Pork buns (bao)

Put these on the list of things I need to eat when I get back! I had a brutal craving for bao recently and since I've now bothered to invest in a steamer, it was time to hit the Asian stores to see what I could get! Not unexpectedly, the variety wasn't huge but I found some frozen ones that had pork, egg, and mushroom as filling.

And they puffed up nicely in the steamer as well!

My verdict? It hit the spot for the most part - it had the right flavour (kinda hard to miss if you've got chinese mushroom in there), but the bottom wasn't thick enough to withstand my removal of the paper base and...yeah, it made me miss a combination bao from Nam Loong or a cha siu bao from anywhere. Time to investigate even more Asian stores!

Saturday night party night.

I had two equally joyous, equally chaotic parties on the weekend! Party 1 was to celebrate Shadya's birthday. A proud Colombian, she's aware that sometimes you just have to make-do with the closest possible variant. As such, she held a party at the local Mexican party.You know what that means...

PINATA BABY, YEAH!!!

This was actually a bit scary - Shadya has a lot of friends and the last thing you really need is someone who's blindfolded, been spun around, and wielding a stick.

But otherwise, here's some smileytimes with the birthday girl, Ziad and Demi. 

Party 2 was to celebrate Markus finally having successfully defended his thesis. Seriously, LMU kept him waiting nearly 18 months after submission. And since he did it on a biological marker for medulloblastoma, he wasn't even familiar with the field anymore! Needless to say, this was worth celebrating. Having entered his party with two beers, a prosecco and a margarita under my belt, when asked if I was drunk yet, I said, "No!" to which Markus, Ritchie, Markus' brother and I down a shot of jaegermeister. And then cherry schnapps. And then another cherry schnapps. This was done in the space of about an hour-hour and a half. At some point, I noticed Markus' gf was putting her jacket on so I went outside to say goodbye. All I can say is that I really wish I was mindful enough to take a photo of his shameful outside while everyone laughed. But on the other hand, doctorate achieved - take THAT, braincells!

Celebratory meal!

I had my regular check up today and was cleared! But like all check ups, I had to spend the last day fasting and drinking clear fluids while purging. Ugh. It wasn't so bad though - I spent the day working from home and finished a large section of reviewer comments on a manuscript we'd submitted.

Following clearance and being told I was perfectly healthy except for possibly being a bit zinc-deficient, I was ready to eat again (although the hospital gave me some chocolate)! I was messaging Pooey with the decision that I needed zinc-rich food...and so I settled on sushi.

I went somewhere that I've been meaning to check out since I read about it being described as the best Japanese restaurant in Munich - Shoya. It t turns out there are a few Shoyas in Munich so I went to the one that was located in the same square as Orlando and the Hofbrauhaus. I chose a weekday lunch bento the chirashi bento with a side of hiyayakko.

Mmmm, cold tofu.

Bento baby, yeah! 

It lived up to the hype for the most part. It's been a while since I had hiyayakko and I guess it seemed the same. The bento was also pretty good although it had the texture of fish that has been frozen - not their fault given our distance from the ocean. My biggest disappointment was my own fault - I saved the squid for last. I don't know why I do that since I'm well aware that defrosted squid has a slimy texture. I should have eaten it first and then had the salmon last. Anyway, it was good enough to tide me over until I can hit Sushi Train Hotaru again. 

A tale of two dresses

Before Wiesn, I went to H&M to find some things for Spuey and I ended up purchasing a dress. The price was...shall we say, surprising. Even the shopgirl was surprised when it came up on the register to the extent that she made a double-take.

And here it is! A striped jersey dress. 

Then last weekend, I was walking around Lehel with Ames when I passed by Lacoste and saw a dress in the window. "That's a nice dress!" I said to Ames and she agreed that it was a dress that suited me in cut and colour. So I went inside and I tried it on - and it did! I decided to purchase it because it's a perfect dress for winter...but we were both a little gobsmacked by the price although it wasn't beyond my means.

And here it is! Soft merino wool with stripes scarlet and cranberry.

So despite the similarity of appeance, all I can say is that the Lacoste dress is approximately...oh, 34 times what I paid for H&M. So figure it out!

