Railpass Abuse

I´m in Berlin now, after a couple of relaxing days in Halle. First of all, the train ride from Paris to Halle was pretty comfortable. I was sharing my car with a couple of grad students at UCSF, so I didn´t really worry about anyone stealing my stuff (even though I fell asleep clutching my laptop).

Halle is a great city to relax in. After a busy 9 days in London/Paris, I could finally just relax and walk around at leisure. Ganesh´s sister Geetha picked me up from the train station and showed me around the next two days, so I didn´t really have to worry about too much. I was the only person staying at the hostel (maybe 1 more in a different room), so that was a plus too. Halle isn´t really a "happening place" so to speak, but it does have a nice, lively crowd, and a lot of interesting architecture. For example, the city hall has open elevators that continue to move up and down, so you have to jump into one and jump out before it´s too late. It´s exactly like platform jumping in Super Mario. Amazingly, no one has been injured to date. The next day, we both traveled to Weißenfelz (pronounced Vye-Zen-Felts), Buchenwald/Weimar, and Leipzig.

Buchenwald: This was particularly interesting, because it was a large Nazi concentration camp, later turned into a Soviet prision under the GDR. I was expecting to feel somber, and shocked, etc, but instead, this place felt extremely eerie. It was like a large void, with no buildings, plantlife, and animals in space where the camp once stood. Unlike Auschwitz and Daccau, Buchenwald was not a death/extermination camp, yet it felt....wrong.

Weißenfelz: Nothing of too much interest except an east german town.

Leipzig: An urban culture center that was pretty fun. We just had dinner here and walked around a bit. Oh, I can also now add another animal to my list of weird things eaten: Kangaroo. Yes. I had kangaroo meat with boiled cherries. It was delicious. Also, german beer is great. Better than great. Now I´m not a beer drinker, but this was awesome.

Today, I took the train to Berlin, and spent the day walking around and seeing things such as Checkpoint Charlie, the Berlin Wall, the Reichstag, and some random things. I love this place...so much activity and culture. Also, The subway system is 24hr on fridays and saturdays, and clubs never close so you can party forever.

So yea....hm....to fill more space, let me put some interesting things I´ve noticed about Germany:
- Water is a premium commodity. No one serves it, and you have to pay for it if you want it. Also, normal water is even rarer...chances are that you´ll get fizzy water....I´m surprised that German people don´t randomly die on the street from dehydration. Apparently this is all the handiwork of the Food+drink lobby.....bastards.
- Credit cards aren´t really used or accepted in most places here....so inconvenient..
- Public transportation relies on the honor system in most cases. I used the subway all day in Berlin without paying...I had a railpass that acted as tickets, but they never checked it. Only high-speed trains are a little strict.
- Steins are awesome...´nuff said.
- All in all, I love this place. The people are nice, the food is delicious, and there are a lot of fun things to do.

Anways, I have to take a train to Sweden in an hour to meet up with Tuan, Mikiko, and Anton, so Auf Wiedersehen!

Thoughts on Paris

I've just finished my 4-day journey in Paris, and am about to head off to Germany. Overall, Paris is a beautiful city marred with unhospitable service, tourist traps in even the most remote parts, and crowds of both tourists and stabby pickpockets.

Thursday - Friday: Day of hell (kind of), because I walked halfway across Paris on 3hrs of sleep, after walking halfway through London. I also saw Harry Potter, which was amazing. The entire theater looked like an opera house, complete with balconies. Everyone was also really into the movie, and really....British! After that, I met up with Mounir, ate dinner with him, and stayed at his house, until he dropped me off at the airport at 4am. Paris was tiring, but I finally got to meet up with Kai-ling after 2 years. She's doing her masters in a city in the west of France, and was in Paris for a couple days before leaving for home in Taiwan. After sleeping for a bit, we both headed to the Basilisque d'Sacre Coere in Montematre, which is where the hotel (read: crap) is located.

Saturday: Another day of hell, as I sat in the crowd on the Champs-Elysee for 4 hours+ watching the Bastille day parade. On the plus side, I got to see the president of France from only 20 feet away. On a side note, there is absolutely no security. Even the president was in a jeep, waving at people. I guess no one really cares about France enough to hate them. The highlight was what seemed like their entire armed forces, helicopters, tanks, and all, parading down the street in full attire. The afternoon was another resting period before we went to see the Notre Dame Cathedral. After that, we saw the fireworks in front of the Eiffel Tower, which kind of sucked. They don't know how to put on a proper show. The funny part was that they were trying to sync the show with music, and things like Star Wars, Harry Potter, James Bond, and (I'm not kidding) some Hindi Film song showed up. This is supposed to be about French pride...whatever.

