Vietnam Day 11, A day to ourselves in Old Saigon

Our last day in Saigon was just a little bit of unplanned magic. We didn't have anything we needed to accomplish, so we decided to go check out the Vietnamese history museum. Here's a thing you really should know it's closed on Monday. But, if you show up at the front gate at certain times with money, you might find that a cruise ship has just dumped all its excursion passengers there. If that's the case, asking nicely will get you in the door, despite your not having looked at a calendar in the last 10 days. The museum covers early civilizations in Vietnam and has really cool stuff from the countries early history. Right next door is the zoo, and since it was less than $5/person, we decided to check it out. Cages with concrete floors are just not cool, but preservation and educating children is, so it's kind of a tough call on whether this was a good experience or not. We ended up having lunch (again) at the barbecue garden, since we'd had such a nice time the night before. We also had to make our way back to a place we'd had do a little laundry for us, since the hotel wanted some ridiculous amount per item. We thought for sure that the place we'd stayed in Danang was overcharging us, but it turns out they had the cheapest prices of the whole trip. Our flight out of Vietnam was scheduled for very late that night, so we mostly just hung out in the city for the rest of the afternoon and got ourselves ready for one more stop. Our flight to Seoul was pretty uneventful, although it was on a nicer plane than we'd come to Vietnam on.

Bavaria Day 5, bumming around Munich

On our last day in town, If we did nothing else, we only wanted to do one thing for sure, and that was catch the glockenspiel. We slept in, did a little shopping at the Aldi, and then made our way down to the Marienplatz. We got there pretty early, so we had time to wander around the victualien markt. Picture the best farmers market you've ever been to with an amazing assortment of local and imported vegetables and fresh fish, cheeses and meats and all kinds of interesting stuff. We wandered back into Marienplatz just in time to grab watch the show and catch up with Dave. We grabbed some lunch at the Nordsee and then were ready to go hit the museum circuit. My original plan was to hit alte pinakotek and the the Deutsches Museum, but alas, I hadn't noticed that alte pinakotek is closed on Mondays. Good thing too, because we spent 4 hours in the Deutsches Museum and saw less than a quarter of it in any meaningful detail. The good news is most of it has descriptions of things in English and German. If I were you, I'd avoid the mining section unless you are fluent, because it is a really really really long section with very little translation. After the museum we stopped back in Marienplatz to do some shopping at the very insane Kaufhof. I'm not sure if it was the time we were there or what, but it was absolutely crazy busy, and the heat must have been turned up to 70 degrees. It made it hard to buy anything despite the fact they had much of the stuff we were looking for. It didn't help that I was lugging around a giant box full of Weihnachtspyramide. I had fallen in love with them on my first visit and had been pricing them out the entire trip, and had finally found the best prices from among the 3 seperate markets that I'd visited. After loading up on some more chocolate, we grabbed a train back to the hotel. I'm not sure how I always end up traveling during rush hour carrying a giant box, but I manage to do it about every other trip. We met back up with Dave and Kathy and wandered out to grab some dinner. Today was the big day to visit the Hofbrau. We had a wonderful dinner there and enjoyed the delicious beer (some of us a little too much) and then wandered back to the hotel. The flights on W's employer turned into garbage, so we ended up taking the mid day flight the next morning on a partner airline. I didn't love ther business class seat, it got almost flat, but was still at an angle that made you feel like you were constantly sliding out of it. They did give us a really cool lindt advent calender (mine wasn't quite this fancy, but close) that I enjoyed every day since then. Their entertainment was cool, and I even got to see the Knut the polar bear movie. It is definitely worth watching. Best part of the flight: the house gin is Bombay Saffire. The rest of the pictures are here, Enjoy!

