Goodbye parties

It’s quite hard for me to leave a place we call home. I think I am getting used to live in le Galion, even though spent most of the spare time travelling everywhere, but still there was a place that I can go back. To me, Lyon became a second home.

So that I saved the packing process to the last moment, wouldn’t to face the truth that I am leaving in a few days. We had many parties these days, including beer game on the spur of the moment, Mexican party and the german christmas party.

Flora and I proposed beer game without any preparation. We got extra beer and free time that night, so that we want to have some fun. Knocking friends on Facebook at 10pm and the game started at 11. There were 2 rounds and each team won for 1 time. Things you have to know is that : Never compete drinking in speed with a Slovakian, coz it’s just like drinking water to them.

Erika worked kick-ass hard to keep the alchohol supply on going. We tried tequila and different mixture of wine, liquird or softdrink together. That day was an unforgettable day in many ways. I had the most adventurous experience and I saw the most-hammered Kris :P

And the last night I was in le Galion, there was the german party. Weirdly, the “party” started at 5pm, that’s even too early for dinner! But anyhow, Anne and the rest of the germans prepare a special wine on Christmas. That’s awesome! I didn’t spent too much time in the party since I have to pack…

I hate to say goodbye and I am suck at any farewell occassion. So being the first one to leave was a good thing to me. I feel bad about leaving my friends yet I don’t want to show that I was really sad. (I wanted to be cool!) And I can’t express my appreciation face to face so that I made cards. Anyway, on the 13 of Dec, I left le Galion, a place that I called home for last 4 monthes.

Fate brought us together, there must be some special connection that people start to know each other or even make friends. But sadly there’s no feast will last forever, which means the connection will inevitably break, everyone leaves. And once the group separated, it would never ever recur the same thing, even if you found the same people at the same place at the same time. The conclusion is, enjoy the moment, cherish friends who now by your side and let’s make memorable things! It might be the last time you see each other. I miss my tiny room, my heater, our broken stove, dirty kitchen and a lousy talking. I miss my friends.

2 times Joey’s Birthday

December was the month of Sagittarius in horoscope world, but for Taiwanese students stayed in le Galion, it’s time to say goodbye and celebrating. We celebrated Joey’s birthday twice, on the beginning and the very end on the date of her birth.

Our about-to-military friend, Paul did a sacrifice at the first celebrating. He approved Joey cut his forehair. We praised him as an idol on Asian TV, and he’s kind of enjoy the moment. (You can compare his forehair to the first photo)

We had champagne and home-made fruit cake in her room. She was kind of upset since she had no make up on. (haha, got you!)

And the second celebration was strategically successful. Alison bought a cake from Ecully and we surprised her at her dinner time. There were many obstacles to the process, first of all, the smart german Toby came to the kitchen asked Joey “Where’s the cake?”, then Paul said that we would have beers. Provided some clues for Joey.

But personally, I thought Joey was well-prepared for the party, coz she put the make up on already for dinner. So that I asked her what have her done on the birthday, she answered that she’s sleeping and watched drama in the room. I guess no one will put the make up on if you plan to stay in the room whole day.

Whatever, we had a good time. Toby provided a bottle of champagne for us, and we made Joey made birthday wishes 6 times on her birthday.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY! on the climax of life! LOL

(International) Christmas dinner

We celebrated Christmas last Saturday, which was a little bit early but since it’s December, the holiday season, we celebrate anything anytime. Walter from Italy and Paul from Germany came out this idea, so that they proposed this event on Facebook, and almost 50 people raised their hands to join this international dinner. They decorated the ping-pong room with Christmas style, and we even got a real Christmas tree in da house!

The delegates were asked to prepared Christmas dishes of their nationalities, the purpose was for each other to know the traditions of exotic Christmas and catered 50 people, that’s a lot of stomachs. As one of the countries who don’t celebrate Christmas, we Taiwanese students prepared braised pork and tomato eggs, the family dishes for them.

