… and the general direction is: north! Hamburg’s calling for a short visit to my family I have there, for a job interview and hopefully for having a good time in general 
Category Archives: Travel - Page 3
Here I go again…
Posted by defaude
on November 1, 2009
4 comments
Japanese food
Posted by defaude
on October 12, 2009
No comments
I really miss it – especially when I see posts like this one over at Marcus’ blog. π₯
Boot camp, BMW and the Baltic Sea
Posted by defaude
on September 8, 2009
5 comments
Thanks to Marc, I had a very nice and beautiful BMW 118d for the day. As it turned out, the weather seemed to be unexpectedly pleasant so I decided to do a roadtrip to Kellenhusen, the place where I spent so many summers and even some winters during my childhood.
I’m going to the wild beach, or more precisely what used to be the wild beach. It has been “tamed” a few years ago so there’s no more wildly growing bushes and therefore it’s clearly visible from the bikeway now. The promenade is more modern nowadays, taking elegant curves now and then and the old pier has grown longer and longer and looks very futuristic…
Lots of things have changed and it has become a really nice and beautiful city lately. So many things are different from how they used to be, so many things are still the same. Makes me think about what has changed in my life and also about what hasn’t. Memories, so many memories… Passing by so many places with which I associate so many events. Having sand between my toes, hearing the constant murmur of the waves, feeling like the child I was once again…
I’ve got only one thing to say and that is “Ostsee I love you and I always will!”
Barcelona day 3 – still without enough sleep
Posted by defaude
on September 8, 2009
1 comment
Having had two nights with just a little sleep, I woke up with the firm conviction not to go out so long again in my head. So Ela, Xavier and me started the day with a good long breakfast after which we went to the town center and did the tourist thing. Of course this included a visit to the hilarious Kukuxumus shop and eating great food.
After lunch – which was a blast because it was so good by the way – , we took a long walk down the beach where I also finally could jump into the sea π The beach is quite clean and the weather was just perfect with lots of sunshine and blue skies. Oh and I love that comic-style keep the beach clean campaign!
Well, well. So far, so good. The plan I mentioned in the beginning seemed to work. In the evening, we went to a Japanese restaurant / sushi bar where we had very delicious food at a decent price compared to some restaurants in Munich where the quality’s usually lower… Before going home, I once again had the absolutely awesome cinnamon and dark choccolate ice cream mix – mmh that’s so delicious π
Just as we arrived at Ela’s place, I received a call from Beatriz who was getting the party started with some friends – well, of course I tagged along and so it happened that I was out all night including a short trip to the Tibidabo mountain from where one can see Barcelona at night. Okay, we haven’t been at the peak but rather at a very cheesy bar/club thing that I’d usually never entered if not for the great view from the terrace π
Marcus in Tokyo – that bastard :)
Posted by defaude
on September 7, 2009
1 comment
Just a trackback to Marcus’ new blog where he’s reporting about the life I wish I had: Living la vida loca in Tokyo π
Barcelona day 2
Posted by defaude
on September 5, 2009
1 comment
Day two of my stay in Barcelona was rather non-tourist-style. Having returned home quite late (ahem…), I’ve been really lazy in the morning and took some time to relax, recreate and sleep. At lunchtime I rode the train to Ela’s workplace where I had a very tranquilo lunch break with her and some colleagues of her where we enjoyed great crepes and the nice sea breeze. After that, I tried to return to the city center but the train line somehow temporarily stopped working… π So I had to walk a few blocks (what was quite nice and interesting, actually) until I got to the Urquinaona station where I could change to another line in order to meet with Beatriz for the afternoon.
Starting at the Placa d’Espanya and taking a looooong tranquilo break in front of the Museo Nacional de Arte de Catalunya, we finally took a walk through the whole Parc de Montjuic including the olympic stadium, the palace of St. Jordi, the very very spacy telecommunication tower, a pseudo-greek-looking stonehenge and even a baseball court.
