our cells lect today was about cell signalling.. our lecturer gave us an introduction to the topic, emphasizing the fact that life depends on communication (which included pictures of mobile phones.. -.-")

he then showed a slide titled "requirements of a communication system", and on it, were the logos of the four biggest mobile phone operators in uk (why is he pushing the analogy so far?).. and one of the bullet points was that a good communication system would be able to regulate cross-talk in order to balance conflicting needs of the entire system, ie if a cell needs more glucose and others dun need, the body won't increase blood glucose levels just because of the cell..

he then told us all to whip out our mobile phones (he stretched the analogy AGAIN.. the title of that slide was "dial-a-don") and after a count of three, showed us his number for all of us to attempt to call his phone.. haha i was rather distracted at that time, think the basis of the "dial-a-don" thingy was that cells will only respond to specific signals and will ignore other inappropriate signals..

everyone typed his number in..

his phone rang..

and he answered "who am i speaking to?"

and i answered "hi, i'm yi jin", and raised up my hand =)

i got this as a prize for having the fastest fingers =PpP



haha i have a feeling that bun will regard me as his best friend until my chocs run out.. =D

tmr marks the start of lectures.. sigh.

countdown to exams: 41 days (!!) =(

day 10: fussen (28/3)

woke up at 8:00am, and for the first time we had to wait for the bathroom cos somehow everyone in the house woke up at about the same time, and there was only one toilet shared by abt 10 pple.. boh bian haha.

we were REALLY REALLY unlucky that day - it was RAINING!! it was such a big contrast from the previous day, when the sun was shining brightly and it got really warm for once.. we had to walk 20 mins to the train cum bus station in the rain in order to catch the bus to schloss neuschwanstein ("schloss" = palace).. you may be wondering, why bother with so much trouble?

seen this before? the castle in the background was supposedly inspired by schloss neuschwanstein.. that's why we die die must go and have a look =)

when we reached the foot of the mountain (the palace was an uphill 30 min walk from there), we got out of the bus, and bought our ticket.. we bought our ticket about 9:45am, and we were really shocked when the ticket printed our entry time as 11:40am! i was like thinking "this must be a mistake", but i discovered later that the turnstiles letting you into the castle only turned when your supposed entry time matched the real time.. bah.

view at the foot of the mountain - the yellow building is schloss hohenschwangau.. a bit of history abt both castles - hoenschwangau was built by king maximillian ii, while neuschwanstein was built by his son, king ludwig ii.. neuschwanstein wasn't finished before king ludwig ii died (mysteriously drowned in a lake), so what we see now is his partially-completed castle.. the castle was built in dedication to richard wagner's plays (he's a famous german playwright) - decorations in the palace was based on scenes in the plays! haha no wonder most pple regard him as a siao kia =)

some random shots on the way to the castle.. it's rainy AND misty.. grr =(

haha that place was colder than most other parts of germany cos of its elevation.. that's why snow is still present cos it hadn't had enough time to melt..

view of the castle from where we waited for our queue number to appear so that we could go into the castle..

when our queue number finally appeared on the screen, we quickly entered the castle.. we were then herded into a decently-sized group, and then a tour guide brought us throughout the castle.. we couldn't take pics of the stuff in the castle cos it was forbidden to do so.. the explanations were rather decent, the opulent sights in the castle were really magnificent, but i have one big grouse - the whole tour took only about an hour and a half! comparing this to the amount of time we spent in schloss nymphenburg, this was a really big joke! we came out of the castle around 1pm, bereft of things to do cos our train was at 5pm.. we budgeted an entire day for the castle, just to find that it was only a 1.5 hour tour.. grr!

