Sydney Lights

Hi folks!

Brief update I have to announce: I uploaded the pictures of my 3 day singapore stop-over. See them here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/21084745@N00/sets/72157594232258498/ 

c ya

Hi fellows.

Not too much happening in the beautiful German summer here. But last weekend me, Sebastian and Denis, another old fellow of mine made a party in Kassel. We hired a room close to Kassel’s cool party scene close to the old main trainstation. It is called Galerie Loyal and is well equipped for a party. Everything was there. From a very loud sound system, light system, bar and chillout lounge. We invited about 40 people and had free beer in the beginning. First I showed a collection of my Australia and New Zealand travel pictures on a beamer that I had hired, which lasted about an hour and was liked a lot by the people. Later we played the playstation 2 game “Singstar” on it. A karaoke game which compares the tune of your singing with the actual tune of the song and judges the quality of your singing so in the end the person with the best tuned voice wins. Very funny indeed. And a lot of nice people were there. So it was a good party night, although quite expensive. But Denis and Sebastian had their birthdays and I was back from the other side of the world, if that’s not reason enough to spend a lot of money on a good party…?

Maybe you are curious for party pictures. Well, there you go: http://www.flickr.com/photos/21084745@N00/sets/72157594225122741/show/

(most of the pictures were taken by me and my old camera “KonicaMinolta Dimage Z2″)

Do you think I am ready to enter the big business of party photography?

Hi people!

Only a few days after I had arrived back in Germany I spent 6 days on a vacation with my mum and my brother. We went to our neighbor czech republic, respectively the little town Ceski Krumlov. It’s a beautiful site with a medieval centre and lots of water. The river Vlatlava (Moldau) flows through it and meanders its way through it.
Czeski Krumlov is a relatively unknown (because of its size: 20000 people only) but increasinly popular place among czech and international tourists. Even the big Lonely Planet recommends it for backpackers. And indeed the town is full of young internationals that stay in the town’s various hostels. You won’t believe it but you can meet not only german, french italian and english people there but also people from the other side of the world. For example I had 4 Australians from Melbourne on my room and 2 japanese girls.
So what makes this town so attractive for foreigners? Well, it’s something you only realize after you have already spent at least 2 days there. It’s the town’s river that brings a certain kind of relaxed and laid back mood into the town. It is present almost everywhere and there is plenty of gastronomy on the riverbanks and a couple of historic bridges.
So you can always enjoy a cappuccino or a chilled beer there and just watch the river flow gently through past the town. On the river, and that is one of the regions most popular attractions there are many people moving down the stream with little canoes or rafts. It’s nice just to watch them going down the river. On one of the towns watergates (Schleuse) there are always many people just watching those ones with the canoes overturn since its a hard exercise balancing down the turbulent water there.
Anyway the atmosphere in the town was just amazing, the people very friendly and helpful although not all czech people spoke english. But the czech women are of a very natural beauty indeed. My brother always said the town had a good Chill Factor. He is definitely right.
So on the first day we hired some bikes and explored the region a little bit. We came past towns where there was a lot of gypsy population which were often living in shabby old communism houses. But the landscape we passed was very beautiful and showed lots of green. The same like in the german summer. But just something I hadn’t seen in for while in down under. On the second day we rented out a raft and did like all the others and rode down the river for 40 km until short before the Czech town of Budweis, where the famous beer comes from. This was one of the best things we could do there. Just being on the river got us in a chilled relaxed mood with no hurry because the river was flowing quite fast and made it not too necessary to row the boat quickly. The third day we hiked on the “Klet”, a mountain in the area from where we enjoyed a fantastic and far 260 degrees view. One the fourth day we went to Budweis and explored the town. It has the biggest central marketplace in the whole czech republic with 130m side length and a square shape. You can calculate how many square metres that is.
Before I finish there is one thing I still wanna mention: It’s a good idea to begin your evening in Ceski Krumlov with a restaurant visit. The food there is affordable (A big portion of excellent food hardly costs 10 Euros) and the quality was outstanding without exception. We were very surprised because normally in a little czech town like that you can’t expect such good value for your money.
So alltogether it was a very relaxing, interesting and culinaric holiday without being pricey and I am pretty sure I will come back one day.

Enjoy the photos in album No. 12

 Cheers!

hi fellows.

very brief update.

my new zealand pictures are now online! Check them out at http://www.flickr.com/photos/sydneylights/sets/72157594169169424/ 

marvellous landscapes and incredible colours!

 I am now off to a one week vacation with my family to czeck republic.

C ya back again in one week

Marius 

Hi fellaws!

Now its over. My 3 days in Singapore, this steaming, vibrant and multicultural melting pot have been sweaty, full of impressions and of course very interesting. I now know for sure that I want to return one day to explore south east asia and Wei, yes, of course China as well.