Movie review - Rush

The year is 1976. Niki Lauda (Daniel Brühl) is the reigning F1 champion but won't be this year if James Hunt (Chris Hemsworth), Lauda's rival from their Formula 3 days, has anything to do with it. I don't need to write a plot summary - it is literally all here in the trailer:

So I'll just get straight to the point. This film is awesome. AWESOME!!! I saw this with Susi, Laura, Ella, and Hero Thomas and while there was some hesitation from the girls about whether it would be worth heading out on a really disgustingly cold and rainy night to see a movie about race-car driving, about 20 minutes in, all doubts were dispelled! I think the other 3 girls are not fans of F1 racing but they all agreed that the movie is definitely worth seeing. It was tense, it was funny, it was action-packed, romantic and sexy! And it was agonising. Watching the scence of Lauda being rescued from his car and undergoing treatment at the hospital was gut-wrenching. There were audible moans and whimpers in the cinema. We had to comfort each other that despite the agonising injuries, that he survived and is in fact alive and well today! (Which is not what we can say about Hunt, RIP.)

The acting is great. Brühl is amazing as Lauda - he was so ratty as Lauda, and not just from the dental piece he was clearly wearing to get the buck teeth. The Germans and Austrian said afterwards that the way he spoke and held himself is exactly the way Lauda does, particularly the high-pitched voice. And while Hemsworth will always be referred to as Thor amongst us, he drips charm as Hunt, even though we're shown many of Hunt's non-charming aspects - the drink, drugs, arrogance, and womanizing. But you know what? It doesn't matter! Although the Lauda/Hunt rivalry was played up - it is known that they got on quite well, despite their opposing personality types, and even shared an apartment during their early racing days - it was nice to see who the two racers were the other's spur, bringing the best out of each other.

But while the characters and the story are excellently fleshed out, what really makes the movie is the cinematography. I'm going to call Oscar nominations right now. The colour palette has a slightly washed out quality that made me think (in the cinema) of photos from the seventies. The racing sequences...angles, the presentations, the way we are presented with how it was viewed of the participants and audience...they made me turn to Thomas and say, "Let's go to the autobahn and drive right now!!!" but we had about another hour of movie left to go.


But since we don't, let's go driving RIGHT NOW...and then go watch this movie!!!
8-9/10

P.S. I also found out that one of my colleagues is from the village of Nürburg!

Grainau - Day 2

Following the standard breakfast buffet, work commenced with us again taking a walk around Grainau and forest at the base of the mountain. Unlike the previous day, it was sunny and actually quite warm.

It was mighty tempting to sit down and soak up the rays on this pig bench!

But instead we continued through the forest where the light gently spilled through the trees,

And onto the lake,

Landing perfectly onto this bench by the lake.

Oh hello! As we stood by the lake, all these ducks and (I think) trout came over, ready to be fed! I could have fed myself on them :D

Awesomely clear blue skies...

If you compare these photos from the ones from the previous entry, you'll see that the snow has visibly receded! Hurrah!

God, it's so disgustingly pretty

Anyway! After another morning's session of science, we settled into our last gourmet lunch. The lunch entree was a salad with mushrooms but I forgot to photograph it. The lunch main was another story altogether. 

YES. RABBIT WITH BROAD BEANS AND SCALLOPED POTATOES. IT WAS WORTH IT!

Eventually, we all rolled out onto the Autobahn back to Munich. At some point, I noticed that despite the fact that we were a large (and full) vehicle, we seemed to be overtaking everyone. Leaning over (I was in the front seat), I saw that Markus was driving at...180kmh!!! When I mentioned the speed, he said, "We'll get back to Munich faster!" Unfortunately, there was a traffic jam near Donnersbergerbruecke so we didn't really.

But I did get to take this lovely photo of the moon near Grosshadern.

Grainau day 1

So yeah, a few days after arriving back from North Rhine-Westphalia, I was packing my bags again to head off to Grainau, right in the south of Bavaria at the foot of the Wetterstein Alps, for a work retreat. As you know, I'm a notorious outdoors-hater and with our hotel set at the base of Waxenstein, everyone was joking that I'd be forced to climb the mountain. But you know what?

Damn me if it wasn't totally beautiful!

Like, really! All that snow I complained about last week was doing it's thang.

And the mountain range was just sitting there going "Hell yeah!"

Also, this was the view from my room. Yep.

Walking into our hotel, I noticed that the hotel...is listed in the Michelin guide?!?! Were we going to be receiving awesome food? Yes we did!

Creamy mushroon soup made from locally picked mushrooms. I wished that bowl was larger.