view from the outside of the castle.. the castle's rather obscured because of the mist though =(

we got tired of the misty castle, so we walked around fussen for a few hours.. this is a random shot of a random river that runs along the city which i randomly hold in high regard =D

after waiting and waiting and waiting, we boarded our train at 5pm in order to reach our next destination - constance (i like using the german word for the city, "konstanz", instead).. zk has a friend there who he wanted to visit, so at the same time we're going to tumpang her place for 2 nights =) also, we're going to force her to be our tour guide during our stay there, so finally we don't need to plan anything, figure our way from teeny-weeny maps, or force locals to speak english (since we have an interpreter with us haha)

our plan ran smoothly initially - we were supposed to change trains at buchloe, which we did; the train for lindau arrived an hour later, which we boarded according to schedule.. but from then on, things suddenly took a turn for the worse - we were supposed to reach lindau 20 minutes before our next train to radolfzell, but for some reason (till today, we still have no idea why) our train was 40 minutes late.. when we reached lindau, the train heading to radolfzell had long departed.. we checked the train schedule frantically, only to find that the next train to radolfzell was 6am the next day.. we hurried over to the rail office to ask whether there were alternative routes - thank goodness the person manning the counter could speak english, cos normally there are less english speakers in small towns! it turned out that there was another route to radolfzell, but we had to change to another train at another station.. to cut a long story short, we eventually reached konstanz at about 1:10am, instead of the 10:45pm we thought we would arrive at. when we reached the station, we found our host waiting for us in the freezing midnight weather - we felt really paiseh to 麻烦 her, cos she had to stay awake till the wee hours for us!

we slept at about 4am.. what a day!

day 11: konstanz (29/3)

we groggily woke up at 10am, and set off to visit our host's uni - universitat konstanz.. to me, on first sight, it reminded me of NUS, as the buildings were clustered together.. everything's so centralized there - there's a central library, central cafe, admin building etc.. haha maybe i'm too used to how camb works. it doesn't have such buildings because the admin here is decentralized to individual colleges..

the uni's rather big, memorable places that i visited being their 7-floor library, which has quite a decent collection of eng books for eng lit students; hippie art pieces that don't mean a thing to us; and lastly this zoology "museum" that had dead and live animals in it (aren't museums supposed to house only dead / non-living artefacts? haha)

the only pic i took in the uni - its layout haha.. decided to refrain from trigger-happy snapping of pics, cos my digicam was running out of memory space (blame it on my 128mb memory card)..

we then took a bus to see the sights of konstanz, thus getting off at the heart of the city itself..

a revolving statue of a whore! it symbolizes konstanz, by the way =) the whore has a king in her right hand and the pope in her left.. once upon a time there was 3 popes (or 2? dunno), so in order to decide who should be THE ONE, several kings and popes met at konstanz to decide the matter.. well, males have their urges, and apparently this lady called imperia managed to seduce them all, and thus had power over them all =)

view from konstanz's harbour, with lake konstanz pictured in it.. it wasn't the best of weathers when we visited that place, sadly.

we then visited munsterhof, one of the biggest church in konstanz.. really impressed by the frescos cos it looks really really ancient - the church decided against artifically restoring the frescos to their former glory, that's why we were able to admire the fading frescos in the church. konstanz, unlike other german cities, escaped bombing simply due to its proximity to the swiss border - the allies didn't want to risk bombing a neutral nation.

we then went grocery shopping, then going back to her place and cooked curry for dinner! she invited one of her german friends over - our conversation at the dinner table that night was rather interesting =) for instance, i discovered that german students do take into consideration the vibrancy of the city when choosing where to study - some students left konstanz because to them, the city was rather "dead".. i never knew nightlife was that important in retaining students!

slept blissfully with a rather full stomach =P

day 12: konstanz / koln (30/3)

rather uneventful day - woke up at 10am, bade goodbye to our host and caught the 11:30am train to cologne (i'll use the german word "koln" instead, think it sounds nicer haha)..

