Munich, admittedly, is quite boring.

There are a few landmarks of course, but they’re not exactly world renowned like London’s.

You can’t really blame them. Munich was destroyed during World War 2, with about 65% of the city in smithereens from the Allied bombings.

Munich is slightly interesting because of its city centre. It’s within walkable distance from my hotel, and almost the whole of central Munich can be explored on foot. Their government (Hitler???) was thoughtful enough to have pavements and pedestrian areas just about everywhere.

Perhaps what’s more interesting is that cycling is one of the major means of transport, taking up one-fourth of the transportations around.

There are as many bicycle lanes as pedestrian walkways, and cycling around is the norm for traveling moderate distances.

Here in Munich, bicycles > pedestrians > cars. Apply that to the legal laws.

And here’s just about one of the more prominent landmarks. Basically the face of Munich.

It’s their town centre, Marienplatz. Looks historical but I don’t understand enough German to tell you more.

Bayer Munich won the German football league a few weeks back, but it’s all calm and well here.

Speaking of which, I was staying a few blocks away from Chelsea FC back in London, but there’s wasn’t much scent of losers in the air.

My brother read from somewhere is Munich was voted by foreigners as the best place to live in. On top of a train system entirely based on integrity, their newspaper sales is not any different.

What they have is just a box with the papers, unlocked, and a trust that you’ll pay by inserting the payment as required.

As BMW and Mercedes-Benz are German brands, with BMW themselves headquartered in Munich, the roads are filled with them. Volkswagon is pretty popular too.

We came across this city park, the Englischer Garten (English Garden), the largest in Europe. It was originally the hunting ground of the royal family of Bavaria, until democracy (and ultimately Hitler) came into effect. But that’s so not the point.

What I’m trying to bring across here is the nudist colony in the city park. LOTS OF ‘EM.

Sorry, I hope you weren’t expecting any photos here. But the load of the nudist who were fully stripped didn’t have the sort of bodies you see in porno flicks, very disappointingly.

I’m saying too much.

Seems like the souvenirs here are not any cheaper than London. Worse, in fact. The cheapest stuff available is about S$7, so I’m not getting much.

The sky here darkens at 9.30pm to 10pm, but all the shops are closed by 8pm, leaving only the restaurants open. They have a horrible lot of daylight hours. Temperatures slightly cooler than Singapore in the day, and drops to under 20′C at night.

That should do for Day 4. Good night (GMT+1).

Took a two-hour long British Airways flight to Munich, Germany.

The European airports have one of the most thorough (and troublesome) checks in the world. You have to take off your shoes to put through for X-ray scanning, and when you’re searched after alarming the metal detector, you’re searched aggressively. The way the airport security searches you is kinda… hm.

It gets confusing from here. I don’t know much German, except for ‘Thank You’ and some swear words.

The Munich international airport wasn’t that English friendly. It’s making good effort with half the signs having English translations, but generally you’ll feel lost when you attempt to read other stuff. It’s quite a good thing that most, if not all, of the staff are fluent in English.

My Dad rented a car, but only from the 31st. So we went into the bookshop to buy a map book of Europe. We found it alright, with much difficult because all the maps were in German — including the one we bought.

Made a call to my brother to meet up. The public phones here eat up your money faster than anything. About 10 Euro cents per 10 seconds, so that converts to over a Singapore dollar or two per minute.

Exchange rate between Euro and SGD is 1:2.15, so it’s slightly more forgiving than London.

I didn’t get much souvenirs for y’all over at London cos of the prices. The cheapest keychains are about a pound plus, which converts into nearly S$4. So be happy if you’re one of the lucky few who gets some London thing from me.

I’ll try to make up for the lack of souvenirs in the next few countries I’m visiting, but let’s hope the Euro dollar won’t screw me up.

I mean, I just ate dinner at this really branded Munich restaurant, Augustine. They’re since 1328. I ordered two medium-sized Munich sausages, and each came up to S$10 each. And my glass of mixed cola was about S$7.

So far there’s nothing much to say about Munich, but their train system really stands out. Let’s go into each reason:

1) They are no barriers to board the train. Or rather, there are no ‘paid areas’ of the station, as SMRT often like to put it. Meaning, the entire train system is open to everyone. Surely, it’s illegal to board the train without buying a ticket, but the whole system is based a lot on integrity. Occasional (and random) checks by station staffs whether you have a ticket. You’ll be so shocked when you walk into a station. The train’s right in front of you before you can find the ticketing machine.

2) The escalators serving the train station is reversible. It moves when there’s someone on it, and stops within 5 seconds when it’s empty. When someone approaches it from the top, it starts moving downing. And vice versa. So I enjoy camping at the top, waiting for some tired guy to approach the escalator from the bottom, and quickly get on the escalator so it moves down and the poor guy has to miserably climb the stairs.

