Sanity Break!!!

Adrian and I decided that we should take a short sanity break and he suggested to go to Frankfurt. Besides to stay sane, there was also one other motive; to attend Basel World in Switzerland. You might be wondering, "Then shouldn't you guys be going to Switzerland instead?" Well, we reckoned that hotels would be expensive and might not have vacancy since it was peak period. We decided to go to Frankfurt and drove in from there. We also would took the opportunity to visit our friends there. One of our friends was very kind to put us up at his place. Beautiful view from his living room window. You basically caught the skyline of Frankfurt.

Day 2: Basel World

I jumped into Day 2 because Day 1 was just settling in and dinner so nothing very much to write about. We woke up early to get ourselves ready as the drive to Basel would take us about 3 hours. We were relying on the GPS system to get us there. I must say it was very convenient to drive around Europe. However, while the GPS was fantastic, it was not all reliable at times. On 1 or 2 occasions, the instructions came late and we missed the turn. The good thing was that the system was able to readjust itself and within seconds, we were on track again. It was a pity that I did not take a picture of the toilet bowl at the petrol kiosk. Well, it was state of the art. One would expect the toilet at the highway stops to be dirty but those in Germany were fantastic. After your flushed, there was a mechanism that would rotate the toilet seat such that it was sanitised for the next user.

The scale of Basel World was quite impressive and we got the opportunity to see the newest watch models for many renowned brands. What was disappointing was the absence of the big brands like the IWC, JLC etc. Nonetheless, it was still a good experience. Wondering why there aren't any pictures here? That is because somebody left the camera in the car. Thou shall not say who but I am definitely the innocent party :P

Day 3: City and the University town

The day started on a fantastic note because the weather was beautiful. It was like 23-24 degrees with nice sunshine and blue sky. We decided to take a slow walk to the city. It was a Friday morning and we met many who were jogging by the river, walking their dogs, reading on a bench and we were wondering..."don't Germans have to work on Fridays?"

One of the things that struck me immediately was the air. I think I have been deprived of fresh air since we move to Moscow and I almost forget how fresh air smells like. The walk took us almost 1.5 hours (good for weight losing as I have put on 3 kg from my last visit to Singapore). Here is some of what I saw...

After the morning walk, we met a friend for lunch. It was really kind of him to drive us out of the city for lunch. He took us to a beer garden where we had German beer, pork knuckles (I would prefer the Chinese version though) and some dessert. It was wonderful to dine in the open with mountains surrounding you and occasionally you could hear the neighing of the horses from the stable afar.

After lunch, we continued exploring the city. The city had an interesting mix of streets; some selling high-end branded goods, some selling wet market stuff, some were rows of restaurants etc.

By mid afternoon, we were done with our city tour and were scheduled to go to the university town about 1 hour drive from the city. The town is called.....Wurzburg. You can read more about the town via this link:

http://www.galenfrysinger.com/wurzburg.htm

It was a nice evening walk around the town while my friends went off for some business dinner. As it was Friday evening, there were many people but I did not feel crowded at all. I think it was because people were very relaxed and laid back and hence I did not feel the rush. Looking from one side of the town where a dam laid by it, I could see a fortress and rows and rows of vineyard. Beautiful!

Day 4: Flea Market & Vineyards

The day started with a visit to the flea market. I have always found flea markets an interesting place to browse around. If you look hard enough, you can always find interesting things or valuable things at a fraction of the price. It is also a place where you can see the way of life of the people living there through the things they sell. This one I went to, was selling many bicycle parts. Simply because cycling is a way of life in Frankfurt. There were also several stalls selling watches as Germany is one of the watch making countries. We also saw a few Russian stalls selling various types of Russian handicrafts. Not surprising since both countries are quite near to each other and historically connected too. If you stare hard at the photo on the right, you can find Zidane among the crowd too (fake one of course) :P

After the flea market, it was lunch and off to the vineyard at this town called the Rhein. It was here that I realised the cuckoo clock originated from Germany and not Switzerland (told to me by a friend but I did not check it up). It was fun tasting wine at the vineyard. The person attending to us was very friendly and patiently explaining the different kinds of Rieslings available (mostly white ones). We also got to taste the different categories. After doing the tasting, we put our order and went to the warehouse to collect our wines. This part was the best. The young chap guarding the warehouse was in a daze. When we gave him our order, he gave us 6x of what we bought. We didn't realise it until we drove off from the vineyard and were torned between keeping them or returning them to be guilt-free. We did the latter with much regrets because the chap was not even thankful when we drove back to return the excess.

After the first vineyard, we decided to take a walk at the town area. There were many interesting shops and I managed to buy a westie clay figurine (which I started collecting just before I lost Pebble) and a small cuckoo clock for the new house. We could have made it to our 2nd vineyard if not for the little accident that we met along the way. We were relying on the GPS which gave us a wrong instruction and the car rolled down a 3-step staircase. The car was stuck on the steps because it had lost traction at one of the rear wheels and was unable to reverse backwards. We reckoned that we better called for the tow agency rather than trying to push it as the damage would be too painful for my friend to bear (it was a new BMW 5-series). So, he called and we waited......while waiting, the curious Germans came to look at the car, discussed among themselves the situation, took pictures, said their "condolences" and even gave us water and dessert. It was an interesting experience and a blessing in disguise as the damage was minimal. You must be thinking that the tow agency got us out of the situation? Nain! The first service truck came after an hour and assessed the situation. Concluding that he could not do anything, he went back supposedly to call for more help. Nothing came and we waited and waited. Eventually, some Germans decided to do the most primitive way...to lift the car up using MAN power and reverse the car backwards. With the 7 MENs' help, within seconds, we were "rescued"!. MAN here is capitalised because although they were a great help, they were rather chauvinistic. My friend, a lady, wanted to be among the group to push the car was shoved aside by them :P

The conclusion of this episode also concluded our short sanity break. Till then....