Germany - Munich Zentrum (City Center)

This post was long overdue. I had been busy coping with exams, and now the results were out. I passed both of them :D

After drinking a couple of 1L glasses of beer at Oktoberfest I decided to take a walk around Munich's Zentrum. 

Similar to the Netherlands, a lot of the buildings still look classical. The churches are beautiful.

I also managed to see the Glockenspiel in work at exactly 5 PM. At first I did not even realize that I was looking at the famous Glockenspiel; I only stood there because there was a huge crowd of people taking photos, and I saw very detailed arrangement of statues moving around.

It was like a giant cuckoo clock. But instead of a cuckoo, it was a parade of beautifully crafted statues.

Close to the Glockenspiel lies an Apple Store. If I remember correctly, when I went to Munich, only a few weeks had passed after the release of iPhone 5. I'm not a really big fan of it especially after witnessing how badly Apple Maps perform (and they said goodbye to Google Maps; how stupid).

Apple Store. Crowded as always. Not sure if people really buy something there.

Well, I didn't have much time to explore the entire Zentrum. My goal at that time was to find drindl, the traditional Bavarian dress people wear to Oktoberfest. I call it a costume, but my friend who has been accustomed to the culture refuses to call it a costume, but rather a dress :)

My friend was still wearing the fancy beer-barrel hat he got from Oktoberfest. Even on the street you could still see people dressing up in drindl (females) and leatherpants (males). People were still in the Oktoberfest mood.

Most shops closed at 6 pm even though it was a Saturday. I am still not used to the fact that shops close early. In Asia, most shops close at 8 pm. And even in the United States, I believe. Especially during the weekends, the opening hours of shops normally extend to 9 or 10 pm. But in the Netherlands and in Munich, shops close really early. Even one bank in the Netherlands, ABN Amro, opens at 1 pm on Monday. It's the first day of working day, and they open at 1 pm. I find this somehow weird, as if they are not keen to run the business LOL. Well, it's a cultural difference. Life is somehow more slack, which is nice.

At night, the city turned even more beautiful.

It gives a really romantic feeling. There are no blinding city lights like in New York City, but you could still see the city scenery.

Oh, I have to tell a funny story here. So basically there were quite a number of drunk people on the street. In contrast to the Netherlands where every non-Asian person, local or not local, greets all fair-skinned Asians "ni hao" no matter where the Asians come from, people in Munich greet you "konnichiwa" instead. I wonder if it's some sort of European joke, greeting random Asians on the street with the language of the Asian country that occupies the highest population in the area.

I love Munich and I'd love to explore more of it. I'd love to revisit it again someday!

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Instant Noodles around the World 9 - Campbell's Curry Noodle

I went to C1000 the other day and was surprised to see Campbell's instant noodle!

I hate to say this but instant noodle market is dominated by Asians. You don't see instant noodles made by Western companies doing well in the market. Face the reality: Asians are more familiar with this type of noodle (not pasta). In terms of flavor, Asian taste has a lot of advantages because we mostly drink thin, clear soup (creamy or thick soups are considered Western food most of the time). You don't really find any instant noodles with thick soup unless you are buying something like instant curry udon.  And (pssst) Asians know how to use MSG better. LOL.

Nevertheless, there is no reason not to try something new. After all, I might like it. Well, let's start with the evaluation part, as usual.

What I find interesting is the fact that it can be either cooked by hot water for 3 minutes or boiled for +/- 3 minutes. You see, boiling for about 3 minutes and letting it sit in an open bowl for 3 minutes is very different. Unlike cup noodles, there is no lid to cover the bowl (at least the instruction doesn't say you need a lid to cover the bowl).

I tried cooking it using the hot water method just to try it out, and it didn't really work out well.

The noodle was still uncooked on the inside and by the time it's done, the soup has become somehow cold. The weakness with this method is the fact that the place this instant noodle is sold, the Netherlands, has generally low temperature aside from summer time. Even in the tropics we still use the aluminum lid provided in cup noodles to keep the heat from escaping, and the cooking time is still 3 minutes. Also, generally cup noodles have thinner, softer noodles than noodles in packs.

