looked very quaint. It’s located in Sopot’s city centre, which is right off the Baltic. However, I was horribly disappointed when I found it, since it was almost completely obscured by two huge and bushy trees right in front of the main entrance. I could barely see it.

See?

I tried to get closer for a better shot, but they really need to do something about those darn trees.

A manhole lid. It was very pretty, just like the ones in Sibiu.

The promenade in the city centre was packed with people, but for some reason, you can’t really see any of the crowds in this picture here. I suppose you’ll just have to take my word for it.

And after the promenade, we reach a large plaza.

Which opens up to the Baltic. You have to pay to go onto the pier though, so I just stood outside the turnstile and took photos. They can’t charge me for that.

The Baltic is distinctly visible in the distance

Went back to the main street and had lunch there. The food was fantastic and cheap, as always. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the food in this part of the world is awesome.

And then after that, walked back to the station.

The train schedule. Lots of trains going in the Gdansk Glowny direction, as you can see.

Took a picture of what appears to be a power plant on the outskirts of Gdansk. Really rather magnificent.

Walked around the old town when I got back, the old town which was razed almost to the ground and then rebuilt from scratch (like most of Poland, sadly), but I will save that for another entry.

I just finished reading a Guardian article on human trafficking in Cambodia, which you can read here. It’s one of the most shocking things I’ve ever read, and as I was reading it, I could not help thinking that this was all a matter of getting lucky at the birth lottery. If I had been born into a poverty-stricken Southeast Asian country and had no means of supporting myself other than this, the story they would be telling would be mine. As it is, I was born in Taiwan, a wonderful, affluent first-world country, into a respectable family and was able to receive a world-class education at some of the best institutes in the world. Yes, Taiwan has its problems, but it really puts things in perspective when you read stories like these. It’s a depressing and sobering thought that you have so little control over your destiny, that the life you lead now is due to mere circumstance of chance and birth. Equally shocking is the chauvinism deeply ingrained in the values systems of these countries: ‘"There's a national saying that men are like gold and women are like cloth," says Tong Soprach, an academic researcher into the sexual practices of Cambodia's youth. "If you drop gold in the dirt, it washes clean and still shines. If you drop cloth, the stain never comes out."’ (source)