the train ride lasted 5 and a half hours.. when we reached koln, it was about 5pm already.. we met up with xiz at the train station.. since it was rather late, and we were feeling exhausted after frying our bums out after sitting for prolonged hours, we decided not to do anything besides slacking =)

we did a bit of grocery shopping - i was shocked at the price of beer there.. it costed about 0.70 EUR per bottle of kolsch (beer brewed in koln), and that is one of the more expensive beers already! wow! needless to say, we bought a few bottles for our consumption =) we went back, cooked our dinner, drank our beers, tried to decipher will smith's german in "independence day" to no avail, read a bit, and then retired to bed.

this was the only day i didn't have any pictures to account for - tried taking a few during the train ride, but they were either blurry or had an irritating reflection from the window..

postscript

sorry for the big gap between #3 and #4 - just completed my chemistry work, which used up 16 sheets of paper.. took me 3 whole days to complete it =S but i had a sense of immense 成就感 after i finished it =P

haha after some random browsing..

"students watch porn as teacher's punishment" (link opens in new window)

excerpts:

A Chinese daily had reported that the teacher ordered the students of both sexes into the room, closed the curtains and told them to watch the (pornographic) movie, saying it was their punishment for not doing their homework.

err.. i forsee more students (well, most of the guys i bet) in that teacher's class will not hand in their homework, and instead accept their harsh punishment willingly =)

but too bad i can't check my predictions - that teacher's getting the sack soon.

"class action status sought in teflon suit" (link opens in new window)

excerpts:

The lawsuits allege DuPont concealed studies that showed that perflourooctanoic acid, also called PFOA or C-8, used in the Teflon manufacturing process releases toxic particulates when heated to 464 deg F (240 deg C). The lawsuits claim the particles can cause extreme damage to rats within 10 minutes and death at longer exposures.

The lawsuits also claim that at 680 degrees (360 deg C) Teflon-coated pans release six toxic gases including cancer-causing agents and PFOA, which has been determined by the Science Advisory Board for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to likely be a cancer-causing agent in humans.

uh oh.

"the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" - thanks gab for pointing out that the past tense of this sentence doesn't have all 26 letters =)

now i can type properly liao.. but at the cost of 19.99 pounds.. it's not as if i didn't want to buy sth cheaper, but i've visited 4 shops, just to find out that usb keyboards are still rather rare, and some cheap keyboards look really horrendous =)

moral of the story: don't let your keyboard drink water, as thirsty as it may seem to you.

my keybord hppened to hve h2o ccidentlly spilled over it.. despite my best efforts to rescue it, three of my lphbet keys, ctrl, shift & tb no longer function.. guess u cn deduce hich keys r gone from the sentence "the uick bron fox jumped over the lzy dog"..

sigh =( this is so going to be one very costly mistke..

(pic from www.amazon.co.uk)

instead of mugging and doing homework, which is inevitable cos my hols are going to end in a week, i ended up reading "memoirs of a geisha" which i ordered from amazon =) it costed me about 3 pounds (44 pence for the book, and abt 2.50 pounds for the delivery).. but i'm not regretting it cos this is one of the best investments i have made so far =)

i've been wanting to read this book since the movie came out (which i haven't watched), and cos a senior of mine told me that the book is way better than the movie.. judging from the fact that zhang ziyi's the female lead in the movie, the book must be a hell of a good read.. and my senior wasn't wrong at all =) i spent hours on end poring over 400+ pages of sayuri's life, my feelings rollercoasting with the ups and downs of her life.. it's a really enchanting and absorbing book, i must say.

this book got me reminiscing about my past (haha i sound like i'm 60 years old).. it has been a really long time since i was totally immersed in a book for hours on end.. when i was in primary school, my parents used to drive my bro and me to a library in ipoh, where we borrowed 8 books per week.. we used to read the books during lunch - our right hands scooping rice into our mouths while our left hands flicked the pages of the books.. i used to have mini-competitions with my bro to see who could read faster, which i have never won =) that was when i encountered marvellous books by roald dahl, enid blyton and michael crichton, to name a few of my favourite authors..