There were so many cuisine on the tables so that it’s hard to decide which ones to take. Lukas and Karol gave me their traditional soup made of pickles and sausage, which I loved alot. And I took Mexican chicken roll and duck from I-don’t-know-where.

People were sat with friends from the same nationality. Belgium, German, Norwegian, Danish, Italiten and Taiwanese zones. You could heard different languages in each zones. I sat with Italien students, Federica and Federico (they share the same name!), during the meal, we talked a lot about Italy and they taught me a lot of USEFUL Italien vocabularies or gestures.

After the feast, the staffs set up the table with candle lights, and put the record on, the dining room became a place to chill and dance. It was amusing to meet different students. There were so many in-dorm parties in the semester but this one was the first one I joined.

We had a hight time. It’s a pity that I have to leave next Monday.

Snowy Southern German: Neuschwanstein

Neuschwanstein is a must-see-or-you-gonna-regret-forever spot for every tourist visit Munich or surrounding area. For me, I’ve been seduced by the fantasy castle after I had saw the cover of a guide book “Discover Europe” published by Lonely Planet. BTW, this castle is the prototype of DisneyLand’s prestigeous logo.

And that’s part of the reason why I decided to visit Munich in a rush. I don’t wanna be regret after I go back to Asia. “I wish I’ve been to Neuschwanstein.”

Okay, stop murmuring, let’s talk about the main topic. The word “Neuschwanstein” was quite a nuissance for me since it’s hard for a beginner to speak, but after you analyze the word, it will be much much easy than you expect. The word can be departed as Neu-schwan-stein, Neu means “new” in Deutsch, and Schwan means “swan”, finally stein means “stone”.

I bought my 3rd Bavarian Single ticket for the 3rd day, totally cost me 60E of transportation of this trip, then I hopped on the train from Munich to Fussen. I wondered I’d like to meet some Asian people today since Neuschwanstein is one of the most popular tourist spot for Japanese, Korean or Chinese.

I saw 2 girls sitting accorss the asile, they were Asian, OK, but I was alone and there’s an big guy sat next to me. I got no shot to talk to them.

Hohenschwangau

And then I arrived Fussen, and transferred bus to Schwangau, I saw 2 guys from Eastern Europe maybe tried to find the way to go. I helped them getting in the bus quene and saw the girls on the train again. This time I talked to them and they are from Hong Kong, but had an appartment in Munich. I said that I’m going to visit the 2 castles today and how about their plan? They answered they’ve got no plan of the day, just wanna visit the castles. I proposed that how about we spent the day together. They were so kind to accept me :)

We wished we met more early so that we can share the group ticket for 28E instead of one paid for 20E. But nevertheless, it’s good to find somebody who can talk to along the trip.

Stephanie and Toto (Lelf and right)

Our appointment of the visit was 13:55 for the old swan castle (Hohenschwangau) and 15:55 for the new one (Neuschwanstein). So that we had lunch in a fancy hotel then. (Everything in Schwangau looked so fancy and expensive!)

Radler, to prevent getting sleepy

Pork fillet with beer sause, Bavarian specialty

Fried meat plate, Bavarian specialty

Cream spaghetti, just for stuffed the belly

The weather was heavily snowy, we can barely talk when walking on the road. I’ve never expected that snow can be that annoying and freezing my toes. Furthermore, when it snows cats and dogs, you can rarely take photos with camera, since there must be snow flake on the lens and ruin the quality.

A long long way to walk

Little did we know that there’s a pedestrain’s path to the castle, we walked along the carriage way in heavy snow. But it’s totally worthy cause when we walked in the woods, I felt like being one character from The Chronicles of Narnia, maybe the evil snow White Witch would coming into us.

Gate of the castle

When we doubt ourselves if we went the wrong way, there came a big yellow gate to us. It’s Hohenschwangau castle.

Hohenschwangau Castle or Schloss Hohenschwangau (lit: High Swan County Palace) is a 19th century palace in southern Germany. It was the childhood residence of King Ludwig II of Bavaria and was built by his father, King Maximilian II of Bavaria. It is located in the German village of Schwangau near the town of Füssen, part of the county of Ostallgäu in southwestern Bavaria, Germany.

