reutte and rothenburg

at a delightful little medival town called rothenburg now (alot of well preserved old or reconstructed-to-look-old buildings)... it's a great place to just chill and walk along the alleys and shops, and sit down at the cafes around when tired...

came from reutte, an austrian border town... because both austria and germany are part of the EU which does not have border controls, i got no extra passport chop crossing over to reutte... in fact, there wasn't even border control! quite an interesting experince... reutte was a slow-paced town, with v nice mountains on most sides, and it was a good break from all the hectic travelling...

after leaving reutte, did a quick city tour of munich yesterday, exploring rothenburg now and will end up back in frankfurt tonight... will be staying in frankfurt for the next 2 days, so hopefully will be able to find proper internet access to blog more (i'm using the free 15-min access at the local tourist information office now, and this computer does not allow photos upload)...

btw, i'm gonna buy a really nice beer mug for dad from here... considering bavaria (the southern part of germany) is beer country, it's a suitable and useful gift (since dad drinks beer)... dun scold me hor... :-)

trains and the bavarian alps

i'm at a german town called fussen now, in the bavarian alps... it's just next to austria, which is going to be my next destination (a town called reutte) after i go look at some fairytale castles (their designs are apparently nice enough for disney to copy from) ...

spent the entire morning from 6+am travelling from munich, took a wrong train (or didn't get off at the right stop -- couldn't exactly figure out, cos of language problems), but anyway, thanks to a really helpful train inspector, finally managed to get to the right place, after quite a few train changes...

once again, the trains and train scenery here is great! there was even a proper bathroom in the sleeper train last night, and 1st class today was v comfortable as well... and the scenery was just fantastic, making even getting lost a nice experience..

ok, upload photos the next time... going for lunch now... :-)

not prague but munich

ok, latest update (from an internet station at berlin train station)... i'm not going to prague already... no time...

gonna head to munich by overnight train instead... travelling 1st class, with a proper bed and bathroom even... haha... luxury tour sia... u can be sure it's not my idea... but i suppose it would be a good experience! tell u more tomorrow... :-)

berlin city tour

the 4-hour berlin city tour brought me past many buildings like those above... the first few were like "wow!"... then it was like "ok...", and by the end of the walk, i was like "enough of buildings!"

the history of berlin was fascinating and we had a very knowledgeable guide... so that made up for e insane amount of walking...

yesterday was also museum day... i went to pergamon museum (which shows turkish stuff, to make up for my abortive turkey trip) and the jewish museum (which traces the history of Jews in germany)... it's quite cool...

was entirely exhausted by the time i reached back hotel just before midnight...

today, i'm going to wittenburg, where martin luther started the protestant movement... think it'll be cool... may end up in prague today or tomorrow... :-)

water

This was my breakfast yesterday... the cup noodles, i mean... and it cost s$8 even when i already had the cup noodles itself!

cos there was no hot water in the room and i had to ask for room service to send it up and it cost 4euros! *shock*

my colleague paid the 4euros on the spot, but later it was charged to our hotel bill again... as it turned out, the 4euros that was paid on the spot was taken as a tip!!

sigh...

food here is restaurant price and not as expensive as i had braced myself for... but water, that's another issue... think my major expense here is on water... s$6 or more at each meal (beer is the cheapest liquid, coke is more expensive at many places)... and mineral water throughout the day... maybe i should try drinking tap water...

berlin

the welcome message at the berlin hotel (der!)... it's a nice hotel tho, s$130 per night...


glorified italian rissotto (it's like chinese mui fan!) and apple juice


at an "atas" italian restaurant... the bill came up to less than 14 euros tho, so quite ok...

first class train seats... worth every cent extra paid! no need to squeeze with the crowd and u get vip service, like shorter queues at train stations and a service attendant will even offer chocolates and newspapers on the journey!

journey from hamburg to berlin


friendly cafe lady on the port cruise tour who gave us directions to our next destination, the palace



delicious fish and chips + crab salad lunch (hamburg is a seaport known for it's fresh seafood)

no worries about big backpacks, cos can always leave them in train station lockers! :-)

beautiful scenery from frankfurt to hamburg

Hi dad, mum and wen!

See the photos above? It's in reverse order of what i did yesterday... (poor i.t skills... haha...)

going to eat the nissin cup noodles dad bought for me now! then will join a walking city tour of berlin...

update u again! :-)

cheers from berlin,

ping

hi from changi airport... again! :-)

yesterday was Ping's first time arriving at changi airport to take a flight out of asia... and it was also the one and only time in my life that i missed a flight! dad will be remembering this for a long time to come... sigh...

but family has in general been really great and supportive...

and here i am, again, one day later at changi, trying to get to frankfurt... reached the airport at a really kiasu timing (3+pm for a 11.20pm flight) and hung out here half the day... figure that i cannot miss today's flight! plus i wanted to explore the inside of changi airport!

europe here Ping comes! :-)