Hansel & Gretel - Witch Hunters

After their childhood run-in with a witch and her sweet, sweet house, Hansel (Jeremy Renner) and Gretel (Gemma Arterton) devote their lives to hunting down and killing witches. And trouble is now in the town of Augsburg (shout-out to the town 45 mins away from Munich!) - many children have gone missing, and against the wishes of the Sheriff (Peter Stormare), the mayor hires Hansel and Gretel to do their thang. But it's no ordinary witch they're hunting, they're hunting the Grand Witch, Muriel (Famke Janssen)...

I'll admit it, when I first saw the trailer, I went *squeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!*  and then I turned around to Markus and he also went *squeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!* After all, this comes from the director of Dead Snow - the movie that combines zombies with Nazis to make an unstoppable evil force. Only good could come of his decision to tackle the classic fairytale, and it sure delivers.

From Hansel developing diabetes from eating too much of the gingerbread house to Gretel's defibrillator, this is a movie that doesn't take itself seriously with liberal lashings of exploding heads. I'm not sure if it's as good as Dead Snow - not enough Nazi zombie witches, for one - but it's a pretty damn entertaining 90 minutes!
7/10

Strong beer time returns!

Strong beer time, aka Starkbierzeit, aka Lent, is back! And to celebrate the return of this dangerous time, I went out with my former German classmates and the Hombres to drink it down. 

Con mi amigo Ruben, e mio amica Eleonora.

Adria and Nestor totally unintentionally turned up as twins. HAHAHAHAHA

Strangely for a bierhalle, there was no roast chicken for sale to eat! Instead I had the mixed sausage platter with sauerkraut and fried potatoes. I have to admit, I wasn't able to finish all of it :(

The Italians!

While it all seems pretty tame so far, the alcohol eventually kicked in and that's when the photos get interesting!

Nestor and Ruben share a tender moment...

then try to act like nothing happened.

Oh, that's not unsafe at all! I'm still kinda trying to figure out how he actually got up there.

BUSTED!!!

They don't call it truth juice for nothing!

And then the night ended with us at a club. I think!

Leider Krank

Maybe it was the weather shock, maybe it was the walking around in sub-zero temperature, maybe it was something I picked up on the plane finally hitting me, but I got sick this week. 

And so there's one reason for the lack of updates. 

Schloss Nymphenburg

I decided to take advantage of the snowy landscape to visit Schloss Nymphenburg, summer palace of the former rulers of Bavaria. For whatever reason, I'd never made it here during the entire time I've lived here so hey, lots of people had told me it was beautiful in Winter. 

Just as an indication as to how cold it was, this canal leading up to Nymphenburg is completely frozen.

The ornamental lake/pond in front was only partially frozen though. 

I don't know how the waterfowl handle it.

The palace was both bigger and smaller than I expected - coming up to it and the facade, it looks huge. But once inside, the tour seemed pretty short. It doesn't really matter though - after a while, all these palaces look the same inside.

Having said that, the Great Hall (Steinerner Saal) is very nice (and not too overwhelming compared to others).

It's got a great Troemp l'oeil ceiling by Zimmermann...

and a really pretty view over the gardens.

A side gallery with paintings of other castles belonging to the Wittelsbach family.

Possibly one of the most interesting things about Nymphenburg is the Schoenheitengalerie. 

Ludwig I, a bit of a sleaze it seems, commissioned portraits of women he considered beautiful. Apparently this was a fashionable thing to do for 19th century rulers. 

The most *famous* women in the gallery are Helene Sedlmayr, bottom right, who was a shoemaker's daughter (equality!)

And Ludwig's mistress, Lola Montez (bottom left).

Palace finished, I decided to walk around the extensive gardens and enjoy the wintery landscape.

The central pavilion looking pretty

Being winter though, all the fountains were covered and not very exciting looking.

But it was perfect snowman conditions!

A frozen pond!

So cold that the geese were only using one leg at a time to stand on the ice!

A non-frozen canal!

If there's anything more sad than a closed biergarten...

Anyway, it was pretty damn cold but I surprisingly enjoyed the hike through the frozen gardens.

It's definitely very beautiful and worth a visit (also maybe in the summer).