but when i was in sec sch, i was rather lazy - i rarely borrowed books from the school library, although there was a decent selection of books.. also, there wasn't anyone to remind me that i have spent too much time on my major distraction - computer games - so the bulk of my time went into killing monsters and hoarding treasures.. how i wish i had the common sense to press the power button on my computer and read something..

that's why, after finishing "geisha" at a pace that startled me, i'm reminded of my pri sch days - days where i would lose my way in malory towers; stare in awe at willy wonka's chocolate factory; and run away breathlessly from the acrid breath of a pursuing t-rex..

day 6: nuremberg / munich (24/3)

woke up at 8 in order to catch the 924am train to munich, and we travelled another 199km to reach munich..

once we reached there, we instinctively sought for our hostel, dumped our bags there and set out for some city exploring..

first stop: asamkirche..

the outer view of asamkirche..

the inner view of asamkirche. this church is a privately-built, privately-owned church in the past, and it leaves no doubt about the state of the family's finances =) the intricate baroque architecture (cheem leh.. learnt this from zk) took ages and $$$ to construct.. i could only gape at the sumptous visual feast.

after getting dazzled by all the riches, we tried to navigate our way to our next stop, on the way eating a 1 EUR lunch.. no wonder i lost weight when i travelled with zk.

the neues rathaus! (the new city hall).. the tower houses the glockenspiel (the two-layered thingy framed in green), which comes to life everyday at 11am, 12pm and also at 5pm during the summer months.. yes, it's an interesting sight to see, but i've to say that the show's rather overrated.. the bells doesn't chime in a rather melodious way; the figures prancing around aren't that graceful; and worse of all it takes ages for the entire spectacle to end. that doesn't prevent hordes of tourists from congregating under the alte rathaus everyday - everyone simply stops moving across the city hall when the bells start chiming. erps.

theatinerkirche - nice baroque architecture again - which houses the remains of some of the wittelsbachs, who ruled munich in the past..

random diffusing brought us to the englischer garten (the english garden), named so because an englishman designed the garden. it's unique in terms of its size (1km wide and 5km long!) and its location (near the city centre).. this park was originally for the aristocrats, but one of the princes (i forgot who) allowed the public to visit the park, and it has been one of the favourite spots for munchners ("munchen" = munich) to hang out ever since. apparently, there is a stretch inside the park designated for nudists, but when we walked past there (intentionally of course =P) there weren't anyone there.. sigh how we wished the weather was a bit sunnier and hotter..

the monopteros.. you can get a good view of the park and be able to see the taller churches of the city when you're there.

the chinesischer turm (chinese pagoda, far left in the pic).. supposedly modelled after the pagoda in london's royal botanical gardens, which i haven't had a chance to see yet. there's a beer garden near the pagoda, which makes it a hit with tourists and locals.

augustiner keller, the oldest beer garden in munich. what's a beer garden? literally, it's a garden where people can drink beer (it was still rather cold when we were there, and the trees were still barren, so no one bothered to sit outside).. in the past, court decree forbidded the sale of beer with food, so people used to bring their own food and buy their beer. although that decree is a thing of the past - beer gardens DO sell food now - they don't forbid patrons for bringing their own food, but we never got to try that out ourselves, simply cos we wanted a taste of bavarian food =) i had a pork knuckle there and, of course, drank beer!

went back to our hostel with warm cheeks and a fuzzy feeling in my stomach =)

day 7: munich (25/3)

woke up rather late cos we wanted to go for a walking tour, but it doesn't start until 1045am, so we sauntered along the streets of munich after breakfast to pass time.

the walking tour started at the neues rathaus (and we witnessed the glockenspiel in action again), and then we proceeded to the altes rathaus (old city hall - no pics though sorry!).. the ironic thing about the city halls is that the new city hall is older than the old city hall, cos the old city hall was bombed to smithereens during wwii. the old city hall didn't survive because it was lucky - because of its towering height, it was used as a sighting reference for allied bombers, so that they could carpet bomb the surrounding areas.

