Backwards, I meant way backwards like really backwards, yes that far back to 1st January 2020 where most of the people, myself included make their version of resolutions for 2020. Some people really working towards their resolution and some…don’t #ehem, you know who 😉
One of my resolutions was to do more sports so I can be an active individual, ha! it is very realistic, only require not more than self-discipline and 12 months ahead to fulfill it… piece of cake! #at least that what I thought. Unfortunately or fortunately, the Universe has his own mind, the moment I wanted to be more active, Corona came and all studios shut down #and followed by another bunch of excuses!
Long story short, fast forward to 11 months later, I had done zero sports >.< being not so proud of myself of course as this is the promise I give to myself, I shall not break it. But life keep goes on, still strolling on my Instagram where they had many challenges of running, I kept looking at them but all of them were too long for example a run for 10km, 15km or half marathon, yo chill out! can’t they have something for Anfänger? Until…. the advertisement from lauf-weiter.de appeared! the Universe has heard me! I registered for a 5km lauf and guess when? on Silvester! haha! last day on year 2020, thank you for giving me a chance to fulfill my own promise 🙂
Okay, so I registered and I thought yeah 5km easy! I’ve done that before but when I tried it the first time I think I only made 1km and I almost dead! I asked myself, why oh why Marlyn you do this? However, I still determined to do that Silvester lauf, just need some practice! There was still 7 more days before Silvester so my plan to run 2km every day, do not forget to mention that the temperature is never warmer than 4 degree.
I took a practice day off on 30th to have a rest before our big day #exactly how athletes do haha I’ve told Julia about my running plan on Silvester and she interested to do that too! so we can run together, yeay! running alone is really hard as you focus too much on the run and felt tired or cold easily. Julia asked Tina if she wanted to join and she agreed too! cool! so 3 of us will run together!
She picked me up in Dortmund, drove to Wuppertal and why is that? because they have an ex-train rail that they built as a running track so it’s total flat, a very good medium for me!
We got ourselves ready by putting our running number up!
The view there was really good actually but I don’t have time to stop by and took some snaps because yo I have goals to do!
Someone said to me that I need to finish 5km in under 1 hour so #challenge accepted! honestly, logically thinking, of course I will finish it under an hour, if not…. its called walking! 😉
Wogh! I directly stopped when my mi-fit said “you run 5km bla bla bla” Im done! by all means, done done done! Julia and Tina ran more than 5km because they kept coming back to “pick me up” so I won’t get too far away from them haha
I just ticked my checkbox of being more sporty, I deserved some treats 😉 Julia went to the bakery, thanks God one still opened consider it’s almost 12:00 she bought me “sweets” for Silvester, the lucky pig and the cleaning chimney guy.
Then I submitted my timing and my GPS to lauf-weiter.de and they will analyze which position I am in but who cares which position, I ticked my checkbox, that’s more important 😉 btw mind you the weather was 2 degree!
Someone said to me that I should continue my running habit in 2021 and when I asked him warum? he told me “because you will feel good about yourself after sports” no way! mir ist kalt everytime! never ever I feel good after my run! haha I do feel “good” knowing that I’ve done something useful though 😉
Anyway, with this Silvester lauf that I did on 31st December 2020, the 366th day out of 366th day, I am officially closed my weird yet magical year of 2020 and officially able to shout: WE SURVIVED 2020 🙂
My sister sent me a birthday present from faaaaarrrrr away (read: Australia) to Germany, mind you that my bday is on September but due to Covid, the numbers of plane reduced a lot so she told me that the package might arrived up to 3 weeks. It’s not a big deal anyway, I’m not a believer of “only open my presents on my birthday date” so I am up if anyone wants to give me something prior, on or after my birthday 😉
Package sent via Australian Post and after 3 weeks it arrived Germany, yeay! however… it’s not that simple, I have been waiting and checking it every day but it shows no movement, still in custom, no one calls me and I can’t call them because its from AU post and who knows which courier that will take care my package and sent it to me… waiting… waiting…and it got sent back to Australia haha!
However, my sister is a fighter, she tried once again directly from the store in Korea and let them sent it to Germany using DHL. Now we both have confidence in it and just like we thought, DHL handled it very fast, they already called me 3 times and with my broken German I tried to say some sentences. I’ve been told that I need to fulfill the custom code etc so I asked my sister about “what is exactly in this package? how much is it? they need an invoice” and it’s close to Christmas so for sure they also have holiday, they want to finish it before and we want to receive the presents too! me and my sister both “works” as fast as we can by asking the sellers “do you provide the invoice on the package?” and guess what? the invoice is there but inside the package which DHL guy won’t just opened it.
