Other Parts of Dresden

Volkswagen's "Transparent Factory". I'm guessing that they don't actually make the cars here. It looks like a hell of a lot of money to spend just for a showroom though.

The Großer Garten. Where Dresdeners go to relax and enjoy the greenery


Surprisingly, I found a group of people playing roller hockey.

The Zwinger. It used to be a orangery, but now it hosts a bunch of museums. I think I'll buy a day-pass for all the museums and check it out all at once.


There hasn't been any rain in over a month. You can see the river level is pretty low. I think we're heading for a drought this season. There isn't rain in the forecast for the next 6 days either. Hopefully there'll be some rain soon, during the weekdays though.

Another sunny weekend.

This weekend for me was pretty chill. There was this festival, called the Neustadt Festival. I couldn't figure out what it was all about through a google translated page of the event, so I decided to check it out. It was pretty much a carnival, more geared towards kids and parents. Now here's the difference between a carnival in North America and a carnival in Germany. There were food stalls lined down a street, and pretty much every 5th vendor was a beer vendor.




I decided to get some night shots of this beautiful city as well.

Here's a small brass band playing in the Altstadt, the touristy part of Dresden.

Another cool shot.

Not sure what this building is...

The Procession of Princes.


The Opera House.

The Cathedral.

Another cool view.

My camera (Canon Powershot SD600) takes great day pics, but OK night shots. You can definitely see the noise in the shots. I shot in "manual" mode with the ISO forced to 80, 2-4 seconds of shutter. Definitely pushing the limits of my tiny ultra compact.

I might try another round of night shots, see if I can get my camera to take better shots. I dropped my camera in some dirt, so it might not be taking the best pics anymore.

Second Language.

I went around the shops near my apartment looking for some foreign foods that I might be able to use to make some non-European dishes. I've seen these stores before, but they've always been closed because I usually see these shops after work, after regular business hours. Unlike North America, things tend to close relatively early, which means shopping after work is really difficult.

I went to the Indian store and bought some curry paste. Then I found a butcher, where I wanted to buy some beef for goulash I was planning to make later in the day. Unfortunately, no one spoke any English in this shop, so I had to use my very limited German and a lot of pointing to get what I needed.

Then I went to this tiny Korean shop that sells maybe 10 different items. Of course, the Korean lady at the store tried to speak to me in German, trying to explain something to me, and of course I had no clue what she was saying and she couldn't speak English. One of the customers asked me if I was Korean. When I answered that I was Japanese, the Korean store owner surprised me by speaking fluent Japanese to me. I was relieved to finally be able to communicate with someone.

Living in a country where I can't speak the language makes me really appreciate the ability to speak the language. The Germans are surprisingly tolerant of my inability to speak German. I would imagine that there would be less tolerance in Canada and the US (especially) .

In any case, I found that I know much more Japanese than I ever gave myself credit for. The lady at the store gave me directions to two Asian markets in the Dresden area, which I checked out later in the day. Good thing, because I thought I would have to cook meat and potatoes for the next 5 months.

For the beer lovers.

If you love beer, here's another reason to visit the Czech Republic. The sign says 25 CZK for 0.5L of beer. $1 CDN is about 18 CZK.

An interesting thing about beer in Czech republic (and really confusing), is that they differentiate beer by degrees. Usually, they have 10°, 11°, and 12°. From what I understand, the number represents the amount of hops used to make the beer. The higher the number, the more hops. The more hops, the more alcohol content, and the darker the beer.

Prague is great.

I mentioned earlier that beer is cheap in Germany. Well, I was wrong. Beer is cheap in the Czech republic. It is definitely the highest quality beer you can get for the price. You can get a 0.5L of beer for 20-25 CZK ($1 CDN = 18 CZK) at a bar and 5-10 CZK in the grocery store, and the beer is excellent. No wonder the Czech's place first in beer consumption per capita. Wikipedia has a pretty interesting list (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_beer_consumption_per_capita). Unsurprisingly, Ireland places second and Germany places third.

I went to Prague this weekend with Jae (a coworker). I've been to Prague 3 years ago as part of my trip around western Europe after my graduation and I figured that I needed to see it again. Unfortunately, there was a setback very early on. We thought the train left the station at 9:09am, but that was the time for the main station in Dresden, not the Neustadt station we were at. So we missed that train and had to take the next train 2 hours later. We both felt pretty bad about that, because Jae's friends were waiting for us in Prague.

I had a pretty interesting experience this weekend. Jae's friends were traveler's he met while he was backpacking through Nepal and Tibet, a couple consisting of a British guy and a Czech girl. They are travelholics. They've traveled to so many incredible places: Nepal, Tibet, Indonesia, Philippines, Africa, and the list goes on.

They gave us a day tour of Prague, or as much as they could, since our time was cut short due to our inability to catch a train.

