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.