That aside, the flavor was lacking. There was no kick to the flavor, and the flavor does not coat the noodle very well. The condiments made it look more value added but I did not see it as a big plus point.

Maybe if I cook it over the stove it would taste better. Soups that are no longer warm slightly loses its taste and you cannot smell the aroma, which is part of the eating experience.

I'm not sure if I will buy this product again because I still prefer other Asian brands like IndoMie, Shin Ramyun and MAMA. 

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Germany - McDonald's Menu

I'm back with stories when I was in Germany! We made a short break at McDonalds in between the long drive from the Netherlands. And of course, as usual, I tried to look for the special menu in Germany's McDonalds. I found this:

I'm not sure what the German words say but on the menu it says Big South Africa Big Mac. 

The bread was coated with some sort of spices. With beef patties, lettuce, tomato and cheese covered in somehow spicy paprika sauce. I expected the bread to be somehow better because German breads are really famous. Unfortunately I am not a bread expert because my primary carbohydrate source is still rice and noodles (maybe pasta), so I can't really tell a difference.

There are also other unique menus like Big Argentina Barbecue and Wan Tan (funny how they sell fried Chinese dumplings in Germany - I doubt China's McDonalds have these).

Surprisingly, I don't see anything related to wurst or any other German sausages. No sauerkrauts (sour, fermented cabbage) as well.

What about the fries?

 HUGE.

And actually we were a little disappointed because the fries were not up to standard. They were flimsy and not crispy :( I don't know if it's the same across Germany or we were just unlucky, but these fries were definitely not good.

Inside McDonalds, we also found McCafe. And what's interesting is that the McCafe here sells bubble tea! And the choices are actually in English, so it was fairly easy to read.

What puzzles me was the fact that you have to add an extra flavor syrup for everything, including milk tea. I mean, originally, in Asia, when you ordered bubble milk tea, you don't put any flavorings unless it's stated in the menu. Milk tea means milk, tea and sugar, and nothing else. I was forced to add a flavor to my milk tea (I guess I could refuse but I paid for it, so why shouldn't I add a flavor?). The only flavor that makes sense was vanilla. I don't want to add anything like mango and citrus flavors into my milk tea.

In the end I bought hibiscus milk tea because I've had hibiscus tea before and I liked it, but I haven't tried adding milk to hibiscus tea. Hibiscus tea is generally very fruity; sometimes acidic and if you don't add sugar it is quite astringent. Drinking hibiscus tea with sugar feels like drinking some kind of red-fruit juice because of its color and its taste.

And here, they don't sell tapioca pearls but BOBA (small gel balls that are still liquid on the inside but a firm gel on the outside - a product made with alginate gel). I had a bad experience with chocolate-flavored BOBA, so I decided to add strawberry-flavored BOBA to my hibiscus milk tea.

I forgot to take a picture before I drank it because I was too hungry at that time.  I like the hibiscus milk tea, but adding vanilla makes it feel a little bit too creamy (even though there's no addition of cream in the tea). Also, the strawberry BOBA was not satisfactory. The skin of the BOBA is quite thick so after it burst in the mouth you still have to chew the skin. And chewing the skin is like chewing on eggshell membrane or something like that. The strawberry flavor was also too strong, and it leaks easily to the drink. If you don't finish the drink fast, you'll end up drinking strawberry hibiscus milk tea instead of drinking hibiscus milk tea with strawberry-flavored BOBA.

If I come back to McDonald's in Germany, I think I will order the hibiscus tea again. This time, without any pearls. And no french fries either. I might want to try the wan tan although I am sure I will be dissatisfied with it because I know what authentic wan tan should taste like and I know how to make them. I have a tendency of getting unsatisfied when I bought something that I can prepare on my own and mine actually tastes better (or equally delicious, at least).

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Germany - Oktoberfest in Munich: Ein Prosit!

The Netherlands is very, very close to Germany, so why not celebrate the famous Oktoberfest in its original location? 

My friends and I decided to go to Munich on the 5th of October, the last weekend of Oktoberfest. Our university's international students club organized a day trip to Munich the weekend before but we had to meet our advisor to talk about our group projects.

