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Important Places for Kecskemet Kodaly Institute Students Part 2

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Here goes Part 2.

Exit the Institute and turn right.

This fascinating street holds many secrets. For starters, there’s a shop that sells yarns and the old auntie there can help sew on buttons for you for a very small fee (if you buy the string from her I think).

Strings and Other Things

Food & Beverage (F&B) Galore
Now on to one of my favourite topics… F&B. Here’s a Kavezo that sells main courses where you can sit outdoors when the weather is mild. I don’t think food here is particularly fantastic compared to Caesar’s or Csarda but it will suffice if one is lazy to walk.

Valentino, My Love
Moving further on is Valentino Kávéház which serves excellent coffee & tea in very nice cups and tea sets. A fantastic place to have a quick cuppa, chill out near school.

Bakeries, Our Life-Savers in Between Classes
Towards the end of the street is a bakery where you can buy bread when in a rush for time in between classes.

Turn left and you should see this street. Walk a few paces and on your left is yet another bakery that also sells soft drinks and other things.

Paper Trails (Post Office & Paper Shop)
Walk on further and you should see the following. Walk straight ahead for Post Office, turn left for Paper Shop,

Post Office (Parcels, Mail, Bills)
For big parcels (take note all ye people who need to post books/scores back home), check out the brown door in the above picture (yellow facade building) left of the phone booth. That is where you bring your big boxes. Word of advice: It is cheaper (nearly by half I think) if you are posting boxes of purely books & papers compared to boxes of mixed items (thermal blankets, shoes etc.). Alternatively, instead of posting, it might also be cheaper to just check in an extra luggage depending on the rates for extra baggage of the airlines you are taking.

If it is normal cards, envelopes, electricity bills etc., walk straight ahead a bit more. Press the right buttons (check with local native speaker what buttons to press) for the queue number and post as necessary.

Paper Shop (Cards, Pencils, Manuscript etc.)
This wonderful place makes black & white photocopies at one of the cheapest prices in town. You can also get all your stationary here. Alexa speaks excellent English while the other 2 ladies have a rudimentary command of the language to help you with your photocopying needs. If not, I hope you are good at charades. 🙂

That’s all for now. Watch out for the final instalment of this trilogy blog, coming soon!

Important Places for Kecskemet Kodaly Institute Students Part 1

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Singaporean’s national hobby is having good food so apologies in advance if the following blog post shows this predilection… Below are pictures that show the way to an excellent Italian restaurant known as Cezar (Caesar) Restaurant. Along the way, there are many other things that any foreigner living or studying in Kecskemét should take note of for one’s convenience and daily living. It must be noted that this series of posts takes reference from the Kodaly Institute since that is where we study, live & play. Here goes:

Kodaly Institute, the Best Pedagogical Institute in the World
(Sorry for the shameless promotion of my alma mater, I do that a lot…).

Leave the Kodaly Institute & turn left.

Vincent’s, the Best Cake in Town
Turn right at the corner, keeping church on your left. Vincent’s is just a few steps away (on your right). This is one of the most important places for Kodaly Institute students… because Vincent’s has some of the best pastries & sweets (desserts) in town. Most cakes costs c.a. 500HUF. Drinks like tea & coffee range from 400-600HUF depending on what you order. Red wines are also available. Free Wifi is available & connection is generally quite solid and fast. In summer & autumn, sitting outdoors can be very enjoyable, although you might have to occasionally contend with falling leaves adding extra spice to your cuppa.

Rossmann, Parfumera & Other Monthly Necessities
Turn Left after Vincent’s and head towards the park. You should see a fountain there in the middle. Head towards that. Diagonally to your right, you should see a small fountain with a frog in it. When the weather is good, lots of people play chess around here. Head towards the frog fountain. Walk past the frog fountain and cross the small yellow cobbled street. You should see Rossmann in front of you. Unlike Singaporean supermarkets, the supermarkets here don’t always sell pharmaceutical products such as bandaids, monthly necessities for women etc. Rossmann sells all these. Another chainstore that sells such stuff is “DM”. Do keep a lookout for it!

Spar, The Super Supermarket
Keeping Rossmann on your left, head towards the bigger street. You should see the following building. The best supermarket (especially if it keeps in stock my favourite Dilmah Early Grey tea) in the vicinity is here. All hail “Spar”.Soya Milk, cheese, fresh meat, roasted chicken, pork etc. can be found in the Spar building. There is a nice restaurant here that has nice ice-cream. On the second floor, you can buy clothes, gloves or winter wear if needed.

The Freshest Vegetable Shop in Town
Keeping Spar on your left, continue on and you will come to one of the best, freshest vegetable shop with the widest selections in town (I’ve tried everything else in the vicinity… this one is really still the best). I usually go to the vegetable shop to buy fresh fruits, mushrooms and eggs before heading to Spar to pick up whatever else I may need. I would recommend buying your eggs here at the vegetable shop… sometimes, supermarket eggs come cracked or stick to the paper cartons. At the vegetable shop, you can buy single eggs or in boxes of 10. Just say Tojás, Tiz darab, doboz (literally eggs, 10 pieces, box) and they will give a carton of 10 eggs.