Also okay, few more days then, my sister kept asking “can you call again?” no! no way! it’s giving me enough headache to reply them in German, I can’t volunteer myself to call them and ask mwahaha. Nevertheless, Christmas passed, they should back to work again before Silvester holiday, I asked Julia to help me call them and good thing is they have all info ready and just wait for the custom which is out of DHL control. I was already skeptical if I can receive it in year 2020, worst case scenario I’ll receive it by new years but you can’t be really patient when you know the stuff is just right in front of your eyes!
On 30th of December! I got an SMS that DHL will deliver the package, the time limit is until end of the day but I told my sister to wrote company address instead of my home address because for sure someone will be at the office and can help me to take it other than at home and the last working day at the office is on 30th! So I sent email to our facility management guy and told them if any package came from Korea for me, please call me! and he did! wohoooooo, informed my sister directly, prepared myself to go to office, picked it up, done! Indeed, a little bit of faith is just what we need 🙂
Theeennn….. we have our video call 🙂 about how and what to do with the new skin care!! #luph luph <3
Very happy! unboxing and showing it one by one 🙂
our happy face
but im happier 🙂
My sister is soooo nice! she got everything covered! I got all complete product from Korea, she knew I don’t have any skin care with me and she felt ärgern by it, so directly she sent it out. Another good thing is my cream face etc was almost used up so yeay! got new supplies 🙂 the problem now is…. where to put it? haha she got a strict condition to not put it near the window and not inside the bathroom, she said I need to put it in a basket next to my bed, yes sister! I follow your advise.
Morning
Evening
Weekly or monthly
Full box!
I am so glad that I am the little sister of her 🙂 If our position is switch, I am the bigger sister and my little sister doesn’t have proper skin care…. sucks for you! hahaha 😉
She told me to stop using my cream or whatever things I used and try her skin care. Yuhuuuu that what I’ll do, I got the supplies anyway!
What is this double-double, is it a shopping deal? double 11 double 12? double date? yes, it is! but the literal meaning of double date which is double the date, not the people, just the date and that happened few days ago 12.12.2020 see! how many double is that? double-double 😉 what is so special about that date anyway, not because it won’t happen again, more important is because that is the day that my best friend for 12+ years (and still counting) got married!
Whether I am in Germany or not I still cannot come because of Corona the church only limited guest to 30 people and Indonesian people are a lot! 30 people won’t enough to cover one side of the family, you’re missing one 0 behind yo! haha so in the wedding it was only family of bride (my besties) and groom. Family here was literally father-mother and siblings and that’s it! because the rest was pastor, people who works for church, cameraman etc and 30 people filled up pretty quickly. So how do we watch it? via live-streaming! you’re wedding is like a celebrity that being live-streamed so whole normal non-guess people could witness it haha
I was really happy and close to cry the moment I knew she’s getting married and once I got the message via WA it’s all getting real, people! What can I do from my part is set the alarm, put it on calendar and make sure I got the time difference right!
Since I got myself a new TV so I need to test it and what is the best way to test a TV other than by watching my bestfriend got married in a big screen! I tested it the day before to make sure the link works.
AAAAA! So nervous… eh? why should I?
But just like every technical things can go wrong, right on the day I mistyped some words and it said “the video was unavailable” and I was like wtf! I saw it myself it was working yesterday so for few minutes I watched it from my phone while I re-entered the link and just the moment where she entered the church I got it on TV 🙂
Novi told me that she wanted to get married and got blessed by her favorite Pastor and that is the Pastor? he’s so young yo! are you sure you’re qualified to be a Pastor at that young age? haha 😉 The Pastor was funny he told how both of them started from friends then in a relationship and got married, he’s such an up-to-date Pastor huh.
Of course the moment I waited in a whole wedding was when they have their wedding promise, I could hear Novi’s voice break out and me- being on the other side of the world- was touched by it. You’d better keep your promise to her, Ricky! Just remember she’s got a psychopath 8!tch- on the other side of the world- ready to come and get you if you don’t #devil’s laugh haha
The second most touching moment was when (I’d like to say both of them but nope, only Novi) she went to her parents and ask for a blessing. I like that they didn’t give Novi or Ricky a microphone while they were talking to both parents. Seriously, in some wedding I saw how bride talk to her parents thank you bla bla bla on a microphone and of course what do you expect, both of them cried lalala but this is such personal things, no need to let everyone hears and who wants to hear you sobbing voice anyway #dunno OMG I sounded like a crazy 8!tch haha
With the mask, I’m not sure which one is your mother but yeah here is both of the pictures 😉
Then, the ceremony was almost finished, I think it took about 1.5 to 2 hours.
Last and not least is the photo session but since you’re watching it online so you can’t really see them closely because there were always a photographer’s standing in front of your screen. Here you can see the Pastor on and off his duty.
It was really like watching a movie, they had a “thank you note” and an “extra” and what is on the “extra” ? it was their pre-wedding pictures. In my opinion, it was a beautiful wedding, really simple but organized very neatly 🙂
Novi, my best friend, I am very lucky to have met you back then when we were only 17+ years old through thick and thin of our University life and still besties till now maybe I should also say “till death do us apart” <3 you are a beautiful person and look so beautiful in white, love you!
