Since there are a lot of foreigners on the Sziget Festival mostly from Germany, France, Belgium, Italy, Netherlands and UK they invited policemen from these countries. They serve the visitors on their own language in case of any problem. I guess its a good idea, makes people feel more secure. But to be honest their job is mostly to pose on photos with the lot of crazy guys and girls:) To see a Bobby in Budapest was unique to me and I also tried hard to approach him with my camera:)

Between 13th and 18th of August the SZIGET Festival brings some noise to Budapest. These painted tires are perfect chairs, I tried them:) Get some impressions of the festival here.

News on my other blogs:

China impressions: bicycle traffic in hutong

Program Budapest

This is the first time on a boat ride on the Danube for me. We went to the Sziget Festival like this.  The saturation on this photo is somehow strange and honestly I didn’t touch the settings at all using photoshop or any photo tuning software. This direction is towards the Island Obudai on the Danube :) Do you remember the waltz tune the blue Danube? This is how blue it can get :)

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Program Budapest

Are there any recent guinness record breaking news in your city (or country)?:)

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13 August 2007

Budapest – The organisers of a kissing event in Budapest said on Monday that they have earned a place in the Guinness Book of World Records for the most number of couples locking lips at the same time.

They said they would submit video footage and documentation showing 7 451 couples were locked in simultaneous buccal bonding for 10 seconds on Sunday, during a week-long Sziget music festival.

The marathon mouth-meeting session was the latest saliva-laced salvo in a running rivalry between Hungary and the Philippines for the kissing crown.

Filipinos set the Guinness world record in February 2004 with 5 327 couples, only to be overtaken by 5 875 couples in 2005.

The Asian country came back in February this year, with 6 124 couples playing tonsil hockey in Manila to regain the record – but Hungary smacked them down again in June, when it produced 6 613 smooching couples.

With the latest effort, Hungary figures they have clinched the record for some time to come.

“We thought that here at the Sziget festival we can set a record which the Filipinos will not be able to beat. We’d like it if this record now belonged to Hungarians for good,” said Zsuzsa Simon of the tabloid daily Bors, which organised the event. – Sapa-AFP

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program Budapest

I saw this at the Sziget Festival and it looked funny to me :) If only all the bins are illustrated with a touch of humour, it would probably make the streets more interesting looking. Just like how I felt about the mailbox in Singapore, perhaps it will be an attraction for Hungary to start a campaign like that. Do you have funny looking public property like this?
Wish you a fun week ahead!

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Program Budapest

Pöttyös (I have no idea how to explain its pronunciation to English speakers but it sounds like ”per-tier-yursh”) :) It is one of my favourite Hungarian chocolate. In my childhood, they called it Túró Rudi which refers to the sweetened cottage cheese inside and coated with milk-chocolate. On the SZIGET festival they have their own ”territory” since they are always one of the festival sponsors. They held a lot of funny games in that area where also a lot of chocolate:) automated vending machines can be seen.
The laying girls try to force each other out of the circle wearing this huge red “balls”. Its a bit like Japanese sumos.:)

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Program Budapest

I wrote about Day One experience to the Sziget Festival. Today we went again by HEV (a hybrid of train and subway) but it rained at about 10pm. It is forbidden to bring umbrella, even if you know it will be raining. This is something strange to me :) Since we were near a beverage booth that distributes free hvg printed plastic sheet, we went to ‘collect’ one each for ourselves too. The strange design about it is that it comes with a slit in the middle (a rectangular transparent piece of plastic for you to put over your shoulders so that your head protrudes out?) Again it’s strange because we thought it is supposed to prevent us from getting drenched. But this ‘design’ means we will definitely get wet at least our face, head and hair.
The above photo is the Sziget wrist band (the entrance ticket) for today (in Hungarian Péntek=Friday) – It is in Khaki colour (while Day One was BLUE, and Day Two was Grey). More photos about the event on budapest-guide.blogspot.com, with more details about my Day Three experience on SZiGET :)

Sziget Festival passes for 2009 already on sale!

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program Budapest

There is nothing better then a cold beer in the sunset during a hot summer-festival:) Today is the third day of the SZIGET festival in Budapest!

Sziget Festival passes for 2009 already on sale!

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Program Budapest

Beyond words. This place is full of FUN! There are over 20 stages for live concerts throughout the entire island in Budapest. Mainly live concerts running concurrently by popular bands and groups! This is a yearly event since 1993, and finally this year I get to experienced being here personally. These guys were really great sport (they posed for me;) so spontaneously) click on this photo to link to my Flickr and you’ll see lots of photos about SZIGET FESTIVAL. On the Main Stage, Manu Chao which is a french group, rocked the entire sziget (sziget also means island) until there were two ‘bursts’ of black out! You can imagine how crowded it was >>I was almost ”crushed” being at the front of the stage where their fans were (lots of French were there too). And since I am so small (Asian) where all the other guys and ladies were mostly Europeans/Americans….but still it was totally FUN!

Here’s video of the Japanese group called Gocoo which I took on Day ONE of the Sziget.