Keeping Spar on your left and vegetable shop on your right, you’ll see this view:

Open Market, Back to Basics
Turn left walk straight and you will see what is known as the ‘open market’ (like the ‘wet markets’ of Singapore). Here, ‘freelance’ sellers peddle their wares at competitive prices. No frills, fresh, cheap & good. “Langos” is a fantastic Hungarian snack that is like Singapore’s 油條 (fried dough fritters), round like a pizza, but with optional stuff on top such as sour cream, garlic sauce, ham & cheese. Tastes very good. Do explore these as well.

Cezar Restaurant, Italian Pasta & Pizza
Keeping open market on your left, walk straight ahead until you see a parking lot. In the distance is an excellent Italian Restaurant known as Cezar (Caesar) Restaurant.

Food here is pricier (1000+-2000+), takes long to wait (can be 1-1.5 hours!) but pasta portions are huge and tastes fantastic. A typical pasta can feed two people (Typical Asian male appetite like mine). You can consider asking for Kisadag (smaller) portions that are halved.

B-Pont, Photocopying Madness
Facing the restaurant, turn to your right and just a few steps away is B-pont. This excellent shop does colour printing, in A4 & A3, thesis binding etc. It services a nearby college and quality is pretty good. My thesis was about 100+ pages and each black & white piece costs 10HUF (student rates). (The closest & next cheapest one is the ‘paper shop’ near the Kodaly institute at 15 HUF, we usually go there for our daily uses… stay tuned for more directions in future blog). Colour printing is of course more expensive and each A4 pieces costs 150HUF (but think there’s also student price discount also). Thesis binding (leather cover) costs 2000HUF. The guy at the counter doesn’t speak a word of English (why would they? They’ve got plenty business from the locals), so it might be advisable to get a native speaker to write you a note in Hungarian, or if you’ve been smart enough to get yourself a mobile phone from T-Mobile and/or Vodafone, call for backup.

All righty! Hope this helps. Stay tuned for the next one. 🙂

Addendum:

Ristorante Italiano Cezar: Opening hours Mondays-Saturdays, 1200-2300hrs, Sundays 1200-2200hrs. Telephone: 76/328-849. Address: 6000 Kecskemét, Kaszap utca 4. N.B. This restaurant is not to be confused with its branch Zöldfa Étterem és Pizzéria (that one’s also called Caesar, that is very close to the Kecskemét Train Station, 6000 Kecskemét, Nagykorosi utca 46. Opening Hours: Monday-Sunday 1200-2300hrs). Food here is also very very good.

B Pont: Opening hours Monday-Friday, 0800-1700hrs. Telephone: 76/329-480. www.bpont.hu 

How to get to Ferihegy Railway Station from the Budapest Airport (By Bus)

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Addendum 1 Aug 2025:

Updated this with a new YouTube video.

https://youtu.be/55_fcGSwcsk?feature=shared

Original post:

I just realised how complicated it can be to find one’s way to Budapest/Kecskemét upon arrival at the airport after a colleague from Singapore got in touch saying he was going to visit.

Here’s a blog entry with pictures to help all future English-speaking Kodaly Institute/Liszt Academy students and/or first-time visitors who are non-native speakers on how to get oneself to the “Ferihegy Railway Station” from the Liszt Ferenc Airport Terminal 2.

Look for the sign below upon exit from the airport and take public bus No. 200E. Bus tickets are available from the Jegyek (Ticket) vending machine.
Sometimes, the bus driver will also have tickets for sale for you.

Bus 200E takes c.a. 10 min to reach Ferihegy Railway Station. The Hungarian name for this is Ferihegy Vasútállomás (fair-read-hedge vor-shoe-tah-low-mahsh). I would do this in IPA to be absolutely scientific about it but considering most people don’t do IPA, I shan’t bother. I would suggest writing this out on a piece of paper and ask the people on the bus. You might find the following sign on the bus helpful:

Don’t worry if you see the bus going to the highway and feels like it stops in the middle of nowhere. This would be the correct bus-stop:

and behind you would be a pedestrian bridge for crossing over to the Ferihegy Railway Station:

If you’re carrying tons of luggage, don’t worry. There’s a lift up at this bridge. Yippie!:

Once you’re on top of the bridge, you’ll have to be careful which staircase you use to go down. If you’re going to Budapest, follow this sign:

If you’re going to Cegled, Kecskemét etc., walk on further and exit at the next one:

Tickets can be bought at the vending machine on the platform. Check out the boxy machine on the right (this platform goes to Kecskemét by the way). If all else fails, there are always train conductors who check for cheats and can deliver fines to you immediately on the spot with their cool portable ticket-printing machine. They don’t always speak English though although they probably can sell tickets to you if need be.