We have a German sentence that is “zu jedem Topf gibt es einen Deckel” the literal translation is something like “every pot has its own lid” I know it’s not very sentimental but its very make sense, Germans… what can you expect 😉 bottom line is “everyone will find their own person” and on this double-double, I am very happy that you found your other half. I am excited that you embark on a new journey, I wish you a happy life going forward, you deserve it.
P.S Ricky: you’d better love her, she’s my besties, biatch! haha 😉 Congratz on you, you just hit a jackpot.
Since there is no sign of Covid-19 going down in Germany, more restrictions has been applied, but the ground has always been “avoid crowds”, every meeting professionally or casually are shifting to online. To me it seems like when you try to call customer service and the machine is the one who pick it up and you just want to scream “Operator, operator, I need to talk to a human!” It is really hard to get a human contact for the past 2 months, apart from my workplace, I still need to see another human being so I enrolled to a German class at night after work. I was carefully look for the one that is not online because I”m just sick of it. And I’m glad I found one!
My class runs from Monday to Thursday from 17:15-20:15 this is pretty something especially I always come after work, there are some moments where I completely dysfunctional but my classmates are the one who motivates me to keep going. Who are they? We have 9 real persons mwahaha (including me) and 3 online students. Ramina and Fateemah from Iran; Saurabh, Vishnu, Reddy (not ready), Kovid (not Covid), Prasana, Tiramdasu (not Tiramisu) Varun from India; Tatsiana from White Russia; Leon from Zambia and Onur from Turkey.
They are all really funny, Onur-the smartest guy in class, he always leave at 8PM due to he need to catch his train to Bochum. Saurabh never came on-time and Frau Petra always ask where he is. Fateemah always not-on, she talks when she’s not supposed to but yeah maybe because she’s online so it’s hard to keep up what we are doing. Vishnu, my first friend, my table mates, never get his $h!t together 😉 haha but in the end he got his $h!t better than mine, I was very dilligent in front but towards the end I’m a bit loose. Tatsiana and I are the only students who are working in the day time so we don’t really know or do some efforts of the homework. Varun is a crazy Indian that always wear short-sleeves, what is wrong with you? it’s like 2 degree man! Prasanna the coin guy who always have 50 Cents that I need to wash my clothes, Kovid surprisingly understand Genitiv really good, Reddy always laugh whenever Frau Petra corrected our pronunciation about “Welche”, “Zeit” anything that has W or Z because we all sucks in it. Seems the only students that consistent with our homework is Leon and Ramina.
They are very unified too, I had an idea to give our teachers a small Christmas gift as I like them so much and my classmates also willing to participate. It is funny when Onur write on the card “Danke fuer seine hilfe” and Reddy realized it “Man, who are you thanking to? It’s thank you for his help? who’s helping you?” haha Onur, the smartest guy in class can also make mistake 😉 Of course the teacher will know that we are using google translate to write this long sentence because no way in hell we came up with these sentence all by ourselves.
One teacher, Frau Petra was really like her presents, she knows by 8PM Onur will leave the class so before it, she ask to have a picture with us. And the best phone we have so far is Onur’s, he’s having iPhone 12! Man, you are so update!
These people make me feel that my weekday is very productive with studying and and without my consent, it’s already Pruefung time, seems I don’t even learn anything! haha This is we when we are waiting our turns for our speaking test.
Of course I don’t believe a language institute would failed you. For me the real Pruefung is not the score that is written on a piece of paper but rather the daily speaking in German so I don’t really stressed myself so much. Just like Vishnu “No man, I never stressed, I always ready” read: he’s not even prepared haha
The second day is our writing test and the day after is our Certificate day haha our lovely teacher Frau Marina and Frau Petra brought some cakes and chocolates and some Christmas decorations just for the purpose of the pictures. But we can’t do selfie this time so Kovid asked one of his friends to help us take the picture…but… he only got one job! which is take the whole pics of us including the online students, I guess this was too hard for him haha see how many times we tried, he always doesn’t get a full pictures groarr!