The last two days I went out to explore the city centre and get a real impression of what Singapore is, because the day before I had seen only Chinatown and unfortunately it wasn’t busy on Sunday. So Monday morning I went into the city centre with the MRT (mass rapid transport), a modern subway system where you can buy a travelcard that you can charge with money and just have to hold in front of the gates to enter the subway. I strolled a little bit around and visited St. Andrews cathedral of the anglican church, all “dressed in white”. Then I passed the supreme court, a huge building (you would guess it has to be big in Singapore ) and went to a very modern, shell shaped building that houses opera and state theatre and then went to a big sculpture of a creature, half lion, half dragon, where hundreds of tourists were posing for a shot of themselves with the creature pouring water out of its mouth and the skyline in the back. Being amused of so much openly shown tourism I went on a very touristic river cruise that was supposed to reveal some interesting facts about the city for you, but in fact all that I was hearing was the noise of the engine, that made the speakers voice unhearable.

A bit annoyed I went further and had a very good chinese lunch in a totaly uncommercial food court, where the guy at the counter didn’t even speak english. But the meal was only 2,50$ (1,25EUR) anyway. Yeah the prices are incredibly low in Singapore, if you go to the right places. On the major touristic trails of course its much more expensive. With a good foundation in my stomach I went for a stroll through chaotic “Little India”, a neighborhood with a large majority of indian people and lots of indian food, culture and way of life. I had a Nasi Goreng and a very refreshing drink. It was actually a young coconut that was still in its green shell and had been cutted a hole on top so I could drink the fruit juice with a straw. I first thought it would taste like a usual coconut, but it tasted totally different. It was very fresh, not too sweet and had an interesting fruity aroma, plus it was only 2$. That was something I would like to have in Germany as well! After that I visited an indian muslim mosque (Moschee), where I had to take my shoes off and wash my feet before being allowed to enter the mosque, but not the central prayer area. So I watched the muslims at their prayer and read some information about the mosque. Then I headed off and walked throuh another neighborhood which was very arabic indeed. In a street called Arab St the majority of shops were selling persian carpets. After that I visited the Bugis markets, a very crowded place that attracts locals and tourists and there’s nothing that’s not sold there. You can get all sorts of fashion, big international brands as well as smaller local ones, all sorts of food and beverages (I tried a pancake made of corn and a sugar cane juice, which was good but the coconut juice remains my favourite) and the usual sortiment like cellphones, CD’s (looked like originals of western mainstream pop music, only around 7$, but with japanese letters on it - but indeed still a very good value) and lots of accessories. I really liked the place and the asian people as well that seem to act so controlled all day. I haven’t experienced a single asian that had shouted something across the street whereas in Australia it was very common, thanks to the anglosaxon culture. With the head full of impressions I went home through the slowly growing dusk and enjoyed the rest of the evening in the hostel with a couple of beers and the friendly company of the other hostelstayers.

Today I went to Sentosa Island which is one of the most touristic attraction Singapore has to offer, I can tell now. It had been an island with armed fortresses on it to defend the Singapore harbour during WWI and WWII. But now it had been turned into a huge leisure paradise that offers a couple of dozens of attractions. I went to the only remaining fortress of the ancient days to learn something about Singapores past. In fact Singapore had been conquered by the japanese army during WWII but was handed back to the brittish empire after Japan had been defeated at the end of the war.
I also went to the skytower, which is the highest lookout point in Singapore with 134m above sea level and in fact revealed a marvellous 360 degrees view across singapore and the sea, you could even see the coast of Malaysia and Indonesia in the distance. During my stay in the tower a tropic rainstorm discharged over the island and I saw lots of people in the gondola down there getting terribly wet without being able to help themselves, and felt a little bit of “Schadenfreude”, well knowing that I was safe in the dry.
Then I left Sentosa Island and went back through the town to my hostel and from there to the airport where I am standing now finishing this text.

I am very sad to have to leave Singapore now already and like I said I would love to travel through the whole region now. I would probably head to Thailand via Malaysia, where the prices are supposed to be even 2 times lower than in Singapore, I was told. Just crazy but ideal for travelling where the money is your fuel and the more you can spent the more impressions you can collect.

So finally I take a bow in front of Singapore and south east asia and say goodbye to a phenomenal region with very friendly and natural people (and beautiful exotic women of course ).
May you fare well Singapore (at least it looks good, this morning I read in the newspaper that Singapore had a 9% economy growth in the first quarter of the year - impressive hey?)

Ok this is the end of my travel, tomorrow I will wake up in Frankfurt am Main, the banking capital of Germany and head home to my hometown Kassel to catch up with my parents and some friends finally.
I am really looking forward to see you all again!!