3) Ehhh… The train doors… requires you to press a buttom or pull the lever to open the door.

4) Because of the system’s open system, there are practically no staff operating the stations. Perhaps just the train drivers that’s all.

Yeah that’s pretty much it.

On another note, the cheap hotel I’m staying at provides free wireless internet from the restaurant next door. However, the signal is so weak that I gotta be in the restaurant itself to use it. So… I won’t be able to get online much now. The restaurant also closes at night, which is like the time I’m back at the hotel.

We’ll see how things goes. So that’s day three, Munich.

My second and last day in London.

Great weather. But that’s not saying much because the previous day’s weather was terrible. Almost twenty-four hours of non-stop drizzle.

We headed down to Buckingham Palace in the morning to catch the changing of guards.

It’s pretty much the usual thing. Traditional English guards with those kinda caps large enough for two rabbits, marching down the road from their barracks into the palace. Some are part of the military band, some are carrying rifles, and some are on horses.

But then, what we found new was…

Brunei guards?!

We had totally no clue why half of the guards of Buckingham Palace are Brunei guards now.

To make things more ridiculous, they replaced the cool traditional English guards with the Brunei ones to stand guard in front of the palace.

Buckingham Palace has official lost its meaning.

It’s one of the few places I remember from my visit a decade ago, and not much has changed — other than my theory that the King of Brunei has bought over half of the palace.

My parents insisted on watching a musical (another, for me), and we went around Central London, from theatre to theatre trying to decide on a show and book tickets.

In summary, we went from We Will Rock You to Chicago to Jersey Boys and finally back to We Wil Rock You.

And as always, got the cheapest seats all the way behind at 26.50 pounds each.

Apparently, We Will Rock You is into its ’sensational seventh year’ and still running. Meanwhile, I saw ads that Les Miserables broke Cats’ record of being the world’s longest running musical.

Okay so more about the musical later, since it’s at only 7.30pm.

Decided to check out St Paul’s Cathedral, one of the those must-see places in London.

Can’t tell you much, because most of the beauty is inside. And once again, my family decided not to pay for anything, so we didn’t get to enter. It’s about 10 pounds per entry. Go figure.

Moved on to the River Thames area again. Tower Bridge in particular.

First, here’s London Bridge in the distance. It’s as pathetic as the causeway to Johor.

Here’s HMS Belfast, one of the largest (and surviving) warships of World War 2.

And finally, Tower Bridge. Very, very magnificent.

We walked across the bridge to the other side, where another landmark was located.

It’s the Tower of London, a world heritage site. This is where the royal family stayed at roughly during the early days (about 10th to 15th century?), before they moved to the Windsor Castle where they are currently at.

It’s especially famous for its rich history; not just being another one of those lame boring meaningless royal sites.

Kings and queens were tried and executed here. During wars, captured enemies were kept in its dungeons, where they get tortured and have the time of their lives. They, of course, allow the public to view these stuff and even the devices of torture. The crown jewels are also stored and are on display here.

Beautiful and magnificent castle. They used to have an awesome moat surrounding the castle, with drawbridges and everything, but the idiots of the 19th century filled up these moats with sand so now it’s kinda lame.

…But y’know, it costs 16 pounds to enter…

So we just walked around it. Hurhurhur.

And as a final destination for sightseeing, we visited Harrods, one of the largest departmental stores in the world. It’s also where the Royal family shops at. With 6 storeys and 6000 employees… You can imagine.

After that, it was back to Tottenham Court Road for We Will Rock You at the Dominion Theatre.

It was fantastic, kinda like rock concerts rolled into a musical, with many oldies featured. And the jokes were pretty good! Great fun and energy, but I can’t tell whether it’s better than Phantom.

And when they sang We Are The Champions, I was reminded of the group of us bowlers singing that after winning A Div :D

Well, it was already 10.30pm. Headed home, and that’s all for London I guess.

Next stop — Munich, Germany.

It may be my second time in Europe, but the first was 10 years ago, all the way back in 1998, when I was still young and stupid.

Not much has changed since then.

Arriving at London gives you two impressions. The airport is no where near in comparison to Changi. Quite rundown, but then you’ll start to realise that Singapore isn’t really advanced at all when you enter immigration.

I mean… I just got my new biometric passport a less than a week ago, which now allows me to use fingerprinting for the local immigration (finally). Meanwhile, Londoners use Iris - basically eye scanning recognition technology.

So, like my family always does, we aren’t on a tour or any guided stuff. We arrived without a single clue as to where our hotel (which we booked through the internet) is located, and had to ask around for quite a bit.

It was one of the cheapest hotels alright, for a good reason. The size of my twin sharing room was roughly as big as a dining table for eight.

But the cheapest wasn’t very cheap at all. The exchange rate for the Pound was a killer. At about a 1:3 ratio, the price of slightly under a 100 converts into over S$200 a night.