Do note that like in Tokyo, trains that go to different cities arrive at the same platform. You will need to check the overhead signs to double check the timing and cities that the trains are going to. E.g. Trains to Kecskemét generally arrive at every 13 min past the hour (i.e. 113pm, 213pm etc.). Why is this piece of information important? Because you don’t want to be stuck outdoors at -15 degrees celsius temperatures waiting for 45 min for the train during winter. I would encourage checking the train schedules here: route planner. Train ride from Ferihegy Train Station to Kecskemét takes c.a. 1 hour and c.a. 15-20min to Budapest Nyugati Station.

It is straightforward for those going to Budapest since Nyugati is the last stop. For Kodaly Institute students, do check and ask locals whether the train has arrived in Kecskemét (usually arrives in the town around 10-15 min past the hour). The train for some reason stops at more places at certain timings and lesser stops at others so it is no good going purely by number of stops.

Good luck!

Albert Tay
Kodály Intézet 2011-2012

Addendum:

Using Credit Cards at the Ticket Vending Machine

I would strongly encourage you to NOT use your credit card on the ticket vending machine. I saw someone at the Ferihegy train station who attempted to pay via credit card… and his credit card was literally eaten up by the machine – it does not allow for a manual ‘swipe’ found in more advanced atm machines so there is absolutely no way you could stick your finger in to pull it out and nothing we did could make the machine spit it out. You have been warned!

Goodbye 2011, Hello 2012

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Let’s summarise 2011…

  • January
    • TATLO (THREE) in Manila performance with SYC Ensemble Singers

  • February
    • Saint Andrew’s Secondary School (SASS) Arts Education Programme
    • Completed Laudate Dominum for Solo S, SAB.
  • March
    • Annica’s Birthday Bash at Kbox (pool table, beer, food in a huge KTV VIP room)
    • Radio Channel for the Arts (too bad have to go off to Hungary so can’t help make it work out)
    • Hosting various Singapore Youth Festival (SYF) Performance Exchanges
    • Vietnam Tour with SASS
    • Workshops for various choirs
    • Performance with Steve Dobrogosz
  • April
    • Hosting and attending more SYF Performance Exchanges
    • Conducted concerts
    • Passing of composition mentor Leong Yoon Pin
    • 2011 SYF Central Judging (Gold with Honours, Golds and Silver, it’s been a lucky year) and Workshops
    • SSO Workshop of local composers’ works (what a feast for the ears!)
  • May
    • Drinks with Kodaly Seminar Asia friends!
    • Nice Award from SASS, donated half back to the choir
    • Poland Competition with SYC Ensemble Singers (Overall festival champion aside, singing and living in Poland was fun!)
  • June
    • Herlina got married with Nikolaus!
    • Hosted Dr Miguel Felipe and workshops for 7 choirs!
    • Completed Prayer for Peace for SSAATTBB
  • July
    • SYF Presentation of Choirs and Bands with SASS for Co-Curricular Activities Branch (CCAB) in collaboration with choirs from Nan Chiau High School, Ang Mo Kio Secondary School and Maris Stella High Wind Band
    • Workshops for choirs and wind band
    • Final concert with MGS
  • August
    • BIG MOVE (OMG), packing up and bidding farewell to our Eunos home.
  • September
    • Hello Hungary & Kodály Institute!
    • Completed Ecce Crucem Domini for SSAA
    • Seminars, lectures fun fun fun…
  • October
    • Observations of Hungarian Radio Choir, Bartok Conservatory, Primary Schools & Kindergartens in Budapest.
    • Performance of Liszt Christus Oratorio
    • Getting to know more friends @ the Institute
  • November
    • Completed Dona Nobis Pacem for SATB, Pno, Cl.
    • Heard the most beautiful rendition of Esti Dal by Cantus Nobilis and conducting teacher Peter Erdei.
    • Performances at the Liszt Museum
  • December
    • Met up with Jessica and Zaitian
    • Met up with Leslie and Adam
    • More chamber/choir and solo performances @ the Kodály Institute and the Kodály Museum in Budapest.
    • Attended Ars Nova concert by solfege teacher Katalin Kiss and heard the most beautiful renditions of Orbán pieces ever
    • Christmas Carolling with Emese and the kids from the Kodály Iskola
    • Attended wedding in Malaysia
    • Attended Phil Youth

There are of course many, many other treasured memories and meet-ups with old friends, great company, teachers and students but that would probably be too long a blog. What a fun-filled year of singing, performing and travelling! Living in beautiful Hungary and studying at the Kodály Institute with some of the finest musicians and brilliant pedagogues is a heavenly experience. Peace and quiet in Kecskemét also allowed me to recharge my batteries, reflect on my work, conduct and rethink the many things that can and should be.

Looking forward to returning to Hungary and having another fruitful semester of studying and fun-filled music action. La vita e bella!