day 13: koln (31/3)
we woke up early cos xiz had to go back to her sch for a while, while zk and i had to do our laundry at a shop near her school - both of us couldn't stand the thought of not having clean underwear for the next 4 days =) the wash took about an hour, thank goodness we had books to entertain ourselves (and mtv - songs were in english but presenter talked in german.. is american culture THAT pervasive?)
after our clothes were dried in the dryer, we then went for a walk..
the remains of the roman city wall! koln used to be a rather important city in the roman empire, cos the river rhine runs beside city - not only as the source of water, but also as a buffer against enemies.. it's much easier to defend than constructing a wall around your city and guarding it 24/7..
next stop: kolner dom ("dom" = cathedral).. it's the first thing a visitor would see when they ascend the steps from the train station, a fact which was written about by bill bryson in his travelogue (his has no pics tho, so mine's better =P) we went inside the cathedral, admiring the beautiful stained glass (some were rather modern though) that adorn the immense walls of the place.. although we had the option of walking to the tower at the top of the cathedral, but with the bag of laundry swung over the shoulder of one of us, we didn't want to carry it up 500+ steps - we weren't that desperate in shedding excess calories =)
a fountain (which wasn't switched on yet) outside the kolner dom.. on it are carvings of heinzelmannchen (translated as elves in english) and a lady - according to xiz, when the lady left her half-done work before going to bed, she woke up in the morning to find that her work was magically finished by someone. intrigued, she left something half-done again, and pretended to go to sleep.. when she heard rustling, she lighted a lantern and investigated - it was not long before she found heinzelbrunnen doing her work! those magical creatures were incensed cos they were tricked, hence they never ever returned.
we walked past the rathaus, a few alleys, and walked across a bridge (at the extreme right of the picture), which bridges across the river rhine.. it looks kind of swollen cos we experienced one of the wettest weathers in koln (unfortunately) during our stay there..
excavated portion of a section of a roman sewage system - am really amazed at how technologcally advanced the romans were in the past!
haha our lunch that day was rather unique - KFC! that shop was in the prime shopping area in koln, and what's surprising is that it's run by chinese (mainly).. according to xiz, koln has a sizeable chinese population in that city, which was quite unlike the cities that we have visited - those cities don't even have a chinese supermarket, but koln has!
after lunch we basically diffused around koln's shopping area, and after a few hours of walking, decided that we should have tea in one of xiz's fave cafes.. spent about an hour slacking and talking in that cafe =)
we then went to the chinese supermarket to get ingredients for the highlight of the day - dinner! zk offered to cook the psc chicken rice for us, and it was really quite good! (since then, i have tried cooking the chicken rice twice in uk, and both tries turned out to be rather successful =P) we had a loooong dinner, which started pretty late in the first place cos it took quite some time to cook the chicken rice (abt 2 hrs), but we knew the effort was well worth it when we bit into the succulent (and, of course, oily!) chicken meat =)
as usual, we read a bit before we turned in.. i finished "the curious incident of the dog in the night-time" (
link), which was rather touching at some parts - it's quite a good read.
day 14: koln/aachen (1/4)
started the day by having lunch with two friend of xiz's.. as there was a bbq in aachen that night, one of xiz's friend took the same train as us to aachen, but the three of us parted ways with him at the train station cos we wanted to have a look at aachen.. he had been there for a couple of times, so the sights in aachen wasn't really new to him..
it was a rather rainy day, so when we walked past a ice-cream shop, we went in to escape the sporadic bursts of rain.. we bought a cone of ice-cream each, and it costed only 60 cents! it's cheap and nice - can't ask for more!
we continued walking after we savoured our ice-creams and when the rain stopped..
started off by visiting the aachener dom - the cathedral was not only grand, its interior was really interesting too! (that's why we couldn't take pics in the cathedral unless we paid 2 EUR, which we couldn't bear to =) the cathedral has two floors, the ground floor for the common folk to trickle in and out of the church, while the floor above it is connected to the palace nearby, so that the king could walk directly from his royal residence to the cathedral without mingling with the common folk.. it symbolizes that he has power over the masses as he was one floor above them, and also that he is closer to the gods (which were painted on the ceiling) than the masses.. according to zk, it's a type of propaganda cos if people see this, they can be convinced to believe that the king has a divine right to rule over them.. hmm.
this place (the elisenbrunnen) stinks to high heaven, cos the natural spring water coming out from lion head has a super duper high concentration of sulphur! the smell is actually from the hydrogen sulphide emitted, which has the smell of rotten eggs =) it's rather warm too - when observed closely, steam can be seen. aachen apparently is well-known for its thermal springs - emperors in the past used to visit aachen just to bathe there..
the rathaus! nothing really special i guess =)
view of pont tor (tor = "gate"), one of the surviving remnants of the city wall that used to surround aachen.. think it's of roman origin, cos it was part of the huge roman empire in the past.
after walking around, we eventually found the place where we were going to have a barbeque.. after getting the charcoal alight, we began barbequeing earnestly cos most of us were hungry =) one thing that was special in that bbq was the presence of 48 bottles of beer.. something that can't really be afforded in other places besides in germany haha. we left early at about 11pm to catch the midnight train back to koln.. i swear i could still smell grilled chicken (probably from our clothes) even after we reached koln! =D
slept rather late that night, which was a bad idea cos..