a maypole at the viktualienmarkt (some market square lah). a rather phallic symbol, don't you think? in the past the maypole was covered with oil, and then guys tried their best to climb the maypole.. the winner was rewarded with - not surprisingly - beer!

one of the busiest beer gardens in munich - the hofbrauhaus! we visited this place at about 230pm, which is way past the lunch hour, and there were still tons of ppl here! we revisited it at 4pm (after the guided tour), and it was equally packed.. hofbrauhaus also has a souvenir shop near the entrace, a fitting testimony to its popularity =)

the infamous balcony where hitler gave his speech prior to his failed munich putsch.. there was a 2,000 strong crowd listening to him at this spot on that day.

feldherrnhalle.. the name's not that important, the lions are more important =) notice that one of the lion's mouth is open, but the other one is closed? the open one faces the royal residence, but the closed one faces theatinerkirche - it means that people can voice their disapproval against the king, but never against the church.. interesting =)

the royal residence. look closely at the pic - the decorations on the wall are ALL DRAWN IN! the residence was badly bombed during wwii, and reconstruction hasn't taken place (or will not take place, i'm not sure which)..

the spot where the munich putsch was halted.. when hitler came into power, he turned this spot into a memorial for those who died in the putsch, and everyone who walked past it must salute it - it's a criminal offence to not salute it! residents who didn't like the nazi regime showed their passive resistance by taking a detour around the feldherrnhalle in order to avoid the saluting.. the alley that these people walked in order to avoid saluting was called the "dodgers' alley"!

we then climbed up old peter..

after huffing and puffing up 300+ steps, we finally reached the top.. we had to squirm past crowds of pple, but being able to see such a breathtaking scene was worth it =) you can see the alps in background!

having nothing else planned, we diffused around, finally settling for a loooooong dinner (from 530pm to 830pm haha) =D went back, read a bit, and then slept.

day 8: munich / dachau (26/3)

we forgot that clocks were shifted one hour forward today, so our plan to wake up early was dashed =( had a heavy breakfast (as usual) and then we set off to dachau, a city at the outskirts of munich.. it's about 20 mins by train.

as most pple would know, dachau is inexorably linked with the concentration camp system of the nazis - it's in fact one of the model camps, serving as a prototype for other camps.. unlike auschwitz-birkenau, dachau's primary motive is not to exterminate people, but to obtain forced labour from the prisoners.

a view of the main gate of dachau - many were to pass through this gate only once. on the gate, the inscription "arbeit macht frei" (work will set you free) is etched on it..

picture of the parade ground and two reconstructed bunkers (cos most of them were destroyed when dachau was liberated).. there were 20+ bunkers there, which were chronically overpopulated near the end of the war due to the immense number of prisoners there. prisoners living in the bunkers nearer to the entrance had better treatment than those placed at the back - the nazis practiced racial (and national) segregation even in concentration camps..

view of the bunk beds - blankets had to be kept absolutely crease-free; floors had to be kept squeaky clean too, unless one wanted to be punished by the guards.. the punishment is inhumane too - prisoners are hung by their wrists for hours on end, and to compound their misery, they were brutally beaten by the guards too..

entrance to another section of the prison, where cremation of prisoners take place.. notice the patch of green grass seperating the barbed wire fence and the road? prisoners who cross the line are considered to be escapees, and thus could be shot by any patrolling guard.. sometimes, guards will throw a prisoner's possessions over the line and command the prisoner to collect it.. once the prisoner crosses the line, they often do not return alive. how sick can humans get?