Eventually, I returned to Ela’s place again to take a shower and meet up with Ela and Xavier and also Philip and Sandra (friends of Andrea and Patrick) and their kids to go out for dinner. The tapas place we wanted to go was closed, however, so we ended up in a Lebanese restaurant π After having had dinner and extremely delicious dark-chocolate ice cream, we walked the kids plus their parents to the train station and started our nice walk home. However, we stopped at a bar to have some cocktails and just as we were about to call it a day, I got a call from Beatriz… And again, I did not get very much sleep last night π
Barcelona day 1
Posted by defaude
on September 4, 2009
2 comments
Whew! I landed in the afternoon and thanks to the detailed description of my sister, I could easily find her workplace. At the airport, I found nice oddities like a long tunnel that’s above ground and that features two typical airport-style conveyors – just without the conveyors… Everything’s there: the handrail, the two seperate gangways with converyor handrails, the special road in between them which the cool airport dudes with the electric cars might take now and then but just no conveyor itself! The trains in Barcelona are quite nice and as far as I’ve experienced so far almost always on time. Due to the fact that Barcelona is a big city when it comes to population but not to covering a large area, you always get from A to B in less than 30 minutes. Oh, and the penalty for smoking inside the train is somehow odd… What the heck are those 5 cents for?
After I met Ela and got the keys to her appartment, I buzzed off to find said appartment – and thanks to Streetview I did π There, I finally could take a rest from the trip, take a shower and relax a little. Meanwhile, I also managed to contact Flo and arranged to meet him and Beatriz in the evening. I could take a look at his ridiculously huge appartment before we went downtown to get some tapas – mmmhhh, tapas! π
After stuffed our stomachs with delicious tapas of all kinds, Beatriz, Flo and me walked through the sometimes shiny, sometimes shabby but nevertheless cool downtown until we arrived at our destination behind the amazing Sagrada familia: The Michael Collins irish pub π Ela was already waiting for us inside (it took us longer than expected to walk ehehee…). We had a few drinks and lots of fun. The guy playing live music was shitty at first but gradually got better and better so in the end at roughly 2:30, we all lurched home after a very funny night out.
Oh and by the way: They have Aquarius here! Yaaay!
And off I go!
Posted by defaude
on September 3, 2009
1 comment
Thesis is gone, my only duty is to wait for the final grades… So why the heck don’t I just travel around a bit? Well, actually I do! π
- Barcelona: 09/03 – 09/06
- Hamburg: 09/06 – 09/08
- Chemnitz: 09/08 – 09/09
- Wunsiedel: 09/09 – 09/10
- WΓΌrzburg: 09/10 – 09/12 or so
Koseki-san, Robot BBQ, Sax, final exams, summer festival, beach clubbing, NRJ in the park…
Posted by defaude
on August 2, 2009
No comments
… well, it’s been a busy time for me π
Last weekend, I finally managed to meet up with Koseki-san who was staying here in Munich for a business trip. It was good to see him again and also to hear that his little daughter is doing fine! Life in Japan seems to be going on quite well π
The semester’s almost over so my colleagues and me have already taken all exams. Right then, everyone was only waiting for the grades to be published and there was plenty of time for barbecue, party etc. Especially at the university’s summer festival we computer engineers openly demonstrated being the biggest nerds at the campus: The grades were about to come out and of course the server broke down in the very moment everyone wanted to see theirs. We literally had three laptops and an iPhone hammering the server with requests like “Gimme my grades, hell yeah!” – on just one Biertischgarnitur π
Knowing my grades now, being fully satisfied with the certitude that I’ll never have to write exams again in my life (most likely, I hope), and knowing that all that stands between me and my diploma is the thesis I gotta write about the Ruby on Rails application I developed during the past few months, I happily returned to my parent’s place, where I was taken hostage by my friends and dragged to a beach clubbing event and the NRJ in the park festival π Oh, and did I mention that the weather’s been awesome lately? Well, it surely was! π