Bavarian Winter Wonderland

Bavaria Day 3 Living out Fairy Tale Dreams

On our third day we rose early again and made our way over to the train station to make the 2 and a half hour ride from Munich to Fussen. We found some good seats on the train and settled in for the trip. We'd brought along some coffee, and packed our standard German breakfast for the ride. We even met a nice young couple to talk to, she was doing an internship at the Hofbrau (Jealous!!!!).
We were on our way to see to of Germany's most famous castles, Schloss Neuschwanstein and Schloss Hohenschwangau. We were working from the Lonely Planet Bavaria and the Black Forest Guide, and it walks you through the process pretty well. Get off the train, catch the bus to Schwangau, walk to the ticket booth buy your tickets to both castles, and enjoy. The tickets you buy are for a specific time, so we got ourselves a little cushion and stopped in for a little lunch at the Hotel Mueller nearby . We then marched up the hill to Hohenschangau and took some pictures, and then went in for our tour. Unfortunately they don't allow pictures inside, because the furnishings and decorations are as fancy as you might expect of monarchal spending gone wild. Especially impressive are the wedding gifts given to the castle's inhabitants, they are truly the answer to what do you give the couple who has everything. After the first tour, we wandered down and got in line for the horse drawn carriage ride to Neuschwanstein. We were afraid the timing would be a little tight, but the carriage ride only takes about to minutes, and it is a long way up hill for tired tourists. The best Karmic retribution of the day came when we watched people who were in line behind us practically run us over running up to the front seat of the carriage so they could sit in what they thought were the best seats, and they probably were nice seats, until the horses took a little bathroom break about half way through the journey. The finished parts of Neuchwanstein are absolutely amazing (it was never completed due to Ludwig's mysterious death during construction), and our tour group (70 strong) was big enough that lots of people were snapping pictures while the guide wasn't looking but I chose to take the rule abiding position and just enjoy the sights for myself. After the tour we had a drink at the cafe and sat down to watch the little movie about the life of Ludwig II. Unfortunately for us the power went out right when it was getting good, and it was closing time so we'll just be left to wonder. By the time we were done, the carriages had stopped running so we took the walk downhill on our own. That did give us time to shoot some pictures on the way down. We then made our way back to the bus stop where we had to wait for what seemed like forever on a night that was getting to be quite cold.We grabbed a bite to eat in Fussen at a restaurant not really worth mentioning and then made the train ride all the way back to Munich, there was some heavy napping along the way, and when we arrived back in munich we decided to try one of the many Kebab shops nearby. The food there was tasty, and just enough to fill us up for sleepy time. After this day we really could live happily ever after.

Bavaria, Day 2 Remembering a dark time for humanity

On our first day we'd paid a visit to the Aldi to buy some bread and some meat and cheese, so we could start day 2 with a delicious German breakfast. We were up early, and headed for Dachau to visit the concentration camp. The S-bahn ride takes about 25 minutes, and then you catch a bus out to the concentration camp. For such a serious activity, the bus was filled with english speaking tourists.

We got there just a touch too late to see the documentary movie in english, which I suspect probably contains the most sobering images. We spent the 2 Euro on the self directed audio guide and bundled up tight to walk around the groounds. I'd been to the Holocaust museum in St. Petersberg Fl, and one of the things I remembered most about that experience was they actually wanted you to reach out and touch the railcar they have on display because it adds an extra sense to your experience. As much as was physically possible I reached out and tried to touch the items on display. In the warmth of a St. Pete summer day, it's hard to imagine the stark coldness of a winter day in a concentration camp at Dachau. From the creaky opening of the wrought iron gate, to the harshness of the cement walls, there are not enough adjectives to describe the misery that must have been felt here. Hardest of all to imagine was the roll call on the wide open parade ground. The prisoner uniform didn't look nearly warm enough to make survival possible on this windsept open field where prisoners were forced to stand at attention rain or shine to be counted. The inscription on the gate says work will set you free, a propaganda play since Dachau was supoosed to be a re-education camp not a death camp or source of civilian labor. As you walk through the museum, you can't help but feel nauseated by the way people were denied their humanity for no apparent reason other than their place of birth or disagreement with Nazi ideals, not that any reason is ever good enough to treat any other human being like anything less than fully human. The tour includes a thorough museum, a reconstucted baracks where regular prisoners stayed and the original isolation cells. The Long dark hallway of the isolation cells still gives me a chill to relive, I can't imagine a worse place to live in constant fear. The final piece of our tour was the cremation/gas chamber area where what looked like a shower turned into death. The numbness you feel here is almost unbearable. We finally made our way back out tot the front gate, and took the bus back to the train station, ready to eat and ready to start enjoying the trip again. We just sort of started walking through downtown looking for a restauarant and discovered a cozy little place called Gasthaus Drei Rosen

