A Day in Munich

We were invited by Paul's friends Nate and Mahvish to their ten year wedding anniversary party along the Danube River in Austria, so we're making a week of it! We flew in to Munich and spent a day exploring the city, and now are on our way to Vienna and hopefully a visit to Bratislava.

After landing at 8:30am we caught the train into Munich and dropped our bags off at our hotel, the Pension am Jakobsplatz. Paul visited Munich was back in 2000, but this is David's first visit to Germany. The first thing we noticed was how much construction there was all over town. Buildings are being renovated and new mid-rises are being built. Germany's strong economy is pretty obvious as you approach the city by train. Our hotel was located just off Marienplatz, the historic center of the city, home to the Neues Rathaus (new city hall). Neues Rathaus also holds the glockenspiel, a 19th century bell-tower with carved figures that dance to music on the hour. A large area in central Munich is mostly pedestrian-only, making it a pleasant city to walk or bike around. It's also incredibly clean and organized.

Neues Rathaus of Munich.

The street with our hotel. The colored tiles are a monument to LGBT Germans that were murdered by the Nazis.

An appropriate first meal in Germany! Buttered pretzel with chives.

View from the Rathaus bell-tower.

The Frauenkirche, consecrated in 1494.

Everyone and their brother taking a picture of the dancing clock-tower characters.

After hanging out in the city center for a little bit, we decided to stroll over to the museum district and then over to the Englishcen Garden. Munich has several large museums and we only had time to visit one today. Paul loves Egyptian artifacts, so we elected to visit the Munich Egyptian Museum. The museum was very modern with a small but well curated collection of artifacts. We'd highly recommend this museum if you're interested in ancient Egypt. It's in a new-ish bruitalist building that is mostly underground.

After the museum, we took a 15 minute stroll to the Englishcen Garden. This park, larger than Central Park in New York, goes northeast from near the city center. The park is full of forests, fields and creeks, a couple of large beer gardens, and even hosts man-made rapids that people use for surfing! It was full of people even mid-day on a Tuesday.

Sarcophagi at the Munich Egyptian Museum. 

Englischer Garden scene.

Surf's up!

Some people were better than others, but it looks like a lot of fun!

Lake and flowers.

Chinese pagoda with adjacent beer garden - because Germany!

Lots of streams and greenery.

After strolling through the park for an hour or so, we had a quick currywurst lunch and went back to the hotel. At this point we were exhausted from not sleeping on the plane. We cleaned up and looked around for some snacks to take back to the room, settling on Eataly nearby our hotel and took a nap after watching the Sweden v Switzerland World Cup match (Sweden won). We both woke up to go watch the England v Colombia game in a local bar. This game was super exciting with Colombia equalizing very late in the game to go to overtime and eventually penalty kicks. The bar was mostly filled with non-Germans but every time Colombia missed a good opportunity one table of Germans yelled "NEIN!" Guess they didn't care for England. :)

Late lunch of currywurst, fries and beer in the cute little courtyard at Alles Wurscht.

Watching the Colombia v England match at Paulaner Im Tal.

Rathaus at night. Munich is well lit and very pretty.

Why aren't there more things like this in America?!

Next stop Vienna!

One day in Munich is obviously not enough time. We're sandwiching our trip with this Bavarian metropolis so we'll be back in a week with another day in Munich to finish up the trip.

Weekdays in Waikiki - Or, Adventures in Ramen and Udon

I spent a few days at the end of May at a work meeting in Honolulu. I was busy with the meeting so I didn't have time to venture much beyond the tourist neighborhood of Waikiki. We've been to Honolulu before, and the city is just as weird as always. Waikiki is essentially one big shopping mall of Japanese tourists, but it does have a lot of surprisingly good food if you look for it, and of course the famous beach. I didn't have time to visit the beach - it was rainy all week anyway, but with the time change I was waking up very early (3AM on the first day!) so I did get in quite a bit of walking and exploring before the meeting start times.