In the end, here is the more or less acceptable picture 🙂
There it is, the day is over. Me and Tatsiana will go to the next class starting in January, perhaps Leon too, but the others will go on March. Thank you all, it was a really fun time to be your classmates and hopefully we all can have our metamorphosis to have a German level that a German could understand #no need to be fluent, I’m a realistic person 😉
Since I’m going to the next class without Vishnu and Onur, well… at least I got their pen with me 😉
I’ve been a tourist for my time in Munich and let’s have a feeling of a German family life to wrap up my holiday. And how to get a feeling of a German family life? By visiting Thorben’s family! His sister- Katharina has two kids, a daughter (Baby A) and a son (Baby J). What Baby J does is only smiling and drooling haha he’s having a blast! Baby A is shy and took her time to understand everything but she is vveeerryyyy sweet! These two emojis really presents their current situation that Baby A is a very lovely kid and Baby J is… doing his best at his age 😉
thanks flat icon!
for the funny icons 🙂
Rina picked me up in train station, we went straight to her home to prepare a picnic after we pick Baby A from kindergarten. Baby J was so calm the whole time, he didn’t cry just sitting on his car seat and perhaps wonder who is this Asian lady??? you can see his head is tilt to my direction instead of to camera haha
Rina said that it is a park fits for family that we can feed animals there, in my opinion it is more than a park! There are many animals that you can see named a few deer, pig, rooster, rabbit, they also have a playground in the middle with all things like swings, slides etc.
This place is amazing to spend some family time, not only for kids, I like it too! Well… I’m Thorben’s (adopted) kid….maybe that’s how I like it but Rina also likes it so it is confirmed that the park fits for everyone haha 😉
Baby A was tired after some time and she cried huhuhu but
Rina calmed her down by opening our picnic so she fed herself and she was ready
again! Haha love her!
It is very hard to take picture with her- maybe too many people want to take her picture because she’s just so cute! we had to tricked her by getting ready first and called her name then click! With baby J we didn’t have difficulties at all, he is the center of attention because he kept drooling and putting everything into his mouth oh boy, I hope he has a strong immune to any bacteria 😀
But after some time she’s more willing to be in the picture, yais!
We finished all the food for the animals, then Rina dropped me off to Thorben’s parents house but by the time we arrived, baby A was sleeping in the car and Rina left the door open and brought baby J and me to her parents home, I was so worried because in Asia you don’t left kid at the car sleeping with door open, it’s an invitation for kidnapping! But yeah realistically, the car wasn’t park that far haha and I always forget that this is Germany! Still need to get used to that 😉
I had nice Swebian dinner made by Thorben’s
mother-Edeltraut. The way they prepared dinner is the same way as Thorben and
Marina does in Shanghai, they put the napkins, I think this is very typical
German. Thorben’s father-Heino is very funny he said “this is just to protect
the table” haha
And what did we do after dinner? Again, just like Thorben and Marina would do, we played game!!! No wonder why Thorben always have many game boards in his apartment, it runs in the family! I was leading at first, Heino called it beginners luck but in the end Edeltraut caught me up 🙁
And again, Edeltraut and Heino come up with the idea of doing free walking tour in Stuttgart, they are very active and always plan for sth to do on the weekend, like their son. We went there on time but we didn’t see any sign of the guy that could be a tourguide, the area that we supposed to gather together is quiet nice, here are few snaps.
After we waited for 10 mins, finally we decided to quit, it is so weird but it didn’t stop us! so what did we do? We went to tourist information center to see what can we do about it and there is a hop on-hop off bus coming up soon, unfortunately the moment we sat on the bus, the rain started to pour in and it was a crazy rain….do you want to see what can we see from the bus? Hahaha!
I think it took us 100 minutes to be on the bus so it was
more like a knowledge about Stuttgart, definitely I want to go to a pig museum!
Haha followed by Mercedez museum but the pig is the most important one 😉
I heard about Swebian dish from the audio tour on the bus
and good thing is Edeltraut found a Swebian restaurant for us to eat there and
I ordered complete mix of Swebian food.
Then the weather was perfect again! Right after we finished our lunch, the sun came out, oh no! where were you before?? It was a bright blue sky and Heino said “we should do the bus tour again” haha Heino wanted to show me Schloss Solitude but the road to go there was closed so he just stopped by a nice church for us to see and this was such a good idea! I don’t see a Schloss but I see something that also nice 🙂
They also had some practice, pretty nice hey!
Then we drove back to Rina’s home and had dinner there and play again with both babies! and when did we go back home? When baby A starts to cry again huaaaa or maybe she cried because I joined her game like who is this Asian lady that suddenly interrupted my game with my father and my grandpa? Haha! Maybe she’s scared of me, oh noooo!
And what did I do at Edeltraut and Heino’s home? We played
the same game again! And who won this time?
Unbelievable, the record always hold by Edeltraut!
The next day is the day that I should go back to Dortmund, they prepared breakfast and send me to Stuttgart main station.
This is such a relaxing way to close my holiday thank you Familie Hoepke for hosting me! But since there are many things to do in Stuttgart…. I have to come back 😉 so Familie Hoepke, be ready 😀
You make a resemblance lemonade, but be careful, not too much!
Remember my story about walking tour in Munich? – if don’t, just read it, it’s right below this one 😉 haha what I didn’t tell you is how did I decided to do that. It was 2nd October, on that day, the whole public drivers such as bus driver or metro driver from Bayern province was having a strike so none of public transportation operates on that day. Since Giovanni and Claudia lives not too far from city center only like 3 stops away, he told me that I can do a “free walking tour for 2.5 hours” so I can know a little bit of Munich’s history and I agreed with him so I registered myself.