From almost the southmost part of the Netherlands, the trip should took us about 8 hours according to Michelin direction guidance but things did not run so smoothly. It took us longer than we thought to get the car from the rental car service. We left Utrecht at 4pm on Friday instead of the initial plan of 2pm. We had three cars in a chain, and with so much traffic it was quite difficult to stay linked up, so eventually we split up and... well, we arrived 12 hours later, tired and sore.

The next day it was quite difficult for us to wake up early as planned. We bought group tickets for the train (10.70 euro for 5 people unlimited ride for 1 day) and headed for the Oktoberfest. It was very crowded, but the weather was very beautiful (22 degrees C) and everyone was in festive mood.

Many people dressed up in the traditional Bavarian costume:

If you play FF 7, you will be familiar with this leather pants design ;)

The Oktoberfest area was huge. It's a little different from what I had thought. When I was in Philadelphia I also went for an Oktoberfest event where they set up tents and sell beers and wursts, and that was it. The real Oktoberfest is more than just drinking beers and eating sausages. It is truly a festival, sort of like a carnival as well. There were roller coasters and other attractions, souvenir shops, restaurants, pubs, beer houses... it's more than just a drink-and-die party.

We tried to find a beer house to settle in, and by 11 in the morning, every beer house was crowded with people. We kept looking around for places where we can enter, but in the end we decided to pick one and just wait for opportunities to get in.

Oh, by the way, we bought a nice traditional Bavarian food for lunch: the pork knuckles :D

It was very greasy and oily but it was very flavorful. And I was very hungry at that time, so it tasted very yummy to me.

After waiting in line for almost 2 hours we finally got in.

Yes, that's the size of the beer glass: 1 liter. Nothing less. It costs you 10 euro. For ladies and for drunkards who need to drink something light, you can also order a half beer, half lemonade drink. It helps you to refresh, and of course dilute the alcohol content. But if your goal is to get drunk, then just go for the beer.

People drink and dance inside the beer house. There was a beer / drinking song that you have to sing periodically:

Ein Prosit, ein Prosit, Der Gemütlichkeit!!

Then you count from one to three in German:

Eins, zwei, drei g'suffa!

And drink up! :D


You don't have to drink a lot if you can't take up alcohols. And if you feel that you've been having too much alcohol, you can always buy some giant pretzels (to me it is gigantic but I'm not sure if it's the normal size - it's bigger than my head) and sugary huge donuts (I don't know the name) to help you recover. An alcohol weakling like me only managed to drink 1 glass of beer and 1 glass of lemonade-beer. Sometimes I don't like the fact that I can't handle alcohols really well, but most of the time I'm glad because it saves me some money and it keeps my liver happier.

I only spent about 4 hours in Oktoberfest because I had not been to Munich before, so I wanted to explore the Zentrum (city center).

I will share more stories of Munich next time. It's study week, so I have to get the gears moving!

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The Netherlands - McDonalds menu that you can find only in this country

Last month in this post I told you that I didn't see anything different in McDonalds in the Netherlands. I'm sorry, I lied. There is actually something called McKroket. If you understand Indonesian, yes, kroket in the Netherlands refers to the same food in Indonesia. The only difference is the way kroket is eaten: in Indonesia, kroket is a snack that is eaten as it is, and in the Netherlands, you normally eat kroket smashed on a bread, and then topped with mustard sauce.

The packaging was rather fancy, emphasizing the fact that it is only available in the Netherlands. I am not a frequent McDonald customer so I'm not sure how they normally package a burger, but I find the packaging rather fancy.

I am not too familiar with eating kroket with bread or bun, but it was pretty good. There's beef in the kroket but you can't really feel the texture, and I wonder how much ground beef was used in the kroket. I like it, but I don't love it. I'm confident I can eat this thing again, but I will neither look for it nor crave for it.

McKroket has been there since 1999, so the package says.