Sunday: Spent the entire day baking in the hot sun in Versailles. The palace was amazing, and gardens were even more so. Imagine a pool so long that planes could land on it. Other highlights were the hall of mirrors, the king's chambers, and the shady ticket vendor that saved us a 3-hour wait in line. It was pretty funny because when we left the palace finally, the line for that side vendor was half as long as the normal (read: legitimate) line. In the evening I had a free dinner at a Chinese restaurant that Kai-ling's friend's uncle owns. Sweet. Oh, and sometime in the evening I was in a big public area, with lots of cops, and some guy tells me to put away my laptop because pickpockets like to stab. Fun. (Don't worry, there were a ton of cops and other people around. I have some street-smarts. I of course put it away and left though...)

Monday (Today): Said bye to Kai-Ling in the morning, and watched some tv on my laptop until checkout time at noon. The afternoon was spent in the Louvre. I just got an audioguide, so I could understand all the history better, and set off. I managed to see about 60-70% of the museum in about 4 hours, which is pretty good. My favorite parts of the museum are the statues depecting stories from Ancient Greece, the section on Babylon/Mesopotamia (Hammurabi's Code is there, near intact), and the Egyptian stuff related to Stargate (statue of Lord Baal, and Anubis statues). Some of the paintings were pretty interesting, but I'm not really into that kind of stuff. The Mona Lisa was....overhyped. Just for Thatha, I took pictures of the statues of L'hopital, Laplace, and Descartes. After seeing the museum, I walked around until I found somewhere cheap to eat, and then headed to the internet cafe in Anvers, across from my hotel. Until next time!

BONUS!
A map of my walks in London and Paris. The black route in London, and the one in Paris was completed in the span of 1 day (my legs still hurt):

London

Paris

Cheers, mate

I've been in London for 5 days now, and I'm absolutely loving it! I could easily spend a month or more here, just sightseeing and relaxing. Here's a recap of my week:

Tuesday: Took the tube to Tottenham Court Rd. to get a cheap digital camera. I got a Samsung S730 7.2 Megapixel camera w/ "Advanced Shake Reduction," which actually works suprisingly well. The only thing is that electronics are horribly expensive in London. Even though I haggled it down from £150 to £100 for the camera, 1GB SD card, and batteries, it's still $50 more expensive than if I had bought it on amazon. Anyways, so after that I went to the British Museum with a friend from the Netherlands. This is this largest museum I have ever seen in my life. I spent about 3-4 hours there and only saw about 20%. They have an amazingly large collection of historical artifacts and documents, spanning the last 12,000 years. Some of the things I saw--
- The Rosetta Stone
- Lots of mummies, including mummified bulls, and cats
- Ancient texts written in Linear B, and the undeciphered Linear A
- Intact statues and pottery from Ancient Greece
- Farming tools, and burials from 7000BC
- A collection of 15,000+ coins from the Roman Empire, that looks the same as modern currency
It's ridiculous. I saw more statues from the Parthenon, than in the actual Parthenon in Greece! The more surprising part of my trip involved running into my relatives that happened to be travelling to London at the same time. Its soo crazy! Of all the places in Europe to be, and of all the places in London, I just "happened" to run into Sati's sister's family, and then Ganesh, Sati, and baby Kunal. I still can't get over it... I then spent the the rest of day hanging out with them. I then saw Trafalgar Square, and then relaxed at their hotel while eating amazing Indian food.

Wed: I got up late, and then went to Buckingham Palace with Alex (from Missouri), and Tim (from Australia). Alex and I then went to Piccadilly Circus, and walked along Coventry Rd. toward Leicester Square/Soho. We then ate Chicken Tikka from a street vendor, and walked around. After a nap in the hostel, a bunch of us (3 Aussies, 1 other American, and a Spaniard) went to a private club party and had a great time.

