Day 1: 12/04/06 Munich

Munich Airport

View of Munich from Englischer Garten: There is still snow!

Food + Beer and Food + Beer and Food + Beer...

Tk and me have been talking about this trip since dunno when, and finally it realised! We have been trying hard to recruit more members into the team, however, by the time we leave, there is only one who 'has enough money to' join us: Yongji. He proved himself to be an invaluable member of our team who added a lot of spice into our trip.

Tk and me took flights from KLM to Amsterdam before transiting to Munich. The service was alright, just that the food was, well, have you eaten chewy + cold potatoes before?! We are extremely fascinated by the skills of the one who prepared it and came out with all sorts of theories for the production of the unique KLM chewy potatoes. But to be fair, their sandwiches and egg omelette were ok...

Yj was a little special: he got a free SIA ticket from his dad's Krisflyer miles. He took SQ to Frankfurt and Lufthansia to Munich from Frankfurt. We were all deceived by Star Alliance's good reputation: as Tk and me lugged our stuff all the way to Munich's T2 to welcome the arrival of the special one, we found out, to our horror, that his flight did not even have an arrival time!! We waited in front of the gate, watching the time to appear (it appeared as 1 hour later than the scheduled arrival!), and watching the plane's everlasting descent. Finally he appeared, after our long wait of ~1.5 hours, claiming that the plane from Frankfurt departed only at its arrival time (!!).

Our host at Munich, Hwee See, is actually Yj's father's friend (see, he is very important). She picked us up at the airport and sent us to her house where we stayed for the next 5 days. Her house is in a quite courtyard right in the centre of Munich; 1 minute's walk will bring us to an U-Bahn station and it's just 10 minutes walk away from the busiest district. We were given a brief introduction of the city and after we settled down, we started exploring the city itself.
Tk planned the part of the trip in Germany. To his suggestion, we walked to the city centre and attepted to locate the Residenz, the imperial palace of Bavaria in the past. On our way we bought our lunch; my first taste of German bratwurst! It was kinda a mess for me as the ketchup from the sandwich keeps flowing onto the ground uncontrollably, but Tk was smarter: he had only mastrard on his sandwich. As usual, Yj was special: he ordered some chicken and chips.

The Residenz, on hindsight, is actually not very great; however, as this was my first time to Europe, I was rather impressed by the grottos decorated fully with shells and corals, the ceremonial hall's decor, and the corridor lined with portraits of the ruling family. They also has an exhibition going on introducing the imperial rule of Balvaria and the political struggle for Bavaria's independence during the time of Napoleon. Their imperial treasures were the only ones we visited during the trip; it was interesting but not exactly the kind that could leave lasting impressions. And their porcelain collection was simply boring: plain, repetitive. I suppose those in Taipei easily surpass these.

After these we went to the Englischer Garten: it was just simply a bad idea. Munich was really cold when we arrived, and snow has not even melted. The trees were just starting to bud; there is nothing fantastic to see in the park at all. It's just the wrong season. We strolled in the park in absolute coldness, climbed up the pavillion to take photos and get frozen, visited a famous beer garden covered with snow and ice but no beer... The after-effects were Tk and Yj feeling sick for nearly 1 whole week. Luckily I was spared.

That night was great though. Hwee See brought us to this beer hall called Augustiner, where we met her lovely daughter Kira, her friend Anfred (spelling..Hmm.), her sister Hwee Kun and brother-in-law Philip. We had our first taste of Bavarian food there, which we found a little salty at the beginning and got used to it after a few days. Pork knuckle, roasted pork, duck, Leberkaes, etc, and of course, beer with Brezen. We eat till we simply couldn't take it. The beer was great; that night we tried the 3 most basic kinds: Weisbier, Helles, and Dunkle. I liked the first one best. We definitely took more than 1L each, anyway, their basic unit is 0.5L... After that we even had ice-cream. The beer and food was a perfect solution for jet-lag.