Another menu that is limited only for the Netherlands branches is McMood, which is below:

My friend ordered it. I didn't have the chance to take a photo of the box but it was less interesting than the McKroket's. I still don't understand why they call it McMood. I suppose it improves your mood because it's tasty, but in simple words, it's a beef burger with a sunny side up egg with tomato slices and lettuce, and probably some sort of sauce that is close to a mayonnaise, one of the ultimate sauce in the Netherlands.

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Failures can be fun

A while ago I kept posting things like these on my Facebook wall:

[Achievement Unlocked] Biking in the rain.

[Achievement Unlocked] Biked from Bornsesteeg to Ede (7.4 km) with a medium-sized rice cooker and textbooks. 

[Achievement Unlocked] Let go of your left/right hand off the bike handle for 15 seconds while riding the bike without losing balance.

Some of my friends told me that these posts make my learning-how-to-bike days something you'd see on your smartphone games. It's not entirely wrong. Compare this:

"Today was really shitty because it rained and I had to bike 7.4 km from home to school :("

to

"[Achievement Unlocked] Biking in the rain"

Both of them tell you the same event, but from different angles. You can make your days feel rough, but you can also make your day seem better because you achieved something new. I actually look forward to improving myself because I can post new things like "biking while texting on my phone" or something like that.

Earlier today someone asked me how long did it take for me to learn how to bike, and I said 2 hours. And she was amazed. But what happened within those two hours was:

I fell every 5 seconds I was on the bike, stood up, brought my bike up on the slope, went down the slope, fell, stood up again, and repeated everything until I got the hang of it. I stepped over a pile of dog poo. I broke my bike's bell. Nasty bugs stung my arms. I was drenched in sweat and I smelled like fermented shit. My legs were severely bruised (my mom couldn't stop worrying after seeing a palm-sized bruise on my leg).

That sounded like a complain. Truth to be told, it was not the most pleasant experience ever, but I can make a good story out of it. I got a lot of mixed reaction from people:

"That's cool! You finally managed to ride a bike!"
"What? You only learned how to bike at this age?"
"Well,  there's an easier way to learn this."
"Congratulations, you made it!"

and a conversation started. It's fun to talk about it, and every time I remember those two hellish hour, I become increasingly motivated to challenge more absurd things that I have to face.

Something that doesn't kill you makes you stronger, as people say :)

When you face failure, I'm sure you feel terrible (or at the very least, you are not too happy about it). But once you get over a failure, and if you positively think about it in future, it can turn into something fun. This is what I tell myself over and over again, and this is why I can keep smiling in times of adversities.

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Instant Noodles around the World 8 - Korean Udon

Eating instant noodle too much is not good for you because most of the time the noodle has been deep fried. But what about eating something that has not been deep fried?

Yes, udon. It's a type of wheat-flour noodle that is very chewy and very thick. All these years I have never seen any type of thick udon sold in its dried form. Yes, you can buy udon in its dried form as well, but the noodles are not going to be as thick as those sold in its wet form. The thickness of the dried udon is probably 10 times thinner than the wet udon.

I didn't have time to take a photo of the contents still in its original packaging because there were other people in the kitchen and although they must have seen me taking pictures of food with my phone, I feel somehow embarrassed to take pictures of instant noodle packaging.

As I expected, the noodle is still in its wet form. The noodle was vacuum packed separately in a thick PET bag and before I heat it up in water the noodle was actually rather brittle but you can definitely feel the noodle's chewiness. It's quite astonishing how they managed to entrap moisture within the noodle and put it into a glassy state. And the noodle perfectly returns to its rubbery state when you heat it up in water: the noodle remains chewy and each strain doesn't stick to each other. No oil was added at this point, by the way.

The whole concept was great, but the overall taste is not satisfactory. It doesn't live up to its "suggested way to prepare" picture (and this is of course nothing new), especially the soup color. It's so brown and cloudy. I've had Japanese version of instant udon, and the soup was much better. I like the seaweed bits in it, but that's the only positive thing about the soup that I could say.

The packaging is excellent and the quality of the noodle is pretty good. I wish they could reformulate the soup base a little bit.

My verdict? If I miss eating udon and there is no restaurant around me selling udon, I will buy this and make my own soup.

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