The day has come, Munich was full of cars
But it doesn’t affect me as I wasn’t taking taxi anyway, I was walking to meet them in Marienplatz, it took me 30-45 minutes walk. After the tour, I remembered Claudia said going to Munich Residenz is a good idea especially when the weather wasn’t really supporting and I agreed with her. I also remembered very clearly, she said that this Residenz is so big it will take about 2-3 hours to walk around but I didn’t thoroughly think about it, I just bought the entrance ticket.
At the beginning I was very fascinated by the carving, colours of the wall etc so the exhaustion after about 3 hours full walking I couldn’t really felt that. I was eagerly listening to audio guide about what is that and what is this.
The hall with full of painting or fresco? don’t care about what are those pictures made of, it’s just amazing! very classic and elegant and I’m glad there wasn’t many people although it’s also a bit scary to be alone in this whole big palace!
Then I arrived into another room that also kind of 3D painting on the ceiling, unfortunately I can’t really take the pic from the middle because of the chandelier. This 3D effect makes the ceiling looks super high, especially when I stood in the middle it created an eye-optic illusion while in reality it’s not even high.
Then I visited another room, I suppose it should be either a debate / discussion area as they have many chairs for spectators. I really like the bricks design.
At this point, I started to feel that my legs seem tired and was looking for a chance to sit in the next room and the following room. But every time I entered a new room, I was presented by a nice portrait that kept me going on, besides there was no seats anyway 😉 so the only option was to keep walking.
The audio guide saying something fascinating about the portrait of the man in the ceiling, however I only remember one man in particular (the fourth one) he was holding a mirror and on the mirror you can see 3 faces, it represents the past, present and future. He was wearing a heart shaped necklace too, it represents either he was a lovable person or the people loves him, so nice 🙂
In order to take this ceiling pictures, I need to bend my back, so not only my legs that already tired, now my back also kind of hurt but it has nothing to do with me getting old, it’s simply because of too much walking 😉
The next room is even more fascinating, we have King Leonidas there on the wall!
The ceiling from the next room is empty in the middle and why is that? read the caption please 😉 Because as Beyonce’s song, who runs the world?
Next is my oh my! very pretty carving hey…
But I know that after this church, I just want to get out and sit because my legs are completely dysfunctional so here is the quick pictures about it but I literally have no energy to listened to the guide or take more pictures, mostly I only took the one that has green touch because I like green haha!
And just about to finish this Residenz you are facing with… the stairs!! like really? after this long whole walk and I need to face the stairs??
On the way to be officially out of this Residenz we still can see the beautiful room where King and Queen used to stay and hold some ceremonies.
I’m not supposed (and I didn’t) because it’s not allowed to sit on that chair so my level of tiredness was already reached the max!
I texted Claudia that supposedly I arrived an hour later as I walked really slow then I remembered the walking tour guy-Jake told me about Augustiner beer and I looked on the map it was located on the same direction as Claudia’s home okay great so I could stop by to properly sit and have another Munich beer then go again. However, if one body is dysfunctional it gave the signal to other parts of the body (read: brain) to become dysfunctional too, I went to a complete opposite direction! arrrgh!! omg life is hard!! I needed 20 minutes to go back to the right direction and I finally able to find Augustiner and had a beer there.
After sit down for a while and had a beer, I kind of ready for the walk home, in the middle of me walking, Claudia texted me and asked where am I, did I got lost? Should Giovanni come with scooter and pick me up? haha I’ve told her I’m super tired, my legs walking not even straight idk what directions it was but it’s okay I’m almost there! I sent the picture that I’m passing the bridge and additional text “Don’t worry, I’m not going to jump and suicide” haha
Then when I saw Theresienwiesse it seems like a fatamorgana!
When she opened the door, I just sit and lay down on the entrance, Giovanni said “you are laying down on the floor? you can walk 5 steps and you arrived at the sofa, that is so not comfortable at all” and I replied him “the floor is comfortable enough, I’m totally tired couldn’t even feel anything” poor thing-said Claudia.
In general, I did made a lemonade out of lemon situation but it should be enough with the walking tour because I gained knowledge about the history but I made too much lemonade by added Munich Residenz so it became sour again 😉 not again, lesson learned!
Remember last time in Shanghai Marina and me did a food walking tour by ourselves? basically Marina chose the restaurant and the food that she likes from her previous walking tour and re-do it with me. Well, since we both separated now she is still in Shanghai and I am in Germany, I did my own walking tour however its not a food walking tour just the classic city sightseeing walking tour. Huaaa I’m miss my other M!