It's off the beaten tourist path, but does have an english menu and the most wonderful Bavarian food. W had a ribeye with herbed butter that I'd still like to go back and get 3 more of, and I had the Allgäuer Käsetopf, Schweinelendchen auf Käsespätzle mit Rahmschwammerlund gemischtem Salat, Which is a pork chop seved over a pot of cheesy german noodles with a mixed green salad that was absolutely amazing. Have yourself a Lowenbau Dunkel (Dark) while you're here, and it will easily wash away some of your sadness. From there we had a few minutes to try to walk up the hill to get to Schloss Dachau before it closed. We didn't make it in time, but the Hofgarten behind it was still open, so we stopped to take some pictures and then spent some quality time at the Dachau Kristkindlemarkt and enjoyed a Gluhwein and watched some little angels parade in to open up the market. We grabbed the bus back to the train station and made our way back to Munich from there. After a brief respite at the hotel, we made our way out to the Spatenhaus for dinner. We ate more typical Bavarian fare, and snuck out with a few of the pretzels that they start you with (a to-go box is not a very common site in Germany). We arrived not really all that hungry and struggled mightily to put down a whole meal.

We then made our way to once again to the tollwood festival for a gluhwein and a dessert crepe I managed to get us a little lost on the U-bahn on the way there because there's a Theresenwiese station and a Theresenstasse station. After our gluhwein and dessert, we took the little stroll back to the hotel, we had another early morning to face the next day.

Au Revoir Belgique

100_2371
Originally uploaded by jrherron.

On our third day we moved even slower, knowing there would be little open in the morning. I found some breakfast at the food maker, one of the few open locations down the street with come croissants and a coffee riding around in our stomachs, we could venture off to see the sights of Brussels. We took the metro to the center of the city, and wandered around the Grand Place, taking pictures and milling about with the other tourists. We then dropped by to see the Manneken Pis, although he was not dressed up on this day. We wandered around a bit looking at the little shops and then went back to the Grand place for some food and and authentic Belgian Beer. We enjoyed a beer and some salami and cheese, and then had a strawberry ice cream sort of dish and a spiked coffee drink to warm ourselves back up.

Alley to history
Originally uploaded by jrherron.

Yes it was a tourist trap, but the beer was tasty, and we needed a snack. On our way back to the hotel we dropped back in to the food maker for something to drink, and went to the hotel to rest up a bit. Finally we walked down our little restaurant street and found a brasserie where we ordered some tasty beers had a great meal and enjoyed our final night in Brussels. I finally sat down to the huge portion of Mussels and fries (Moules et Frites) that I'd seen everyone else eating since we'd gotten to town. They are just as good as advertised. The hotel was out of irons, so they did our ironing for us the next morning, and we took the train and a bus to Brussels airport. We got slightly less cozy first class seats on a 767 on the way home, but it was certainly more comfortable than the coach ride we took from D.C. to San Francisco.

tschüs

Our second day in Munich began as we ate our typical German breakfast of bread, cheese and salami in our room. We needed to fuel ourselves for a busy day if we were
going to see anything in Munich at all. Our first stop would be the Enlishcer Garten. Its on the list of the must sees, so being good tourists we decided we'd start our day there. In order to get there we had to pass through the Hofgarten of the Residenz, where we snapped lots of pictures and explored. Then we got to the Englisher Garten and were nearly overrun by marauding ducks. Actually they were quite friendly and turned right around when they figured out we weren't going to feed them.