day 15: koln/bonn (2/4)
.. we woke up rather early the next day to visit the praetorium - it's basically an excavated section of the roman buildings that used to be there. koln was one of rome's major cities - there even were army barracks beside the rhine, opposite of where the main city was!
a view of some of the buildings, which look rather modern to me.. the arrangement of the bricks is quite regular, and considering the technology at that time, this is no mean feat.
rather blurry shot (despite me trying a few times to get it right! bah) of one of the aqueducts which delivered water from the rhine to the people in the city.. again, i can only gape at their sophisticated engineering capabilities..
we then travelled to bonn, since it's quite near koln (even the international airport that serves koln is actually in between koln and bonn, that's why it's called the koln-bonn airport =) our train ride took about 30 mins..
we were quite suay that day - we went on the day when they had a marathon thingy going on in the city, hence they blocked off some of the important roads for the marathoners to whizz by. in order to get to where we wanted to go, we had to make several detours. irritating..
the rathaus is in the background, while a statue of ludwig van beethoven is in the foreground.. beethoven was born in bonn, but he subsequently moved to vienna.. for more info, check
this out.
the munster cathedral.. don't remember going in there though, but a pretty sight nonetheless =) really suffering from church/cathedral overdose by that time, think i've been to more churches in those 16 days that i spent in germany than the past 16 years of my life!
on our way to haus der geschichte ("museum of german history"), we walked by a rather serene scene.. couldn't resist taking a pic of it, despite running low on space on my mem card by then =)
after 20+ more mins of walking - we didn't want to take the underground train cos it cost money, and we thought we could walk the distance of 5 underground stops - we finally reached haus der geschichte. from then on, no pics were allowed to be taken.. none of the exhibits had english captions beside them, so xiz became our walking dictionary, impressing us with her masterful command of the german language. i really salute her patience with us, cos she has been to the museum for the umpteenth time (4th actually, i think) and never seems to get bored with it =D
we decided to spare our legs from MORE walking, so we 乖乖-ly paid 1.40 EUR each to take the underground back to the city centre.
on our way back, we passed by beethoven haus! didn't go in though cos it was closed alr.
we then travelled back to koln, and decided since it was our last night in koln and germany anyway, must as well pamper ourselves with koln's finest food =) i had a pork chop, which had sauerkraut and bratwurst in it, and we shared a plate of mussels.. and of course, not forgetting a glass of beer each. yum!
with our near-exploding tummies, we went back to xiz's place for the last time.. same routine as before - talk cock, bathe, surf internet, read book and sleep on the floor =)
day 16: koln (3/4)
woke up early cos xiz had to 上班 =) after having breakfast at her place, we packed our things with a heavy heart and left the place shortly after.
after dumping our bags in one of the automated luggage storage at the hauptbahnhof, we decided to explore the nearby kolner dom cos we had plenty of time to burn.. and since we had so much time, we thus decided to walk the 500+ steps to the top of the cathedral =)
halfway up the dom, we encoutered a giant bell - haven't heard it chime before, but i suppose its peals would be loud enough to be heard by the populace in the area surrounding the cathedral.
we reached the top panting and wheezing.. but according to zk, this cathedral wasn't as difficult to climb as st paul's cathedral in london..
the view of the spire - pretty pretty haha.
a bird's eye view of koln - river rhine in the background with numerous buildings which i bet xiz would be able to recite the names of =)
we then descended the steps - i still think climbing up stairs is far safer than descending those steps afterwards, cos i get butterflies in my stomach when i peer down too much.. and i sometimes feel as if i'm going to fall down, even though when i was grasping the hand railings.
a random shot in the cathedral. it's actually quite big, this pic is like one section of the gigantic cathedral.
after the cathedral, my stomach wanted another chicken burger from mcdonalds, so we walked across the road to the nearest macs =) i was savouring the burger (i love the chilli sauce they use in the burger) when zk got an sms from one of his friends.. apparently she was in koln also, so we hopped over to meet her. to pass our time, we then randomly diffused around koln..
roman ruins dating back to 15 AD! was integrated to be the part of a building since approx 14th century, and now it's part of a hotel.. how the hotel uses the space provided by the ruins, i have no idea haha.
after we had lunch at a bakery, we then took a train to the airport..
and took a plane back to uk..
we then parted ways at stansted airport, after 16 days of tolerating each other's company =P it's a major achievement by both of us, i guess =)
postscripttook me a loooooong time to write this cos of my general refusal to blog for more than 30 mins at a go anymore.. so i actually spent like a week writing this in a few separate occassions.. some of them were prematurely terminated by writer's block, inability to upload pics to blogger and finger aches (kidding).
to those who spent time reading the thousands of words i wrote, thank you.
to xiz, the next paragraph is dedicated to you:
thankew thankew thankew thankew thankew thankew thankew thankew thankew thankew thankew thankew thankew thankew thankew thankew thankew thankew thankew thankew thankew thankew thankew thankew thankew thankew thankew thankew thankew thankew thankew thankew thankew thankew thankew thankew thankew thankew thankew thankew! words can't describe how grateful i am =D
there's another appendix coming out about the hostels i stayed in.. haha =)