gas chamber, apparently never put into use in dachau (no one knows why they built it in the first place if they didn't want to use it).. the room wasn't that high - i could touch the ceiling - and it was rather cramped.. in other death camps (auschwitz for instance) prisoners were told that they were "getting a shower", and indeed they had a shower - the release of xyklon-b (a toxic gas) for 5 minutes, sufficient to kill everyone in the cramped room..

cremation chamber.. was expanded once to handle the increasing number of bodies to dispose off..

although what the nazis did is unforgivable, the fact that the germans do admit their rather black chapter of their history makes them far better than one of their allied country, which still skirts around the question when it's brought up, even going to the extent of changing their history textbooks..

went back slightly sickened by what we've saw that day.. rested for a while in our room, and then went out to watch a passion (the story of the last days of christ).. the johannespassion (passion of st. john) that we watched was performed entirely in german, so we sat there for 2 hours appreciating (to our best abilites haha) the music and trying to grasp what was going on.. oh yeah, we noticed that the soprano was blind cos her actions and movements seem awkward for a sighted person.. but that didn't prevent her from performing.

it ended at abt 10pm, and we had trouble navigating back bcos we were too lazy to pull out the map haha =)

day 9: munich / fussen (27/3)

it was a beautiful day! warm and sunny, which was a change from the cold and wet day in dachau the day before.

we took a train and then walked to schloss nymphenburg ("schloss" = palace). absolutely beautiful, the place =)

front view of schloss nymphenburg.. fabulous weather too, as can be seen in the pic!

view of the first hall we stepped into in schloss charlottenburg. it's a baroque castle built in the 17th century, which explains the ornamentation that borders on the excessive side..

rather blur, but this is the gallery of beauties - it contains the potraits of 36 chiobus that were deemed the chio-est by king ludwig i.. he ordered his painters to draw chio girls ranging from nobles to dancers to the daughter of a shoemaker.. so long someone is chio and catches his eye, he will order his court painter to paint the chiobu =) unfortunately, his affair with lola montez (a dancer) led to the downfall of his rule (really!), cos the people were dissastified with a king that only cared about a dancer.. he was forced to abdicate in 1848, but no one destroyed the paintings that was part of the reason of his "perversion".. i wonder why =)

the back view of the palace.

the view of a huge man-made lake at the back of the castle.. apparently it is linked to the nearby river, so that transports of supplies to the castle can be made directly to the castle. also, there was a king who hired venetians to row gondolas in the lake.. absolutely siao haha.

schloss amalienburg! there was a queen called maria amalia who loved to hunt, so her husband built a small palace near the royal hunting grounds so that she could rest after her hunting trips.. aww.

view of king ludwig ii's sledges in the marstallmuseum ("marstall" = court stables).. this king is rather ding-dong lar, to be frank.. he likes to tour the countryside at night, when there aren't anyone else awake, so he would have a peaceful and serene trip.. he's not content with one sledge though - he has like 6 of them, and all of them are super-intricately desgined! i wonder how much $ he used up.. he's also the person who built schloss neuschwanstein (more abt this on the next day).. siao kia.

after touring the palace, we went back to our hostel to get our bags, and then left munich for fussen. this train ride (and most of other train rides later on) were not on ICE (the 2nd fastest service) anymore - as our destination were towns which were rather ulu-ated, we had to take RE (regional express) trains, which stop like every 15 mins.. some of the places that they stop dun even have a platform, only a signpost with the name of the station plastered across it!

we reached fussen at abt 4pm, took about half an hour to search for our accommodation, but it was well worth it - the view from our window was simply breathtaking..

it's sooooo peaceful.. a huge contrast to munich's eternal hustle and bustle. you can see the alps in the background - cool right =) it was simply awesome, and we had one whole room to ourselves.. we had a tv inside the room, but the only things we understood were cnn and mtv haha.