I thank all the readers for the patience to read my long articles. I hope you enjoyed to share my travel experiences and liked the photos as well.
I am pretty sure to maintain this blog in the future as well since it would be too bad to shut it down and also I found that its great fun publishing your own experiences and thoughts.
So stay tuned for some updates from the hot and green german terra.

I wish you all the best!

Marius

hi people!

greetings from singapore. i arrived there yesterday late at night. being used to winter temperatures in new zealand I was like punched in the face when i stepped out of the air conditioned airport terminal and found myself in an environment with 29 degrees celsius and over 80% humidity. thats hard to bear for a german like me and feels like in a turkish steam bath. I am staying in the ‘betelbox’, a laid back and charming hostel in the east of singapore. The atmosphere here is much different to australia or new zealand in wintertime. the people here really seem to come from all over the world, I met europeans as well as asians, a few guys from afrika and aussies as well. Everybody seems pretty relaxed and friendly and helpful.  getting to know people here is absolutely no problem. yesterday I had the first dish of real asian cuisine. it was a sting ray served with onions and a spicy sauce, noodles as accompanying dish. it tasted really good but very hot so after a time i needed to clean my nose and had to purchase paper tissues for 30 cents, since paper napkins were not available. Strange enough, but seems to be a usual proceeding here. singapore is a very clean city (and state) since littering will cost you a lot of money. The government here has made very strict laws, especially with regard to drugs. if you try to smuggle for example 500g mariuhana, 28g morphium or 15g heroin you will probably face death punishment (source wikipedia). a very interesting fact is the composition of the population. around  77% percent are chinese, 14% malaysian and a few indian and eurasian people make the rest. so the first thing i and to other guys from the hostel did today was chinatown, a big and traditional style complex with heaps of food stands and shops that sell little things and second hand watches and mobiles. we had a good tasting “Lakhsa”, a local singapore soup that contained fish and is made on the base of coconut milk and chili. the rest of the time we strolled around chinatown while it was raining  and the sky was covered by heavy clouds. the temperatures here do not differ a lot during the year since singapore is close to the ecuator and only has a wet and a dry season. a good thing is that they have counters hanging besides some of the traffic lights that count down the time thats still remaining until the pedestrian light changes from green to red. 

tonight we participated in the ‘night safari’, one of the most popular attractions among tourists. we sat down in a tram and drove through the jungle while we passed by lots of different ‘wild animals’ that were only a few metres away. The most spectecular sight was a fully grown rhinozeros that was supposed to be a 2 1/2 tonner. It really was impressive with its skin shining lightly under dimmy lights.

This part of asia is definitely very charming and a bit chaotic, although no comparison to countries like china or thailand so that i really want to return one day to be able to have a look at the neighboring countries. Malaysia with kuala lumpur, thailand of course and indonesia in the nearer surroundings are also supposed to be incredibly cheap. even here goods produces in Singapore usually are very cheap. Alcohol is very expensive though due to higher taxation i reckon.

ok thats it for the moment, football is on in a couple of minutes. lets hope that france will win the worldcup again  since italia is to blame for our removal from the cup.

cheers fellows, see ya later 

Hi folks.

After the hiking experience in the south we went to Milford Sound, which is a marvellous Fjord-Landscape reachable by a 2-hour cardrive. Then I had to drive up the whole south Island to get to the north island, which was about 800 km. I visited two glaciers on the way, the Franz Josef Glacier and the Fox Glacier, that are very closes to the westcoast and belong to the fastest moving glaciers in the world. After been driving for 2 days (New Zealand has no freeways) I reached Picton from where I took my car to the ferry and went over to Wellington, the capital of New Zealand. This city is supposed to have the best nightlife in whole New Zealand, although it has only 200000 inhabitants, compared to Auckland with 1,2 million. It wasn’t bad I must admit, but we saw predominantly anglosaxons. Usually down here you see lots of nations, but there almost everybody seemed to be from the english speaking countries. Anyway we had a great time there and also watched the good wordcup game when we threw Argentina out (nobody knew at that time what evil would happen to the german team later ). I also participated in a guidance through the houses of parliament, which was very interesting. The Kiwis (the nickname for Newzealanders) also have a woman as prime minister. The day after I caught up with Sebastian to do the famous “Tongariro Track”, a one day hiking track through a volcanic landscape with some still active volcanos. The landscape there, also known as the Tongariro National park also was to be seen in the Lord of the rings as the mordor landscape. Also the famous Mt Doom from LOTR is here as well. We needed 7 hours for the track and since we had started walking in the afternoon we reached the peak of the track briefly after sunset and arrived back at our car a long time after it had become dark. On the track there was so much ice and snow that we had to wear crampons (Steigeisen) and gaitors (Gamaschen) which really helped us walking down from the summit of the highest point. This was an awesome experience and motivated me one more time to do more hiking once back in Germany.