Grilled salmon with crispy potato crust. Very nice.

Following lunch, we were supposed to get to work in various workshop groups but...we decided instead to hike around the forest!

And admire the mountain again.

Argh! It's almost too much!!!

 

When I asked Markus what the piles of stones meant, he said it was probably something city people did to confuse other city people.

If you look carefully, the side parts of the seat on the porch of this hut are shaped like people!

Autumn colours being pretty.

You don't really want to know about what work things we talked about (I got some good feedback though); you really want to know what we ate for dinner!

The green stuff = herbed butter. The grey stuff = SCHMALZ!!!

Appetiser = beetroot soup.

Entree of speck-wrapped plums with celery, citrus, and pear salad and roasted almonds.

Main of angus beef fillet (medium rare) with root vegetables and red wine jus. Yes.

Dessert of banana in caramel sauce with sorbet. To be honest, I was disappointed in this. Reading the description, I thought the banana was going to be caramelised :(

We then reconvened to the hotel bar and drank schnapps and port wine, hijacking the sound system to play music from our phones (seriously, bad hotel bar music), while the staff wondered how it was possible for scientists to be raucous drunks and waited for us to go to bed so they could go home :D

Wedding Road Trip - Part 2

Slightly less constrained by time and fortified by a hearty German breakfast buffet, we made our leisurely way back to Munich. There was a measure of debate about where we should conduct our stop - Cologne, Dusseldorf, Frankfurt and Nuremburg were all on our route. On the advice of Y&D, we decided to stop by Wuerzburg. 

After parking our van, we walked up these stairs and...

Boom! 

Wuerzburg is situated on the River Main (same river as Frankfurt).

And it was a glorious day to be walking along the river.

Or to sleep on the banks, like this guy!

Wuerzburg was bombed during WWII, with 90% of the city destroyed and 5000 residents killed :(. The city was painstakingly restored post-war and the effort taken has paid off because the city is absolutely beautiful. 

The Festung Marienberg (Marienberg Fortress) and Alte Mainbruecke (Old Bridge)

Wuerzburg Cathedral from the Alte Mainbrucke

I really liked the Alte Mainbruecke. It is the oldest bridge crossing the river in Wurzburg and is decorated with statues of different kings and saints. 

Such as this guy, King Pepin the Short of the Franks, father of Charlemagne. 

The Mariankapelle, built in 1377 on the remains of a synagogue which was destroyed during a pogrom following an outbreak of plague :/

Part of Franconia, Wurzburg is also a wine centre with plenty of vineyards in visible as we drove through the city. 

Such as those on the hill beneath the fortress!

And celebrated in this wall mosaic.

Eventually we made it back to Munich as the reasonable time of 10pm, exhausted but happy with our journey and celebrations. 

Wedding Road Trip - Part 1

Y & D were getting married! And we girls were therefore invited to be the Munich contingent at the wedding in Solingen, 600km away. We decided that since there were so many of us, we would take a road trip all the way through, which is how Z ended up nearly being driven insane, taking us 5 girls right across the country :D Due to Freitag Stau (Friday traffic jam), we ended up taking close to an hour and a half to get to Ingolstadt (normally it's about 45 minutes/80km away) so other than taking a look around the city at night and eating some dinner because everything was shutting up shop. Eventually we arrived at our hotel in Haan at 2:30am and passed out. 

The next day started with us wandering around Haan (it's very small) before getting done up in our finery. After a service in German which went completely over my head, we headed to the reception hall where we wrote our wishes to the happy couple on notes that were attached to helium balloons that were to be released with the hopes that they would make it back to the happy couple :D

Y&D leading the balloon parade!

Demi 

Me!

Me & B!

With Shadya who will get married in December next year, as soon as she finds an appropriate groom.

Goodbye, balloons!

And then it was time to party!!!

Z and his 5 girls/tormentors. 

The beautiful decorations

One of Y's Polish cousins, M. M's comment when we were standing next to each other, "My God, you are so small!"

After witnessing weird German wedding games, playing a few rounds of foosball, and eating a hearty Polish/German meal (plus midnight snack!), we danced until the wee hours of the night. Did I manage to convince the DJ to start playing some house music? Yes I did, and the room went off to Calvin Harris ;)

And this was the last song of the night.

Congrats Y&D, best wishes for the future and enjoy Morocco! <3 p="">