The beach clubbing thing was okay. Well, for a small, off-the-beaten-track city like Bad Aibling it surely was one of this year’s major events. However, I was annoyed most of the time – maybe this is because I don’t drink π Eventually, the electronic floor was fun for a while but then the DJ had the biggest, most epic FAIL in history: No music for roughly ten minutes (or at least it felt so), blank-faced morons fuzzing around with the mixers and the players, the MC desperately trying to keep the crowd’s mood up… And when they finally managed to start music again, it was just shitty *sigh* The day after that, some friends and I went to the NRJ in the park festival. The lineup was Jennifer Rostock, Jan Delay, Mando Diao and Franz Ferdinand. Being a person who almost never listens to radio and who doesn’t give a crap about the latest charts, I’ve never heard anything of Jennifer Rostock. The names Mando Diao and Franz Ferdinand were familiar, of course, but I barely ever heard something from them – apart from “Dance With Somebody”. Well well, Jennifer was … errm … okay. Definitely not my favourite style of “music” π Mando Diao totally sucked and Franz Ferdinand was pretty cool. Ah, did I mention that their guitarist went to the same school as I did? Anyways, Jan Delay and his band really made the crowd jumping and it was definitely the best performance of that festival π
… and now, I’ll have to cancel every other party activities and write my damn thesis π
What a weekend this has been…
Posted by defaude
on July 14, 2009
4 comments
Wow, what a weekend! On Friday afternoon, a friend from Tokyo, Tomoko, arrived from Frankfurt where she was visiting a friend. To represent Bavaria and its hospitality, I took up the challenge of being her host and tour guide for the time she was staying here π We started off with some delicious food at the Paulaner im Tal and some cocktails at the nearby Sausalitos bar.
After that we just returned to my place and called it a day. On Saturday morning I got up and did some jogging with Andi – who had nothing better to do but to strain his ankle… Awesome, now we can’t go to the gym because his thumb’s messed up and we can’t go running because of his foot! π I’m gonna gain weight if his streak of injuries continues like this…
At the time I got back to my appartment, Tomoko was finally awake π and we buzzed off to Schluss Nymphenburg. It’s one of the biggest royal palaces in Europe and features a huge park and impressive alleys from the outside. I’ve never seen the inside, actually and Tomoko wanted to take a look at the gallery of beauties in the museum. I’m usually not so much into old-fashioned architecture or arts but this was really impressive! Magnificent architecture, light everywhere and the original baroque stucco definitely are some things to remember.
After spending some time at the castle, we returned to the inner city where we took a walk around town. We then met Marcus at the Odeonsplatz, where the rehearsal for the open air classic concert was going on – pretty cool atmosphere there! Oh and San Francisco Coffee Company: Thanks for the great coffee π (damn I should get paid for doing commercials like this…)
From the Odeonsplatz we went on to the Marienplatz in order to take a look at the new town hall of Munich and to climb up to the observation deck of the Alter Peter church tower. The view from there is just awesome – one can see most of the city and even into the mountains (on clear days, of course). Before we got there, we had a nice random encounter for which the chances might be even tinier than winning the lottery – let’s just say that maybe I got a first foot in the door at finding a job in Tokyo… Anyways, here are some pictures:
Oh and I completely forgot to mention that I was wondering the whole day what’s going on in the city because many people were there and a slight sensation of party was in the air – it happened to be Christopher Street Day! When we arrived at the Marienplatz, we finally found out about that π Eventually we were really tired from walking and decided to spend the rest of the afternoon in the Englischer Garten, Munich’s biggest park area.
Having returned to my place for a shower and a few minutes of rest, we rushed out again to Hieu’s farewell party. He’s departing for his new job in Tokyo today and I ENVY HIM SO MUCH for that π Unfortunately, my cam ran out of battery then and so I did not take any pictures there… In the end, it was a great party and I wish Hieu all the best for his future and hope I can team up with him in Tokyo soon – this is going to be legendary π