Zurich

Cigarette vending machines. They must trust their youth very much.

The main city centre of Zurich seems pretty small actually (how big the whole city is in actuality I have no idea). The more modern shopping area is right beside their "old town" area, which is right beside a big lake. And well that's it. I've pretty much just delineated what there is to see in Zurich.

If you have more time there you can make day trips to ski slopes on neighbouring mountains but sadly we didn't plan for that so we had no time for it. Zurich is a pretty nice relaxing place, but not… very busy I guess? Compared to other cities like London or Paris, if you're looking for that kind of pace.

Bloody freaking cold the whole time in Europe for 3+ weeks T_T

And this is what REAL winter fashion is like.

Looking like a giant retarded (insert choice of coat colour) marshmallow.

Nobody is going to appreciate your cute new sweater & whether your jeans (finally) make your ass look nice. Instead you are just one big black marshmallow/potato sack with a face red from the cold.

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And… on the other hand you have some crazies born with extra layers of skin or some other unknown supernatural power (but I think it may really be heat from exercise but I wouldn't know as I do not engage in this activity much). See below. Runners in tank tops & shorts in the near-zero degrees in Zurich.

Normal, non-running type of people (me) on the left.

Global population's biggest spoil-market-people (marathon runners) on the right.

No seriously, how is it to be rolling out of bed at 2pm on Sunday & grabbing some nonsense crap food, then settling on your couch to read tweets &… it's all about some bloody 5 or 10km marathon that day.

DAMN YOU. STOP MAKING US FEEL BAD.

Weird artsy fartsy (read: pretentious) shop/showcase we passed by.

But ok, this was quite cool.

One of mankind's oldest & most popular trades…

Just looked at the poster on the left… "Perverse Wunsche"… 

I have no idea what the latter means but isn't the title a bit too in-your-face? Lololol.

Boat ride across the lake!

#PicturesofAsianstakingpictures

"Oh hey when you get to my house just park your boat with the rest"

Pretty awesome-looking apartment.

Europe has a lot of these types of water fountains where the water is potable is freaking amazingly fresh & cold! It's like it comes straight from the mountains (possibly) & should be bottled as premium mineral water at $10 a bottle. I hate water but it's 50x better from these fountains #dramaqueen.

Walking around the lake!

Maybe the tree felt shy.

And hence… was covered in dead skin (bark) from a friend.

?

Had nothing to do, so we decided to go to a sauna!

It seems like a pretty popular thing in Zurich.

The one we went to was located on the lake itself & has multiple sauna rooms of various temperatures.

Zurich actually has "sauna competitions"… Basically people compete to see who can better withstand the heat. So at the sauna we saw people practising for it by wearing these swimming bodysuits.

And… this was the sight that greeted us as we walked in.

LOL got quite a shock. Like "OMG aren't they cold?!"

Obviously after this point I could no longer snap pictures.

Anyway, the procedure is that after you sit in the saunas for a bit (we usually aimed for about 15 minutes, beyond which the heat really became intolerable - the engulfing heat is not actually pleasant), you step outside into the freezing cold air &…

JUMP INTO THE FREEZING COLD LAKE

The experience is actually really pretty freaking awesome!

It's really very invigorating & even if you don't go into the water, you don't actually really feel cold because you just came out of the sauna. Definitely a must-try (wherever in the world) sometime in your life!

The saunas are pretty fun - you can stay as long as you like & there are sunbeds & a small cafe & so on.

Basically it's a nice place where you could spend the whole afternoon reading a book or chatting with friends. Or of course working on your sauna competition skills..