It's amazing what a full tank of vitamin D can do...

 that I could go from weather like this...

to weather like this....

and not be totally furious about it! Clearly all the vitamin D I got in Australia has topped up my happy levels!

Assorted Melbourne Eaties

A big thing about my trip was the eating. As I've previously said, numerous times, I really miss Asian food in Munich. Little surprised, I gained 3kg while back in Melbs so here's some of the stuff I ate that didn't manage to get their own entry for whatever reason.

I wanted to return to Hutong to get some dumplings but there was a degree of debate about whether it has *gone down* since I left. One of the places now touted as being *better* was Shanghai Street, where I had these dumplings. I'll say it - they were pretty good!

Their chilli wontons were also good. It reminded me that when I have wontons, I should just eat them like this instead of doing the whole noodle shebang and then crying about not having char siu pork.

FINALLY! SOME XIAOLONGBAO!!! I MISSED YOU, I MISSED YOU SO MUCH!!!!

And I have really missed having chinese broccoli in oyster sauce as well. *sigh*

Crazy Wing was touted as somewhere I should try because they have some wings that are so spicy that they were apparently impossible to eat. Challenge accepted!

And failed - they were too spicy for me and Spu to eat (far right). We each took a bite and put them back down again. The other flavours were okay but...yeah, not the most hygienic looking places to eat. 

I didn't manage to get a souvlaki (huh, gotta rectify that next time I'm back), but I did manage to get to Stalactites around 1am with Pooey and Spuey and we shared a meat platter and saganaki.

Chicken and beef combination pho with extra giblets because I love vital organs. 

Mini chicken and tofu burgers from Le Miel et la Lune. And mushroom *chips*

Pooey's vegetarian breakfast from Le Miel et La Lune

Real, proper, milk tea with pearls! Really fresh pearls that were sticky and gooey and not hard in the centre!

POISON PORK ROLL!!! I only ate one. And after I ate this one, I wanted another one immediately :(

Okay, I wasn't craving macarons but when Pooey said *Let's get macarons!!!* who am I to deny her? :D

Happy New Year!

This is going to sound pretty stupid but I didn't realise how Asian I was until I moved to Munich and couldn't celebrate Chinese New Year BECAUSE THERE WERE NO CELEBRATIONS!!! I had to fly to London in 2012 to get my quota of roasted meats and firecrackers! This year I got celebrate en famille with the heat again and told Ma that I was really going to go the whole hog (for the two days when I was in Melbs for CNY). 

CNY eve is spent as a family reunion, laying out a food offering to ancestors, and then gorging ourselves on the food since they can't eat it. 

The family shrine with food offering

One of the aunties brought a giant tray of chocolate. It was huge!

Even Uncle Roi thought so!

I surprisingly don't eat that much chocolate in Munich so this shocked me more than Amelia who clearly knows you've got to pick fast.

Mmm, glutinous rice balls in sugar syrup - traditional for us as CNY and Pooey's favourite!

Since CNY day actually fell on a Sunday, I was adamant that I had to go to the city and see the lions, fire crackers, and touch the dragon. So with Ma, Pooey, and Spu in tow, we joined the crush to get ourselves some good luck while scaring bad spirits away. 

The crowd at the edge of Chinatown

Security guy tells everyone to make space for the parade.

But Asians are bad at following instructions for once and rushed the front of the parade when it started!

Some Chinese-looking stuff..

Here come the lions!

YEAH!!!

Feel the drums!

The dragon!

Touching the dragon is good luck...

so it's a good thing there's so much of it. 

Little known fact - Chinese lions eat lettuce.

When I'd had enough of the drums and dragons and dancing, we searched around the city for somewhere to eat lunch and ended up at Pacific House for me to get a last batch of food before returning to Germany.

yummmm...char siu pork.

Chinese broccoli with garlic. Seriously, why can't I find this vegetable in Munich?! Am I going to the Asian stores on the wrong days or something?

Chicken spare ribs in salty-egg yolk sauce

Pipis in XO sauce with yau char kway

Char kway teo. This was probably a bit too much food.

During lunch, a lion came into the restaurant to give us all an extra piece of luck. 

Spu and Poo are feeling lucky...

lucky, lucky, lucky!

So on that note, Happy Year of the Snake, everyone!