After 2.5 hours of walking with them I feel like Im the “expert” of Munich already, why it is with quote? Because I forgot some of the part already haha
We all gathered up in Marienplatz with our guide from Sandeman tour named Jake. He explained that at 11am (this I remember for sure) 1pm and 5 or 6pm depends if its winter or summer (this I’m not so sure but around that time, good enough for Indonesian already 😉 ) the puppets in Marienplatz will play us some attraction and dance. And why is that time? Because it shows when they start to have lunch, finish lunch and back to work and off from work (yes it makes sense and should be like that)
Since we met at 10:45 so I got to witness the play at 11am, first play is the top one, it is about Austria vs Germany. They started with meeting with each other, then the fight begins, a knight with their horses appear, costume red and white means Austria while blue and white means Germany-specifically Munich color. You know who will win right? it’s should be pretty obvious 😉
Here is some bits of how the music sounds like
Following the show with the knight, it’s the show with puppet dancing. And why are they dancing? because long time ago there was a plague in Munich and people are afraid to go back to work, to go outside as they don’t know what caused it, they thought God was angry with them and ask for His forgiveness and what did Munich government do to make their people brave enough to come out again? They invented the dance, so people could see from their home that outside is safe, they can come back to work, go to market, even dance in open area. Jake said even until now (well, now is Corona maybe if Corona hasn’t happened on the first place) they still or will dance in the New Town Hall area, not every year but every 7 years.
Then on the corner of this Neues Rathaus there is a “statue” of the dragon, on the upper left from the dragon are the people who are afraid, have no idea what or how to do with the plague and on the right are the people who dance in order to make Munich people able to do the previous activities.
Okay, another fact about this Neues Rathaus is all statue in front of it was a man and one man that has a bit of a stage and sitting on a horse, why is he got something special like this? because he was the one that kind of make a big contribution of making this Rathaus and people pay the commission to him. On top of the Rathaus is a Catholic monk, I would like to say priest but Jake use the word of monk, so I followed him 😉 and it is not an adult monk, in fact is a little cute baby monk. In front of the Neues Rathaus there is a statue of virgin Mary on the top, being protected by four little knight, I wanted to say cupid but they are cupid with protective gear, this little knight is standing above something dragon, snakes or idk what other animals is that to protect the virgin Mary or city of Munich from every danger possibility.
Jake said if I paid attention I could see more monks inside and he was right, monks in the ceiling, on top of the building, on the logo etc.
There are the facts and history that I remember about Neues Rathaus, when you have sth called New Town Hall then there must be an Old Town Hall right? where and how does the Old Town Hall looks like?
This white building on the left is the Altes Rathaus, very weird isn’t it? It doesn’t look old at all and why is that? because Munich was destroyed by bomb during the World War so they have to re-built the old town hall but it’s only 70 years old building, the real one had it not been destroyed by the bombed would have been a 700 years old building.
Jake also told me that Munich has sth to do with Grimm books, I don’t quiet remember the details but he said the real fairy tale story is not fairy tale at all, it’s rather scary and for adults. I think the frog in the building was represents Prince Frog or whatever tale or maybe it’s not a tale at all, maybe it represents the disease or sth, I completely forgot about this, sorry! but it definitely means something otherwise I won’t see frogs in this corner and on the door.
Ofc we have to visit the church! we visited the Gothic St. Peter’s church and what is the fact about this church? This is a real church that survived the bombing! how do I know? first is from the bricks (mostly bricks building were real from back then) and second there is one cannonball stuck on the church until now! so when the enemy whoever was it tried to fire this church with cannonball, one of them reach it but somehow stuck into the cement of the building, here is the 600 something years old cannonball 😉
For sure we have to come back to the devil footstep at Frauenkirche. Jake told me half truth and the other half is…just to make it more fun. When King of Munich build Frauenkirche he put a big budget for it, however he miscalculated it, when the construction of the church only 50% they already used 80% of the budget, the King panicked and he thought of how to get more money to finish this church? He asked the Pope in Vatican if he is able to give his contribution unfortunately he was busy with building Sistine Chapel so there was no money left for Munich then what did he do? He asked all 11 architect to have a meeting inside the church and re-planned all the budget. It was dark at night and they forgot to close the window, suddenly there was a bigggg wind came in and blow down all the candles, it was only for 10-15 seconds but was very spooky, then one architect light on the candle in the middle and he and the other 10 were afraid because there was one additional person with them joined the meeting and that person was Lucifer! He said “I could helped you to give all the money that you want but you will have to build it according to my request which is no windows allowed” All the architect were agreed with his conditions then he disappeared. It only took them additional 20 years to finished it, ofc Lucifer visited it to see his church, he was very happy that he did not see any windows and why is that? because the architects tricked him, they built a very large 2 towers so it blocked any lights that come in but after the tower you can see the windows so Lucifer was angry and he stomped his foot so hard that it marked the floor and storm off. Let’s bring back how Lucifer stomp’s looks like.
