Munich Part III - Day 2

So while Jingwen is off to see the castle, I decided to go to see the Deutsches Museum. I didn’t go the most direct way because I saw on my guidebook that there are a few buildings that I should see. Well I saw those buildings and then quickly got lost. Yeah, again. It might have something to do with the fact that the street names change every two blocks.

Anyway, I finally found a bus stop with a map but at that point I didn’t really need a map. I saw the Isar River. I found out that I was so not where I wanted to go. But now I can just follow the river and hit the museum at some point. The museum is on its own island in the middle of the river. When I finally got there it was around 9:30am. The museum had opened at 9am and I wanted to get there as early as possible so I can visit the Residenz (where King Ludwig lived) later in the day. Every museum closes at around 5pm.

There weren’t a lot of people since it was so early. It only cost 3 Euros for me since I got the student price. This MIT ID is so handy. The first exhibit I went into was the one with ships and all things related to the sea. It was like heaven! I really love ships and such. They had two old ships inside the museum. I took lots of pictures of this exhibit. The basement was humongous too. I had though it was just something small so I went down. But the exhibit just went on and on. This pretty much describes the whole museum. There were airplanes, bridges (they even have a small suspension bridge that you can walk on!), sundials, ceramics, mining things, wind and water turbines, and everything related to science and technology. It’s definitely one of the most amazing museums I’ve been to.

I walked around for like 5 hours and didn’t see all of it. Around 2pm, I was really tired and didn’t want to see anything more. I went to the museum shop and was disappointed with the stuff they had. I thought they would have some of the cool stuff that I saw. But no.

From there I walked along a big street that took me back into the city center. Before I got there though, I stopped at a discount bakery store and got some food. Everything outside of the city center was really cheap. Should’ve tried those Turkish pizzas.

I walked back to the hostel and took a nap. I got out again at around 3pm. So since I figured I won’t get to see the Residenz, I thought I’d walk over to see Konigs Platz and the English Garden. I found the Konigs Platz and then got lost again. After walking in a big circle, I found part of the English Garden and could not find how to get to the rest of it. By this time, I was really tired again and sat on the grass.

That’s when Sigi saw me again. Such a coincidence. He invited me to walk with him around the city center. So I did and he told me about some of the buildings around the city. I found out that St. Peter’s church is actually the oldest church in Munich, not the Dom - the most famous church in Munich. He got me a cup of cappuccino at McDonalds and we stopped by some really pretty churches that were built in the Rococo style. I think he is Catholic and actually goes to these churches. I found out that he lived in Japan for 7 months for work. He works for Canon and has traveled all over Asia. He’s not married so I got a little uncomfortable when he invited me to dinner at his apartment.

He lives right in the city center in one of those places above a store. He invited me to a home cooked dinner but I made some stupid excuse and we parted. That was the last time I saw him. Nice guy but not sure what to make of his asking me to his apartment. I mean, he’s about 40 years old, has white hair, wears purple suits, etc.

Anyway, I went back to the dorm because I didn’t get to relax on the lawn and was dead tired by this point. When I walked in, I found a guy sleeping on one of the empty beds. I was really surprised since I thought I had booked a female dorm. Apparently not. This is really something since the shower is right in the room and there is just one glass door. We have to undress outside of the shower and it just wouldn’t work out with a guy there. So I explored the showers upstairs, found them empty, and took a shower there. It was only 7pm so most people weren’t back yet. At around 8 or 9pm, I walked around outside again, ended up getting some pizza at a pizzeria near the hostel, and just ate at the hostel. Jingwen came back later and was pretty upset about living in a mixed dorm. But since the guy was out, we just locked the door while she took a shower. This worked for us the next day as well. Another guy arrived in the middle of the night and neither of them came back until at least midnight both nights.