The exterior of the castle is all painted in yellow color, which made it much more distinguishable.

Yellow

The thing is that every tourist has to wait outside until the LED board had called your number to gey in. While waiting for visiting, we met the other Asian guy, Jackson from Hong Kong, too.

The inside of the castle was prohibited to take photos, but there are so many amazing paintings and artcrafts. Imagine a palace with a real King had ever lived inside. But the tour itself was a little bit too short, 35 minutes later we were kicked off the castle and had to wait for the other 1.5 hours to the new one.

Still, it stopped snow and we can see the clear blue sky right after we left the old castle. Such a good news for us so that we played with snow.

Stupid playing-snow boy

Vendors by the street

There was a girl stood next to the path, selling fried cheese damplings to tourists. But damn, she had a poker face and scares everyone away. It’s off-season and it’s close to 0 degree outside, it’s not her to be blamed had that attitude. To be honest, I could feel her anger.

Alone the way, we can see the amazing castle!

On our way to the castle, I met 3 Japanese girls. They’re also backpackers for 3 weeks in Europe. And their next destination is Frankfurt. I spoke to them with my poor Japanese speaking. I wondered that I need to find some time for Japanese conversation lessons.

So many girls!

Click for enlarge the image.

Neuschwanstein Castle (German: Schloss Neuschwanstein, pronounced [nɔʏˈʃvaːnʃtaɪn]) is a 19th-century Gothic Revival palace on a rugged hill above the village of Hohenschwangau near Füssen in southwest Bavaria, Germany. The palace was commissioned by Ludwig II of Bavaria as a retreat and as a homage to Richard Wagner.

The palace was intended as a personal refuge for the reclusive king, but it was opened to the paying public immediately after his death in 1886.^[1] Since then over 60 million people have visited Neuschwanstein Castle.^[2] More than 1.3 million people visit annually, with up to 6,000 per day in the summer.^[3] The palace has appeared prominently in several movies and was the inspiration for Disneyland's Sleeping Beauty Castle.

We didn’t make it to the Marienbruecke, it was closed for security reason. What a shame was that situation. I’d like to take a lot of photos on the bridge. (You can see the zoom in of the bridge in the video.)

To be honest, after a closer look at the castle, it was not as fantastic as we seen on postcards. But still, it’s totally worth to pay a visit. The inside of the building was extremely gorgeous and well-decorated. Almost every walls were painted with artistic drawings and stories. And we saw so many swans in the castle, in paintings, on the chandliers or even at the pillar of the rooms.

It looked like a postcard photo

I was glad that I brought my new camera here, I’ve taken so many beautiful pictures and high quality videos to share with my friends and family.

I spent almost a whole day around the castle. Before I came I was alone, and then after I left, I’ve got 3 more friends. What a blessing!  We went to a local restaurant near Munich station for dinner.

 

It was called “Augustiner Brau” a traditional brewery house serving traditional foods.

Of course the foods was nice but I think it’s the people made the night so rememberable. That day was Toto’s Birthday, but we didn’t drunk her.

Bouchon of pigz

Lyon is famous for its food of pork, to be exact, pigs. They almost eat everything of the animal, just like us Chinese. It is said that at the time of war, everything’s precious so that they tried to make the best of resources, which are eating the meat, driking the blood, boiling the organs or even making clothes by the skin of pigs.

Our lovely french buddy, Benjamin with a new hair cut, invited us to a local bouchon for dinner. It was freaking cold outside, nearly 0 degree and few people standing on the streets. The bouchon is located in a tourist place, Vieux Lyon, but hidden in a silent street. We booked the table for 4 at half pass eight.

Before entering the room, there’s a sign on the door of the restaurant “We don’t welcome people who are not hungary enough.” Which means, hey hell, they provide quite a huge amount of food. We had been told this rule after we ordered, smart Benjamin.