You are clear which half is truth and lies right? haha but it’s still a cool story anyway 😉 Then we will have to move to a real truth story in Odeonplatz, I forget which year was it but Adolf Hitler marched to Munich with his soldier to take over Munich from the King and stopped by in Odeonplatz, there was a history where in here chaos happened where Nazi soldier and real Munich soldier fire each other due to misunderstanding, however Hitler fell down and he managed to escaped to other city.
But people there recognize him and called the police, he was caught and put into a prison for 5 years or so and liberated after that. In the prison Hitler wrote his book “Mein Kampf” it didn’t sell really well but he was famous all around the world for every wrong reason.
Next to Odeonplatz is the Munich Residenz, the museum that contained history of Munich King and Queen and their palace that ofc was bombed and re-built as close as possible. How do I know it was a new building? From the circle window, some parts are real window and some parts are just painted window. Munich Residenz is so big so the walking tour didn’t get in there, Jake just showed us where is the entrance.
We closed the tour in the Viktualienmarkt where I can eat and buy stuff 🙂
Despite the weather who ironically raining and gloomy, I was happy to joined this walking tour as you can see now I know the history of Munich more or less 😉 not only the history btw but also some good place like this, check this out!
I am very open to repeat this tour again, perhaps I will bring Marina to re-do this M&M tour just like she brought me to re-do the food tour 🙂
I *heart* M stands for I love Munich or Marlyn? or maybe Munich loves Marlyn and Marina 😉
Alert: This is not gonna be a good story or picture so please read and see it wisely
When I arrived Munich on 25th evening, Giovanni told me that next day there will be a memorial of bomb terror that happened on Octoberfest 40 years ago. The President of Germany and the major of Bayern will give a speech in the place where it happened 40 years ago and that is on the entrance gate of Octoberfest in Theresienwiesse U-bahn station. They have built a kind of monument to remember the attack and the survivors.
I went around the monument to see some comments from the survivors and it is quiet sad, even though they survived the attack, it still affected their daily lives no matter how much times has fly.
Few days later, Radite and I visited Da-Chau, it is the first concentration camp that ever built on Hitler’s time. Claudia already gave me a warning that it will not be for a faint hearted.
We had a tour guide named Hans and I can see that it is very very hard for him to explain to us what happened at that time, he re-tell the story based on the notes that one prisoner made during his time serving in the camp. He quote on what the guard told the prisoners “You have no rights, you are a piece of $h#t and will be treated like so” the prisoners were gathered in a big open space and they have been taken away all their belongings, taken to shower, shaved their hair and given a stripes pajamas that doesn’t need to be fit with their body and they have numbers on their pajamas, they all looks like an unhappy clown. This is the moment of humiliation played among them.
They have been told that “work makes you free” even that slogan written on the gate where all prisoners came in but it’s just a nice slogan, they can’t really get out and no matter how good they are on their work, all the rights are in the guards hands. He showed us what kind of barracks that they lived on, how many people actually lived there. When they built Da Chau it was meant for 5,000 prisoners only but they miscalculated it and got 8 times more, it was around 40,000 prisoners there so all the barracks were overloaded.
He also informed us that suicide was the favorite option and one of the way to suicide is by trying to escape so the guard will shot them or run themselves to the electric wire and that pretty much the options to ended their suffering. Even if they managed to get out they will get caught again and once they caught back to the concentration camp, the guard will put a card saying “I’m here again” and they will do whatever they want with them and in the end they will die. Hans told me the max a run away prisoner can live outside was only 2 months because all the people are not allowed to help them so they will starve themselves or hide in forest and the police will come with their train dogs 24/7 to find them.
I could see he rubbed his eyes when we went to the gas chamber and he can’t even get in to the chamber, he just waited for us outside.
He recommended us to visit the museum and there you will see the story of what did they do to all the prisoners and how many concentration camps out there. There are really too many stories there and honestly speaking, I can’t even read everything it’s just too sick to imagine that one person could have such power to create this sickening system.
Da Chau has created the app and has some spots that we can scan the QR code and see the real photo at that time and honestly it is really inhuman.
When in the end they got liberated they didn’t know what to do, quote from the audio guide “Quite a few people, myself included, just could not understand what was going on, that there was no need to be afraid anymore, that one minute we were hunted beasts and the next we were free men. I can’t remember there being lots of cheering, not many of us had the strength for wild delight, but everyone expressed their joy in their own way. People got on their knees and prayed, cried, laughed, threw themselves onto their liberators and embraced them. Many of the prisoners were just lying around apathetically, weakened and dazed. Some of them survived the liberation only for a few hours or days. They could not be saved and did not even realize that they were free” and that is very sad my friend.
I can’t believe that I’m standing in a real concrete that has been here since 1933, it is a really sad and dark history of humanity and to all the survivors you deserve a very high respect.