we set out to explore fussen, but since we reached there rather late in the first place, even the tourist office was closed. thus, we decided that we were going to slack that day, which meant an early and sumptous bavarian dinner! =P

my meal that day! costed me 11.70 EUR, but it was really worth it.. the breaded pork cutlet was simply awesome - even now, thinking about it makes my mouth water. yum =)

trekked back to our hostel room, talking more cock on the way, and we slept around midnight, so that we could wake up in time to go to schloss neuschwanstein.

postscript

sorry for the delay, i've met some probs when i was trying to post my pics up.. the pics are nice, aren't they? =P

during one of my random browsing forays on yahoo! news, one of the news in the "top news" section caught my attention - "man gets $218 trillion phone bill".. and i discovered that it happened in malaysia.

this brought to mind two other videos that i watched concerning the national cars that we're rather proud of..

the first movie is about the destroying of a perodua kelisa by jeremy clarkson - he's the host of a show called "top gear" in uk (which is aired by bbc).. pls keep in mind this guy is a person who drove more aston martins, bmws and what-have-yous than everyone in malaysia combined (ok, maybe this was a bad exaggeration, but you get the idea), so it's not that surprising that he takes an immediate dislike to boxy, unstylish makes..

click here (opens in new window)

something less destructive but more funny:

click here (opens in new window)

well, i guess malaysia's rather popular overseas, in some ways more than others =)

day 4: berlin / leipzig (22/3)

we woke up extremely early - 7am! - in order to catch the 833am train to leipzig.. i love the precise timing of everything in germany - trains, buses and trams arrive and depart according to schedule, especially long-haul trains, which we took to leipzig.

after travelling for 183km in a journey that spanned 1 hr 32 mins (i love the precision in everything they do - the distance was given in a timetable which could be found in every seat) in an ICE train, we disembarked at leipzig hbf ("hbf" = "hauptbahnhof" = main train station) and went in search of our hostel..

we met a rather chio russian receptionist, who not only gave us a free map - which we later found out to cost 3.50 EUR - she enthusiastically circled a russian orthodox church on the map and told us to have a look at it.. although her english wasn't as polished as the receptionist in berlin, i took it as a sign that this city was more "authentic", in a sense that we're experiencing a side of germany obscured by touristy "things to do" and "places to see".

we took a tram to the battle of nations monument..

.. only to be rather disgusted by its drab appearance.. the small lake in front of it was frozen and the path leading to the monument was mushy, to make matters worse.. after carefully treading through the soggy soil (cos snow was melting), we walked up the steps to the centre part of the building, and then we were told that we had to pay $ to take a lift to the top of the monument. being giam siap travellers, we lingered around for a few mins to catch our breath, and then walked back down again. all this while, i was given a history lecture by dear zk - it's great having someone who actually knows the historical background of the monument, so that visit wasn't just a photo-op.

napoleon was defeated at the battle of leipzig - it's called "battle of nations" cos it was a war that a coalition of a few nations fought against napoleon's forces.. hence the size of this monument dedicated to napoleon =)

random shot of a bus stop in leipzig.. notice that the bus is driving on the wrong side of the road =P

the russian orthodox church that was recommended to us - pity we couldn't get it cos it was closed. bah. russian orthodox churches can be distinguished not only by its architecture, it also has a different cross (not pictured here) - instead of the 十字架 in christian churches, they have an extra 横 at the top half and a 撇 at the bottom half =)

we intentionally walked through the university of leipzig - i visit the counterpart of this building in camb once every two weeks =) the uni has two sections to it, one in the city and one outside it, presumably because it required expansions to accommodate more students.. the buildings aren't as clustered as NUS or NTU or the uni of konstanz (which we visited in konstanz), but it's not as spread out as camb's.

we went to mendelssohn haus - the house where the late felix mendelssohn spent his last few years, and which have been converted into a museum documenting his life story.. took a pic with me in it not bcos i'm narcissistic, but cos the audioguide is an ipod shuffle.. was so tempted to kop it =)

feeling hungry after the visit, we dropped by a kebab shop.. this kebab was so fantastically cheap - 1 EUR!! - that i had to take a pic of it! we never found anything as cheap as this in the 16 days that we were there.