I forgot where this is, but it's representative of Prague's beauty.


A cathedral facing a square with a famous clock. Every hour, on the hour, the clock rings and a some colourful dolls come out. If you look at the huge crowd gathering around this clock, you'd think they're expecting to hear a speech from the pope. It's actually quite underwhelming.


A view of the famous castle from across the river.

This bridge is always packed. There are a lot of vendors on this bridge selling paintings and other sorts of art.

A picture of our group: Monica, Alan, Jae.

A great view ruined by a crane.

Chillin' at a Czech beergarden.

At night, our tour guides took us to a concert at a small bar in a small town 40km from Prague. Here's a picture of the last band that played. They're a ska band and they were really good. They reminded me of the Might Mighty Bosstones.

There were a few dogs running around the bar, which I thought was funny. It seems to be pretty common for the Czechs bring their canine family members to the bar.

Monica and her parents fed us and put us up for the night, which was really nice of her. If you're reading this, thanks again, and good luck on your next trip!

EDIT: Here's a link to Allan's blog. He's traveled to many interesting places...

It's interesting going to the supermarket.

It's always interesting going to a supermarket in a different country. I've been going to a big one on my way home from work.

The first thing I noticed was that their fruits and vegetables were seriously lacking in selection and freshness. There are a lot of fruit/vegetable stands near my apartment, so I assume people do their produce shopping there. Also, their potatoes and onions are tiny! Strange, considering potatoes and onions are part of the German staple foods.

Butter is cheap. Really cheap. Half a stick for a euro, which would normally be $3 or so in Canada. Also, some cheeses are really cheap too. I bought a wedge of brie, that would normally be $5, for 1 euro, a small wheel of camebert (sp?) for 1 euro as well. This is great, because the cheese goes really well with the fresh bread I get for breakfast. Oh, and there's a ridiculous selection of cheeses, which is awesome.

Also, there's an entire aisle for chocolate! Chocolates of every kind. I bought some really nice 70% cocoa chocolate for 0.69 euros. I have no clue why Germans aren't fat.

Of course there's a huge selection of cured meats, which are conveniently unlabeled. The kinds and prices are listed, but it's not listed beside the actual product.

Milk comes in 1.5% or 3.25% fat. Crazy Germans.

The Swiss Saxony (Or the Saxonian Swiss?)

This Sunday, I went on a trip to a place called the Swiss Saxony (or Saxonian Swiss) with the other two Canadians, Paul and Jae. It's about and hour east of Dresden, up the Elbe river, the opposite direction of my bike trip to Meissen. There are some really cool rock and cliff formations. It's popular with rock climbers because of the large number of vertical cliffs you can climb. It's quite impressive.

We started at a tiny tiny town called Rathen, which was crawling with tourists...

Here's a view of Rathen from on top of the cliffs. It was an awesome day, with incredible visibility.

A look to the west.

These rock formations look really cool.

Two guys decided to climb up that rock that's situated beside the middle of the bridge. Apparently this bridge is pretty old. I wonder why it was built.

More cool scenery.

Some more neat rock formations that we saw further in our hike.
A view from the biergarten at Rathen.

Chilin at the biergarten after our hike. Mmmmm... Warsteiner. They have this on sale at the LCBO in 500ml cans.

Bike trip to Meissen

Meissen is a town that's about 25km bike from Dresden (50km round trip). The bike path is along the Elbe river, which passes through Dresden. Thankfully, there's a paved bike path along the Elbe river, which we used to get to Meissen.

Meissen was the birth place of high-quality porcelain produced in Europe. Before that time, high-quality porcelain was imported from China. The city's now a tourist town, with a few porcelain stores, and apparently there's a few porcelain factories around there.

My Canadian coworker, Jae, rented these crappy bikes for 10 Euro for the day. They were sufficient, but it was pretty embarrassing riding these things. Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture of it. Another German coworker and his wife joined us as well.

Biking along a canola plantation.
A beer garden along the bike path.

Through a small small town.

Another town.

A bunch of vineyards, surprise surprise.

Meissen.


We sat at a restaurant with a nice view, and had a Radler (literally means biker), which is a drink that's 1/2 pilsner beer and 1/2 sprite. An interesting combo. There's another interesting drink that's 1/2 pilsner beer and 1/2 coke. They were pretty refreshing...

On the way back, we had to rush back so we could get the bikes back before 6pm. We got there at 5:55pm, and just as we got back, one of my tires went out.

My Apartment

Here are a few pics of my apartment. It's 40 sq. m, or 400 sqft. It's not huge, it's not small. I only brought clothes with me, so I really don't need that big of a space anyway.

The hallway into my apartment.

My living room. The bedroom is behind the curtains.
The kitchen area, which is part of my living room.
A shot of the living room from my bedroom.

The bedroom.

The view from the couch.