Makan!

Honestly I don't quite like German food, cos unfortunately I don't like sausages (much prefer taiwan sausage) and don't like beer (prefer liquor).

German beer is really cheap, you can one bottle at like 70cents in the supermarket. and they're famous for their beer gardens. Our profs treated us to one on the first day we arrived..



Quite interesting, we actually had to climb this narrow stairwell down into the basement cellar where the beer are kept in huge barrels for our dinner :)


We also visited the Hofbräuhaus, notably one of the world's most famous beer hall. apparently Hitler organized one of his first public propaganda event here, including this twenty-five point programme of ideas which was to become the basis of the Nazi party.

It feels like a really happening place, with this cute looking but great sounding band!


The other thing I love there is the ice cream! so cheap and serving so huge! and there're so easy to find cos every ice cream shop has got this huge plastic ice cream outside the shop!


not forgetting to mention that their ice cream girls remind me of kiera knightley and kirsten dunst :)


I had my first experience eating in a north indian restaurant and trying naan too! (oh my i sound so suaku haha)


At hardrock cafe, most expensive meal in Munich..



At the mensa (something like their canteen) in the university. Thank goodness for these, help to save alot of money. One filling meal costs only abt 2-3euros..

Churches of Grandeur

After such a long time, I've finally found time to blog here again heh.. Sorry to keep you guys waiting!

As mentioned earlier, Bavaria is actually a predominantly Catholic country, so of course one of my major highlights of this trip is to see the many beautiful churches around!

Smack in the centre of town, right next to Marienplatz, is Peterskirche, or Church of St Peter. It is the oldest church in town, built in diff flavours of gothic, romanesque and renaissance style. This was also the first church we entered in Munich, and I attended mass here as well, but it was all in german haha. The churchgoers here are more reverent I feel, and the mass is more solemn and reverent as well. Like they still use certain aspects of the traditional latin rites, such as the altar facing the front, going up to and kneeling at the pews in front to receive communion etc.



During the war, half the building was destroyed.

It even has a corpse of one of their matyred saint, St. Munditia (patron saint for single women) for public view!


It also has a 92 metre spire, which we can climb to see the majestic view from the top! What a tiring climb, but well worth the effort!



apparently you can see the outline of the alps even

From the top you can actually look across Marienplatz to Frauenkirche (Dom zu unserer Lieben Frau - Cathedral of Our Lady), serving as the cathedral for the Archdiocese of Munich.



Another really pretty church we went to was the pilgrimage church of Wies.

Located in the foothills of the Alps, story has it that in 1738 tears were seen on a dilapidated wooden figure of the Scourged Saviour. This miracle resulted in a pilgrimage rush to see the sculpture. In 1740 a small chapel was built to house the statue, but it was soon realized that the building would be too small for the number of pilgrims it attracted, and thus Steingaden Abbey decided to commission a separate shrine.


Designed with really nice roccoco elements, the Wieskirche was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1983.

Where royalties stay

How can we missed not to take the most photographed building in Germany right? :)

Neuschwanstein Castle!
The castle was built by King Ludwig II, as a retreat and as an homage to Richard Wagner, the King's inspiring muse. Most of the interior were actually themed after much of Wagner's plays and operas, unfortunately interior photography is not allowed. This is also the castle that served as inspirtaion for the sleepy beauty castle at disneyland :)

Personally I feel that Ludwig is pretty enigmatic and definitely idealistic. From what I gathered from a guide, as a young king he wanted to built this sky garden in the city but after being discouraged by the state officials for 'abusing state funds' he refused to build any more buildings in Munich city itself, which explains why all his buildings are in super ulu places.

Unfortunately, access to Neuschwanstein is not easy, have to buy tickets at the foot of the hill for specific timing (if you're late your ticket is void). So while waiting for our visit to the castle, we went boating at the nearby Lake Starnberg!




Captain Jack Prasanth and his crew!


As you can see, Neuschwanstein's really high up in the hills, took us a 30mins climb to walk up, so bloody tiring!


From the Neuschwanstein hilltop u can also see Castle Hohenschwangau, where King Ludwig II grew up as a kid. the posters in my hand are of newschwanstein, i've put up one in my pgp room :p



that's Vava, our student guide, she's been to the castle so many times she's so bored of it she was just sitting by the lake reading. in the background's the Hohenschwangau castle, eee really ugly.


The other 'castle' which we went to was the Residenz. Much less medieval, and this time they allowed us to take non-flash photography!



The queen's bedchamber. I've absolutely no idea why she doesn't sleep with the king (who has his own bedroom). Anyway the only thing I remember is that green is supposed to represent fertility, cos this was the greenest room, haha.


while the guide wasn't noticing :p

Museums

My memory's really fading as the trip to Germany seemed like a longer and longer time ago.. Better write em down asap before I can't rem.. but there's always this evil "Exams" looming around.. darn

As I was telling Paul, I think its really cool to be a curator, cos its like you have this massive collection of funky, interesting, and rare stuff. And u get to showcase em and earn money somemore, how cool.

Anyway, we went to the Alte Pinakothek, one of the oldest galleries of the world.


The main lobby is set with high stone ceilings, and very bare walls, supposedly to create a solemn mood, as a reminder of how the gallery was severely damaged during the war.

Here are some paintings I found interesting:

The Battle of Issus (Albrecht Altdorfer 1529)
I know this picture depicts a battle between alexander the great and the persians :p and something about the sun shining over alexander's army as symbolism


The Canigiani Holy Family (Raphael Ca. 1505/06)


The Great Last Judgement (Peter Paul Rubens 1617)


The Deposition ( Rembrandt (Harmensz. van Rijn) 1633)
Although I normally like colourful surreal pictures, I strangely like this painting. The painter has a unique style. I'm not really doing justice to this picture, u can find the full picture here


The Assumption of the Virgin (Guido Reni 1642)


Besides the arts museum, we being physicist, how can we not visit the science museum as well!
The Deutsches Museum in Munich is the world's largest museum of technology and science with about 28,000 exhibited objects from 50 fields of science and technology. Its full name in English is The German Museum of Masterpieces of Science and Technology (German: Deutsches Museum von Meisterwerken der Naturwissenschaft und Technik)

Right outside the museum is a human pendulum ride which was really interesting. Built to precision, a delicate shift in weight just by walking within the "pendulum bob" will cause it to start rising on its own, kewl. As long as you keep shifting your weight, you can actually make it rotate 360! :)



Other cool setups...
From this

to this

a simple demonstration of conservation of angular momentum :)



Oh it was Live Earth on 07/07/07. So we decided to wear green!!


The museum is actually sitting on a island in the middle of the river Isar, so from the rooftop of the building, we can have a pretty view of the river and Munich city