We studied the map and realized we couldn't possibly explore the entire park in the time we had so we wanted to at least go find the waterfall and then head on to the Residenz. The waterfall was gorgeous, and seemed like a really great thing to have in the middle of a city. After a few minutes taking pictures and enjoying the sights and sounds at the waterfall it was time to work our way to the Residenz. We wanted to see a castle while in Germany, and this was the closest that we were going to get.

No Surfing Allowed
Originally uploaded by jrherron.

On our way out we passed the best surfing in Germany, but I thought it was a little chilly for me to jump in. Even the Wikipedia entry describes this as an unenforced sign, it just made us laugh to see this crazy man surfing out in the cold.
When we get to the Residenz we're surprised to see how reasonable a ticket was, and the price includes free use of the self guided tour. We chose to see the treasury first, and realized we were in trouble when the description of the first item in the collection lasted at least three minutes. We had to choose carefully what to listen to or we would have been there all day.
There were some really great items in the collection, but alas no flash photography. So some of my pictures are either dark or shaky or both, You have to check your backpack, and I neglected to take my tripod out before checking my bag. Coolest items include the one pictured here, and the baby's rattle that was attached to a badger claw. I can't hear badger without thinking of the addictive phenomenon that is badgerbadgerbadger.com. After reviewing all the items in the treasury it was off to tour the rooms of the Residenz. It's huge inside and serves as what the tour called a "museum of decoration". The walls and the furniture were very interesting to look at, and we tried to speed through because we still had a lot of day to go.

Antiquarium
Originally uploaded by jrherron.

Not to mention the fact we'd already walked around a lot and our German breakfast was starting to wear off. If you make your way to Munich some day the courtyard and the Antiquarium shown here are absolute must sees. They are the oldest rooms in the Residenz and are amazing to look at the detail they contain. We were starving after our two tours, so it was time to grab a pastry and a coffee at the San Francisco Coffee Company. I know it sounds ridiculous, but the coffee was quite good, and we sat at a little table outside and had a nice little rest. Our next mission was to check out the Victualmarkt, a farmers market where your average resident of munich shops for food for the next few days. We detoured to get some lunch and bumped into the Christmas market, so we wandered around downtown menu shopping for the perfect lunch. The last street we turned down before committing to a restaurant led us to the world famous Hofbrauhaus. We were pleasantly surprised to find that the prices were reasonable, and they had the red cabbage that Francie wanted to eat and the Schweinhaxen that I wanted. We pulled up at a table (you seat yourself wherever and with whomever you can and wait patiently? for someone to come wait on you. We had some giant beers and a delicious lunch and overall a pretty fabulous time. By the time we got out it was time to explore the Christmas market, enjoy some more gluhwein and take in the Glockenspiel for its 5:00 performance. We position ourselves nicely with cameras in hand, and waited. Except that for some reason the moment never came. Long after the 5:00 church bells rang the clock stood still and we had to move on. I'd been called a glockenspiel many times in life and was finally about to witness one in action, and it left me more than a little disappointed.

Sunset at the Christmas Market
Originally uploaded by jrherron.

Hmm, Guess this just means I have to go back. We took in the rest of the market, visited the frauenkirche, (No pictures inside of course) and then were ready to go back to Tollwood for dinner. We grabbed some brats and some crepes and then sat down in our same tent from the night before and enjoyed a beer. It was a great finish to our day. The next morning it was off to the train, still a nice short walk from our base camp at the courtyard marriot for our 45 minute ride out to the airport. We scored sweet first class seats on our way to Washington DC. I watched one movie and crashed for the next six hours. Customs in D.C. is ridiculous, but we managed to get to the first San Francisco flight just in time. We sat in the back, In 3 of the last six seats, but at least we got home safe. It was bumpy in DC and I felt sick most of the way, but I'd survived another crazy adventure. We barted home and went straight to bed, real life was waiting for me on Tuesday morning