day 24: munching munchen

Huge sausages, mega ribs, juicy roasted chicken, big leg of ham and more. Besides these glorious meat stalls, carts selling fresh fruit and vegetables surrounded the Viktualienmaekt Beer Garden. I held my breath in anticipation as I wait for Jerrain to complete the Sandrmans New Munich Tour.

Instead of joining the tour, I decided to wander around with my map. That way, I could pace myself (and my recovering right foot). Starting at the magnificent Neues Rathaus at Marienplatz, my first stop was the Frauenkirche (Church of Our Lady) and its tower. After 82 steps and an elevator ride, I stood at 86 metres overlooking the city. Before heading to Viktualienmaekt, I also checked out the Royal Residence, Theatinerkirche, Siegestor, bronze sculpture of Romeo's heart-throb
Juliet, and the Hofgarten.

The highlight of the day was the afternoon at the Englisher Garten. Viktualienmaekt had everything we needed for our picnic. We were spoilt for choice, and after 30 minutes of circling the shops and beer garden, our basket was filled with:

• 2 Knusprig Gegrillte Schweinshax'n (pork knuckles)
• Kabanossi-Pfanne (potato salad with salami)
• Bread stick with sea salt and herb
• Bag of Kelly's paprika potato crisps
• Nutella chocolate waffle
• Sporto chocolate milk
• Bottle of Coca-Cola

The Englisher Garten, which stretched across several train stations, had endless fields and streams running between them. We ate, listened to music, read, and chatted. Several dogs dropped by to sniff us out.

The park was everything we expected it to be and more. Except, we read from guidebooks and heard from our roommate Ben that there were people sunbathing in the nude. But we spotted none of that.

We headed back to the hostel early to prepare for tomorrow's 7am train. We decided to shorten our Munich stay by a day so we could spend more time in Interlaken. We needed to get away from the city.

• Location: Munich, Germany
• Cost: €2.20 roasted chicken leg for breakfast, €3 entrance to Turn Tower, €1 tea at Subway, €5.50 pork knuckle, €0.80 500ml chocolate milk, €1.30 bread stick
• Highlight: Friendly and extremely helpful locals! More than three people came up to me asking if I needed help with the map or to take a photo. A guy near the Englisher Garten even walked with us for a distance to make sure we did not get lost, when he was actually
  heading the opposite direction.

day 8: day in the park

You need a break every once in a while, even when you are on a holiday. My favourite way to recuperate is to find a nice park, an even patch of green, a small sandwich, and a bottle of chocolate milk.

I did just that for the majority of this afternoon in a park near the hostel. I managed to catch up on King David in 2 Samuel and researched a little about Paris and the next few stops with my Lonely Planet guide.

Beside the park was Brunswick Mall. There was an international food fair, serving everything from French pastries and sweets, Spanish seafood rice, Japanese gyoza, American hotdogs, English caramel swirls, and lots more. I chatted briefly with a Hong Konger selling Malay food (how strange) and he said this fair is on every Saturday. I am glad we managed to catch it.

It was time to leave London, via Eurostar to Paris. Having learnt our lesson when we missed the Megabus to Coventry, we arrived at Saint Pancras station way ahead of time. I am looking forward to meeting Norie!!

• Location: London Britain
• Cost: £2.80 chicken, bacon and cheese sandwich, 99p chocolate milk from Waitrose
• Highlight: Reading in the park at 20 degrees celcius, the occasional breeze can be a little chilly, but you quickly get warm up by the sun