Taking the London Underground, or The Tube, was an experience by itself.

Being the oldest and most extensive subway system in the world… blah blah blah… Oh and once again, damn exchange rate. A single way train ride costs between 2 to 4 pounds, which translates into easily $6 to $12.

But personally, I found Tokyo’s one worse. As in, more extensive and messy.

AND LONDON’S TRAINS HAVE REALLY COMFORTABLE CUSHION SEATS.

So first thing in the morning, we headed down to St James’ Park to walk to Buckingham Palace to be in time for the changing of guard at 11.30pm.

It was drizzling lightly, with strong winds. Temperatures are probably about 12′C. Back in Singapore, the weather forecasts for London was 10-20′C, which on average was okay so we brought along short sleeve shirts. And right here we are, freezing our asses off and complaining why we didn’t bring winter wear.

Turns out that today, 26th of May, is Bank Holiday over here in England. Which is a public holiday, and so even the guards are having the day off.

So we changed our plan and took the train down to Westminster, which is basically the main area of tourists attractions in London.

Coming straight out of the underground, Big Ben is just there to make you piss on your pants.

Photos of it doesn’t do it justice. It’s awesome with it’s architecture and size.

Next to it are the Houses of Parliament, and following the road leads you to Westminster Abbey.

Westminster Abbey is that place where they bury famous people, have coronations and funerals for the royal family. There lies many late Kings and Queens, and people like Winston Churchill and Isaac Newton.

It didn’t come without a entrance ticket priced at 10 pounds. So my parents are saying that we visited it before 10 years for FREE, but being younger and perhaps stupider, I have no recollections of that.

Skipped it and headed for Downing Street where the Prime Minister stays at — 10 Downing Street. And back 10 years ago, the general public is allowed in all the way to the front of the house, and my Mom says we even have a photo with the house number.

This is Downing Street today, in the face of terrorism.

Two layers of extremely strong magnetic gates, police officers armed with sub-machine guns and a very scared Mr Gordon Brown.

Further down the road brings you to Trafalgar Square, where there’s this statue of Lord Nelson. Quite crappy, since the square was (1) under construction and (2) it was raining, so the square’s famed pigeons are missing.

And that was pretty much the Westminster area, so it was London Eye next.

Unlike Big Ben, I expected to be impressed, but was massively disappointed. It looked almost too similar (and unimpressive) to the Singapore Flyer. Even down to the details and design.

The plan was to cover all major tourist sightseeing spots in a day, but we got so sick of the drizzle, wind and freezing temperatures that we decided to stop there and find some shopping mall to settle in for a rest.

It’s somewhat difficult to find a shopping mall in London, unlike Singapore where almost MRT station is home to one. Most of the shopping are done streets. We finally got bored of finding one, and decided to watch a play like we did 10 years ago :D

One of the few things I actually remembered from 1998 was watching Cats the musical in London. It was the longest running musical of all time, and 1998 was its final year.

London is some theatre and plays paradise. They have the most basic Globe Theatre where Shakespeare had his plays at centuries ago, and recently it has been restored for more plays in some rather pathetic environment (few centuries old, hello!).

About one-fourth of all the advertisements found in the London Underground are for musicals. They have Mamma Mia, Chicago, Lion King, Lord of the Rings (the musical alright!), Billy Elliot, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat and many others. We decided on The Phantom of the Opera :D

Spent some time trying the find its advertisement in train stations, and made our way to the place as advertised. On the way, we found this ticketing shop selling all the tickets for the various shows.

Apparently, they were having a Bank Holiday promotion, with Phantom tickets at only 35 pounds down from 45. They only had it for two, so me and sis took it up. I mean, not a bad deal huh?

The ticketing lady told us that the tickets were sold out at the theatre itself, and only the agents like her had their allocation left to sell. She had only 2 tickets left because someone who bought the tickets earlier was unable to make it, so he or she returned for a refund. So now she’s selling it at a discounted price.

We made our way down to the theatre anyway, Her Majesty’s Theatre. Found the ticketing booth opened for some weird reason, so we went to ask.

And damn our stupidity, they still have tickets alright, and the seats we bought were only selling at 25 pounds! To add on to that, they were 25 pounds seats because their view are restricted.

We did what any Singaporean likes to do — complain, and were told to demand our refund back from the lady who cheated us. My Dad decided not to because, “here in London, you do that and you’d risk getting shot dead.” Which made a little bit of sense, so we just ignored the fact that we were cheated off 20 pounds in total. Which works out to
S$60.

Bitch got us.

Despite all that, Phantom was awesome. While, of course, all the scenes and everything are still the same as what you get in the movie, the feeling in the theatre is entirely different.

But the chantelier crash was… y’know, can be improved to make it a real crash actually.

So that sums up day one. Good night, while y’all in Singapore rise and shine.

GOOD EVENING PEOPLE.

…oh right it’s GMT+0 here.