Thurs: I'm sitting in an Internet cafe, killing time before I meet up with Mounir, my dad's friend from work. I'm also going to see Harry Potter here in the early afternoon. The theater (theatre?) that I'm going to see it at is the largest, fanciest one in london. It has balcony seating!

London, England

I've been in London for a day and a half now. The flight here was pretty amazing. Air Canada has individual touchscreens, power outlets, and *normal* headphone jacks for each seat! Anyways, London is amazing. First thing I did here was buy an Oyster card, an RFID subway card. I also met a bunch of nice people in the hostel and have been hanging out with them for the past day. I tried french alchohol, which tastes exactly like somph (sp?), walked around Liecester Square, and ate a kofte kabab. Today was pretty mellow, as I just took a morning walk, visited the Imperial War Museum, and passed out from jet lag for 4 hours. The War Museum is amazing, as they have collected historical documents, vehicles, and weaponry from every war in the past 100 years. It took me about 3 hours to see it all. Some of the interesting things I saw:
- Fmr. President Eisenhower's handwritten back-up note in case D-Day failed, along with a slew of confidential documents about Operation Overlord.
- An experimental German jet fighter from the end of the war
- A complete V2 rocket (really really tall)
- Spy gear from a former MI6 agent, including a pipe-pistol, gas-can bombs, and fake passports
- A complete model of Auschwitz with real voice recordings of SAS guards and Jewish prisoners
- A life-sized trench, that you could walk through and "experience" trench warfare
- Partial regiment of decommissioned tanks, complete with armaments
- Uniforms and letters of soldiers from every country who participated in a modern war (Ex. India and Pakistan equipment from Kashmir conflict(s))

Tomorrow, I'm going to try finding a second-hand shop so I can find a cheap digital camera. I'm stupid and left it at home...Also, I'm going to try walking/taking a bus along south bank, starting at the Tower of London, and ending at Buckingham palace. Later this week, I'm going to try to see the Harry Potter premiere!

Eriatarka

Back for another update. Sorry for taking so long...anyways.... Club day was really fun several weekends ago. The premise is basically you pay 15 dollars and you get a wristband that gets you admission into any club in the city. On that friday, before clubbing, I was supposed to meet my friend Woo-jeon to see his rock band perform. Unfortunately there was some heavy rain/traffic that day and what should have been a 90 min. bus ride became 3 1/2 hours long.

Another interesting thing happened last weekend. So actually I bought a ticket to japan several weeks before (right before my last post), and planned to go and surprise all my friends there. To prevent arriving without any idea of where people are, I hired the help of an accomplice. With this partner in crime (don't know if you're reading this O, but sorry got a new partner) I surprised/scared my friends pretty well. Man, I love japan so much. I was only there for 5 days/4 nights and I already want to stay there for another year. I just visited the same city that I studied abroad at last year. The cool thing about this visit is that I got to see a lot of new things that I didn't even knew existed before. Like last year, leaving that place was the hardest thing ever. On top of that, I had a presentation due the following friday (last friday).

Cool things I'm going to do soon:
- Metallica/Tool concert in Seoul Olympic Stadium on tuesday the 15th
- Some friends of mine are coming to Daejeon soon for school, so I'm not going to be only person here in a bit
- Going to have my final presentation Friday, Aug 25th....after which I'll be homeless as my dormitory lease ends.
- Planning to choose a direction and keep biking...It's a poor substitute for a car, but this way I can see more of the country.

Some interesting things about KAIST.
- There are a large number of stray cats.....which are constantly fed by sad-looking students. I've seen one guy feeding the cats for several hours. My friend tells me they do that to impress girls with their sensitivity...Whatever works I guess..
- There is a ghost that lives in the mechanical engr. building. It gets up at around 8pm, and keeps summoning the elevators to the basement. Everytime you ride the elevator up alone, the whole thing starts shaking violently at around the 4th floor.....I swear.
- All of the doors are automatic, and after 7pm, you need to press a button just to exit a building.
- Speaking of automatic doors.....they are deadly, they just close without any care about whats in the way. It's closed on me several times......luckily it doesn't hurt.....too much.
- One of my lab members drives his sister's car, a bright red morning glory, which is decked out with snoopy logos on the doors. There are a wide assortment of stuffed animals, and some very fruity scented candles. The seat covers even look like ninja turtles (that's cool)...Now add in an all-male lab that goes out to lunch every day. We look like the coolest people in Kaist.....haha..