apparently maggi is a swiss brand, and it is ubiquitous in germany.. how come it can't be found across the english channel?!

we then went to bach museum.. and outside the bach museum, and in front of thomaskirche (where bach worked as a musical director), stands a statue dedicated to one of the greatest composers of all time.. the museum opposite the church didn't allow photos to be taken though, that's why no pics abt it.

nikolaikirche, one of the four most important churches in leipzig (thomaskirche was another one). good thing churches didn't charge an entry fee, else we'll run out of $ quickly =)

after running around for the entire day, we had a kebab dinner and a chocolate bar snack (the chocolate bar was *supposed* to be a present for xiz, cos she will be our host in cologne, but our stomachs weren't as polite as our hearts), read a bit and then slept.

day 5: leipzig / nuremberg (23/3)

woke up for another day of rushing around.. needed to catch a train at..

.. 810am =) pic shows the interior of leipzig hbf, not bad considering leipzig is a rather small ex-east german town.

after travelling for 321 km in 3 hr 14 mins, we reached nuremberg, and searched for our hostel.. when we had everything settled, it was already noon, and we had only half a day to finish the city. on hindsight, we should have just visited the sights we really wanted to see, namely kaiserburg and the reichsparteitagsgelande (the nazi rally grounds), but we had this map with nearly ALL the attractions in nuremberg's city centre, and we walked in such a way to pass most of them. bad idea indeed - we ended up with a lot of half-baked visits, and an overdose of churches (FOUR!), so much so i can't rmb them even when i look at pics of them. bah.

anyway after some random walking around..

found this fountain called the "marriage-merry-go-round fountain".. there is a chronological series of statues depicting how marriage *typically* proceeds - from 甜蜜蜜 to the picture i took on top, which was the last stage in their marriage =) gives a whole new meaning to "till death do us part" =P

the city walls and a moat (which would have been filled with water in the past to impede invaders)..

a bridge called the "hangman bridge"! no idea why though, took this pic cos it's pretty =)

visited kaiserburg ("kaiser" = emperor, "burg" = castle), but we were at the outer regions of it only.. din go in cos we needed to pay, and also cos we were short of time. haiz.

we walked across the market place - quite nice, isn't it? the church in the distance is marienkirche ("marien" = mary).. this church was built over a synagogue after the local inhabitants expelled the jews in nuremberg.. it's a long story of which most details i've forgotten, so whatever lar hor =D

we took an s-bahn (big cities usually has its own transport network) to the rally grounds. the rally grounds faced a huge lake, which is pictured above.

we then went to the documentation centre, paid the entrance fee and got our audioguides. we spent 2.5 hrs there, but it was still insufficient to finish everything in the museum.. we read (more like "listened" through) why the nazis wanted to build such a big rally ground - it was to inspire awe amongst its citizens and convey a sense of power to the outside world.. the rally ground was only partly finished bcos construction halted during the war, but it didn't prevent the party from having its yearly parades there, which lasted for a week.. we also heard first hand accounts on how the parades were the number one event to attend by some germans - one girl, chided by her aunt to go back to her own home, argued with her aunt in order to attend one of the parades! scary.

a portion of the kongresshall, which currently houses the documentation centre.

if we had more time in nuremberg, i would have liked to walk through the entire rally grounds to get a feel of its size.. but hmm even if we stayed for another day, the weather was rather chilly and we were rather tired, so i dun think we'd be walking through the grounds even we had the time haha.

we chionged back to see the baroque gardens that zk wanted to see..

it's rather nice, just that it was super hard to find and it's.. rather small. versailles would have a similar garden maybe 1000x bigger haha.

retired early to bed in preparation for another exhausting day of travel.


postscript

buay tahan liao, fingers haven't stopped typing for 2 hrs. will split this tale into five parts instead of four..