Munich

It's great to come to Germany again after 12 years. This time I have the privilege to come with my wife. And it's Munich, and not Hannover.

There are many cultural lessons and fun experiences at Munich.

First is the basic need, toilet. In the airport it uses cloth instead tissue. But the System is more hygienic than Paris' airport. It has conveyor belt- like system to ensure the next user has a clean part of the long towel. Outside the airport, the toilet is as clean as Barcelona. But in restaurant such as McDonalds, there is someone to mann a plate where we need to put a coin.

Second is on drinking. On our way from the main train station to NH hotel, we saw a person carried by police as he slept on the street after drinking. This was in contrast to Barcelona where we could only drink in the restaurant or pub.

We tried to types of beer, radler (helles and lemon) and russn (weiss beer and lemon). My wife and I don't really like beer. But since we are at Munich, we decide to share half portion each.

Third, the food. The portion is very big that we need to share. We tried pork knuckle (Schweinshaxe), traditional Bavarian roast pork (Schweinbraten), and veal knuckle. There was a potato dumpling which looks like sticky rice ball. We also tried strawberry cream puff, McD breakfast, and cherry cheesecake. Apart from enjoying the food, we learn that the price in the restaurant is before tipping. So we learn to give tip and ensure that it is more than the usual 10% service charge in Singapore.

Fourth, the building. As usual, there are many beautiful old and tall buildings. But the memorable experience was when we paid two euros to go up and found out there is no lift. We need to use te same narrow stairs for both going up and going down that it creates jam several times. The worst part is that there are 300 steps to go up. I wonder whether they purposely design that so we can train our endurance and remember it takes similar efforts te go up in real life. And that the journey & the pain may not be really worth considering that we can only stay on top for a while because there are so many people who want to go up but the space is limited.

Fifth, the technology. We went to BMW museum and saw how engineering and innovation has been in German history for a long period of time.

Sixth, the transportation. We learn that the timing is not as precise as Japan that uses the time as the arrival indication. It is also not like in Barcelona where there is a countdown. It is more like Singapore where the estimated time may not be exact. It is also interesting to see the people's patience as the time frequency may be longer than once in 10 minutes. Worse is when the route is canceled like what we experienced that we need to wait more than 20 minutes. That made us change our route.

Seven, the people. We learn that people is unique. So in every culture, there is good people as well as not so good people. In general, we heard that German may not be friendly. But our friend, Florian, is very friendly. In our trip from the airport to the city, we met a German lady with her adult son who were in the same flight as us. She was very friendly and the one suggested us to try Schweinbraten. Likewise, the character of the three waiters who served us in different occasions are unique. The first one was attentive & pro-active. He suggested Russn when I asked for recommendation. He also divided the glass into two separate glass. The second waiter was shrewd but expressive. He came out of the restaurant when we were still looking. He tried to make us order for more than one portion. He brought both big and small spoon as a chance to joke around when I asked for spoon. He specifically mentioned that the price was before tipping. He also asked for doing a high five together before I left. The third one was a lady. She asked us to order more than one menu but was ok when we just asked for one food and one drink. When giving for drink, she was like the previous waiter who don't bother to split the portion into two. All these remind us not to generalize too fast.

Overall, it was a nice and memorable 2 day -1 night trip. Especially as we managed to sleep for 14 hours in the middle.