It’s a pleasure to have a real french explain the menu for us. Then we didn’t have to guess or ask the non-English speaking waitress. But basically the menus were all made of pig or cows. Sausage, pig foot, salami, and the small plate served on the table was fried-pig-fat.

I ordered a mix pig plate for entree, organ pot for main dish and citron ice for dessert. The organ pot was made of potatoes, carrots and a whole stomach of cow. I got really full can barely finish my food. Now I now that the traditional restaurants cares quality but also QUANTITY.

The night in Lyon was nice, she’s not my favorite city in Europe but she’s got her own charm.

Turkish dinner, with doma and raki

  A nice Turkish dinner

Often times i think Turkish people are one of the most friendly kinds in the world, behind Taiwanese of course ;P Yesterday the Wangs and I had a wonderful Turkish dinner with our lovely friends, Ebru, Cagatay and Deniz and guest Pascal in their kitchen. The best thing was that it was the first time Ebru made the traditional Dolma (click the link to see recipe) by herself.

Dolma (pl. dolmas or dolmades or "(stuffed) grape leaves) is a family of stuffed vegetable dishes in the cuisines of the former Ottoman Empire and surrounding regions such as Russia, Iran and the Caucasus and Central and South Asia. Perhaps the best-known is the grape-leaf dolma. Common vegetables to stuff include zucchini, eggplant, tomato and pepper. The stuffing may or may not include meat. Meat dolma are generally served warm, often with sauce; meatless ones are generally served cold, though meatless dolma are eaten both ways in Iran. Both are often eaten with yoghurt.

Ebru said that it was her first time to make such complicated thing, dolma is a common food in Turkey but mostly in lokanta(Turkish: restaurant). It takes a lot of time to wait and they usually use a big pot to cook the food. So for Ebru, it is such a challenging work. She called her mom for recipe and then prepare materials later. We could not find the proper “Paprika” as containers since they were way too big to cook!

The Chef, Ebru Aslan

The first assistant, Cagatay Ata
(Ebru: WTH you put your hands in the pocket!)

The thing is that Ebru called her mother for help some times, it reminds me that everytime I had a hard time in cooking I just try to copy how my mom cook and do the same thing, intend to get the hang of cooking. I guess everyone child can not live without parents.

The taster, Deniz Sehen

The culture of Turkey is similiar to ours, which is “Men don’t cook.” So that most of time the jobs of Cagatay and Deniz were washing dishes or picking up leaves foe salad. Ebru was the one ran back and forth the kitchen.

In order to payback, I’ve also prepared 3 dishes for them, sea shells, boiled broccoli and french frites(for that, I bought 2 KG of frozen frites) and cooked in simple way.

The table with foods.

And here came the drink. Raki is a conventionally liquird in Turkey with 45% of alcohol. Lan brought the thing from Turkey and from a friend of his. They’ve stored the bottle for over 9 years, it was even produced bt the Turkish government. Raki should pronounce like “roke” just like a rocker.

Wine promoter, Joey Hsu

The best way to have raki was having some cheese, yogurt salad and mixed raki with water (became white turbid). Accompanied with traditional raki music. After a sip of raki, drink some water to wash the flavor last in your mouth.

The eater, Lang Wang

We had the dinner for 5 hours including preparation time. Everyone helped a little with the food. Except Pascal. During the Turkish music playing, we chitchatted a lot about life experiences and gossips. It’s quite a pleasure to talk with the guys.

Old raki.

Serefe! Cheers! Ho-da-la!

 

Here’s the living recipe of making of dolma:

1. Find paprika and clean the middle part

2. Prepared rice, put some olive oil to mix’em.

3. Seasoning: put tabak sauce and pepper on the rice and mix properly.

4. Fill the paprika with rice. Don’t put too much inside!

5. Just like this one, depends on experience.

6. Boil them with sauce and water.

7. Wait until the paprika shaded yellow color and the rice’s ready.

 

=== THE MOST IMPORTANT OF ALL ===

 

Call your mother if you’re not sure of any process.