Thank you for all people involved to make Da Chau open to public, thank you for all the guides either is audio guide or real tour guide that are open minded and brave to tell us the story.
I really agree that never again this kind of things should ever happen. Lets make one of Michael Jackson’s song become a reality one day, no more terrorism, no more cruelty, no more classifying people based on their race, one day where everyone just come together despite all difference to heal the world, make it a better place, for you and for me and the entire human race.
Originally I wanted to make this post as “the bad, the good and the ugly” but since it will be dedicated for churches that I visited while Im in Munich… so I better pay some respect!!
There are many churches in Munich and here are the gradation of which one I like best, which one that are better than the other and the one that I think really ugly..but but.. but due to some reasons such as first I believe in God, second I also believe in ghost and I dont want to offend any ghost therefore I will use more polite word such as “good” understand?
My favorite is Theatinerkirche in Odeonsplatz, I know… I know the building outside was not so attractive because its weirdly yellow color but like always, the inner is more important than the outer, see the magnificent white marbles, that is a total respect!
My second goes to St. Michael Church. It is under construction while I was there but you simply can ignore and focus on the beauty of it, on the basement they have tombs from King Ludwig and his families but you cant take pictures and need to pay 2 Euro. I strongly suggest you to visit their tombs, the size and engraved on their coffin just amazing.
My third goes to this Gothic St. Peter church, if we dont have Corona we can go up from this church and see Munich city from the top but yeah atm we cant do it but just see the construction, it looks really robust and they have a really cool kind of game of throne’s throne or altar or whatever 😉 you’ll see the picture and understood…well, hopefully haha
My fourth go to Spirituo Sancto or St. Michael Church, it’s located just next to Viktualienmarkt, the designs rather simple but still have some artistic touch on it.
Unfortunately my fifth goes to the famous Fraunkirche, because… apart from the devil stomps and hogwarts looks like symbol, the design is pretty plain. Fun fact about this church: this is the tallest building in Munich as once they finished building it, they issue a law that no building can be taller than this so its still pretty cool. From the outside this twin tower church is really really amazing!
And the rest, they are just better churches, better against…. wait for it! 😉 they are St. Paul Church and Buergersaalkirche.
And the cute thing about Buergersaalkirche is they don’t look like a normal European church that is tall and big, this is a cute and small one.
And my last vote goes to Asam Church! Omg! This church is the spookiest church ever! I got chills, not chilling like on the beach but chills like goosebumps! Look at the door and the decoration inside! The engraving are too much, too colorful, too many statue, on top of that the church is dark it’s a completely weird and spooky mix together like dark magic or some shit like that happen in this place. When I still in Dortmund I saw Asam church on google and for some reason the pic already makes me scared so I put it at the very end when I have time and the reality supported it, I do have time so I visited Asam church just to reconfirm that I don’t like it.
If there is a devil stomp on the entrance of asam church I will believe that its really a devil that helped to build that church, Im sorry devil if you got offended fight with my God please. I believe satan will happily stay in this spooky church hiyyyy Im walk out from this church really fast.
That’s all the review of my church hunting in Munich 🙂 However don’t be too worry about Asam church, maybe its only me, because Claudia and Giovanni thinks Asam is the most beautiful church…….We can agree to disagree on that.
You can visualize a ninja right? how they all looks like? here I am! mask and hat on, ready to conquer Munich! haha #evil laugh
wearing mask in some public places are mandatory in Munich, wearing hat? it’s helps because the weather went cold again, do you want to know where did the Ninja’s go? Let’s trace her!
First and foremost, the Ninja cannot perform alone so she will reveal who are the helpers later on 🙂
What is the famous place in Munich? It’s Marienplatz! it is like the one in Belgium but much bigger! Who cares about the weather when you have a bigger elephant in front of you which is a very beautiful building! Def the ninja needs to mark this place!
This magnificent building is called Neues Rathaus which is new town hall, and how about the old town hall? just next to it, the white building! haha
Obviously I need to try the pork knuckle but only half! I won’t be able to finish one pork knuckle, even for half is a bit hard because they are fatty but yeah at least I tried it 😉
After I refill, I’m ready to appears at different places again from Stachus, National Theatre, Odeonplatz and a hotel where Michael Jackson at that time often stayed yeehaawwww
Don’t forget that the ninja also needed to come to church and she’s looking for the Fraunkirche, it’s really hard to miss because the twin tower of the church is very obvious from everyway 🙂
She finished it in Viktualienmarket but she camouflage in market of food so no trace of her here 😉
Overall she likes Munich and was fascinated by the beauty of this city, thumbs up!
As promised earlier, the ninja will reveal who was her helper and there were 2 people! First is my high school friend that I haven’t met for 10 years named Radite and second is my sister that helped me to edit the picture to a right ratio, brightness and remove some bystander out haha! you know my sister already so here is Radite 🙂