After landing I had some amazing udon for dinner and walked around a bit before going to bed early. The next day I got to Diamond Head in time for the 6AM opening, and hiked to the top and back to my hotel before going to work. Diamond Head is a volcano with a big crater that looks over Waikiki. The hike to the top is pleasant early in the morning, but I can imagine it gets hot in the afternoon. There are decent views of the city, but it's not really one of the better hikes I've done. It's worth it if you have extra time in the city, but the hikes we did on our previous trip to Hawaii, especially the Kalalau trail, were much more impressive.

Marukame Udon - delicious!

This is the lunch time line for Marukame Udon. And it's worth it.

Banyan trees in an outdoor shopping mall.

Famous Waikiki beach.

The Duke Kahanmoku statue.

The Ala Wai canal. I jogged this path at sunrise a couple of times.

The view before you walk in to the crater of Diamond Head.

The tunnel in to the crater.

Inside the crater.

The Pacific from near the top.

Looking back across the huge crater.

And the view of Honolulu!

It was pretty crowded, even at 6AM.

Part of the path up is these stairs, which were part of an army facility.

The city has a lot of beautiful trees and flowers.

And there are random chickens!

Another cool banyon tree on the beach.

Kuhio beach, which has a protected lagoon.

Looking back at Diamond Head from a small pier.

Time for a taro bagel and coconut frozen coffee at Kai Coffee.

My food goal on the trip was to try a lot of different types of ramen and udon. Hawaii has a huge Japanese influence, so ramen is plentiful. There's also saimin, which is kind of like a Hawaiian fusion version of ramen. Luckily I was able to find unique ramen, saimin, and udon for just about every meal! I certainly got my fill.

Lunch break on the first full day was spicy tonkotsu ramen at Agu. Very good.

And ramen for dinner in the foodcourt of Ala Moana. Pretty decent.

Breakfast the next morning at Kona Coffee Purveyors right next to my hotel. This place was delicious! I came back again.

I got a nitro cold brew and a black sesame kouign-amann.

The overcast streets of Waikiki in the morning.

Another lunch - this time a yummy udon at Sobaya at the Lanai in Ala Moana.

Dinner was Korean BBQ with colleagues at Sura Hawaii.

Grilled baby octopus.

Nightime along the canal.

Brought a couple of local beers back to the hotel.

My hotel, the Laylow, had a chill vibe and a cool aesthetic.

Another delicious breakfast at Kona Coffee. This place was so good!

The Royal Hawaiian Hotel, a big pink landmark in Waikiki.

A change of pace for lunch - empanadas from Mami's. Also delicious.

My hotel pointed me in the right direction.

The final evening I was able to try some local beer. There's a neighborhood near downtown called Kaka'ako that has a couple of new-ish breweries and beer focused restaurants. It's pretty much the craft beer heart of the state of Hawaii. We had some happy hour drinks at Village Bottle Shop and Tasting Room, which had a great selection of beers on tap and was full of locals. It's in a new development called Salt, and the neighborhood has a lot of neat art and new shops and restaurants. We met some very friendly locals who gave us tips on what beers to try and where else to go... and came along with us for dinner two blocks away at Honolulu Beerworks. I would definitely recommend visiting this neighborhood if you're in Honolulu. And it didn't even exist the last time we visited!

A taster flight at Village bottle shop. Great place!

There were a lot of cool signs and maps on the wall.

Art in the neighborhood.

Lots of murals.

Honolulu Beerworks had a fun vibe.

Another taster flight!

On the last day, I had some time in the morning to walk around (it was finally sunny-ish!) and of course had one more bowl of ramen before flying home.

The open air lobby of my hotel. Too cool for me!

So I guess I technically made it to the beach on the way to more ramen?

The last ramen was at Ramen Nakamura. It was good, and the space was fun - just a horse-shoe shaped ramen bar with room for about a dozen people.

This is inside the airport!

I flew on the Spirit of Atlanta back home.

Waikiki is definitely worth visiting. If you make it to Hawaii, you should really try to get to the Big Island and Kauai, which we loved. But don't overlook Honolulu and Waikiki. Yes, it's touristy, and yes, it's weird - but it's a one of a kind neighborhood. And oh, there's good ramen. :)