On the next day we then headed to Taupo, which is the adventure capital of NZ, because we finally wanted to do a skydive (Fallschirmsprung). We did so and payed only 130€ for a jump from almost 5000 metres. The ascend to that height in a plane took us approximately 20 minutes, we were tightened to each of our experienced skydive-instructor (it was a tandem-jump), and if just jumping out of the plane wouldn’t be mad enough, we sat down at the edge of the open door and I watched down between my feet and almost suffered a heart attack because of the enormous hight. Without a parachute a situation like that would have been lifethreatening. Then my mate pushed us and off we went…

After 1-2 seconds you suddenly lose all your weight that has been resting on your bones before and that leads to an incredible distribution of adrenaline. It’s just insane. I really thought that this was gonna be the end - same like with the bungy jump. However, what followed was a short time of enormous acceleration and then we went into a position where the belly was pointing to the ground. Its said that you can reach 150km/h or more in that position. If you go with your head first, you can reach far more than 300 km/h (stolen from Wikipedia ) Anyway, even with this position the speed was lunatic and caused pain because the wind pushed my protection goggles against my face. Did you ever hold out your arm out of your carwindow while driving at 150 km/h on the german “Autobahn”? Just imagine being exposed to that stream of air with your whole body.

The freefall phase lasted for 60 seconds, I tried to have a look at the marvellous landscape during “the struggle” as well, but it was hardly possible because the rapidly flowing air was making any movements extremely difficult. When I concentrated again on the earth that was slowly but steadily approaching us I tried to think of what would happen now if the parachute wouldn’t open. It was a scary thought and it became more real the more we came closer to the ground. Possibly some suicide commiters die of a heartattack when they try to jump to death before bouncing down on the ground. The thought of bouncing on the ground without any brake was quite frightening, because you fell absolutely helpless in the air, you are entirely exposed to nature’s forces.

Anyway, I couldn’t finish my thought but was interrupted by a hard brake, something pulled us slower… The parachute had finally opened. I was pleased that I didn’t have to further think about the downfall and enjoyed the next 5 minutes, when we very gently slided to the ground. The views were awesome (with the Mordor landscape in the distance and the beautiful Lake Taupo just behind the landing area) and I finally had the time to enjoy everything of that. When I hit the ground I felt absolutely overwhelmed and happy. This really was one of the most frightening but fun and intense experiences I have ever had. Like you probably expect me to say, this was still an augmentation to bungyjumping. Back on the ground we separated once again and I drove off to Rotorua, one of the major cities on the north island, that has a strong maori cultural background due to thermal springs and geysers in the area. Like in Taupo already the whole town was covered by the smell of sulphur coming out off the springs, but this is since a long time to be considered as being good for health. Thats why the town is very wealthy due to a health throught thermal water and mud packages treatment tourism industry. The reason for this activity is the geographic position of Rotorua. Is lies on the meeting point of two major crusts of the earth. In the evening I went to a Maori concert, a cultural event that brought me the culture of the first people to settle on New Zealand ground closer. They are very friendly and warm people that seemed to have a good sense of humour. After the arrival of the european settlers they have been able to adopt pretty good to the rules that modern civilisation brought with it. So today many of them have good jobs and live a modern life, though traditional elements still play an important role. The fact that there integration to the society is so much better than the aboriginal one in Australia, really have wakened my interest to study the difference of these two ethnic groups and their history. The last two days I went to the Waitomo caves, where I participated in a tour that floated through a cave on a little river with revealing the spectacular sight of thousands of tiny glowwormes (Glühwürmchen) on the ceiling that looked like the milky way, before heading further to Auckland, where I met Sebatian again to climb on the famous Skytower and enjoy views across the town. In the afternoon it was time then to say goodbye to New Zealand and we had to leave this amazing country with so many stunning landscapes after 3 weeks of travel and having been driven almost 4000 km by car.

Now I am back in Sydney and getting prepared to leave Australia as well on Saturday to fly to Singapore for a 3 day stopover before finally returning to Germany on the 12th of July at 5:40am.

Viewing back I can say that this travel was an amazingly enriching experience and can hardly be compared with anything I have done before in my life. But after having travelled now for two month I am also glad to finish the constant “life on the run” with little to remain the same every day and to return to good old Germany, where I am looking forward to catch up with my family and old friends. I will probably move to Erfurt and start work on my final diploma thesis within the next weeks. I will keep you updated.

Hey Folks!

Once again the german worldcup team have shown strong nerves and beat Argentina 5:3 after a long 120 min fight and penalty shootout. I watched the game together with Sebastian at 3am local NZ time in Wellington in our hostel. Unfortunately we were the only germans around, the other people supported Argentina. But we didn’t care and went to bed around 6 o clock in the morning. What a great game. This is the first time that I am gonna say I would love to be back in Germany now to celebrate with all you people in the warm summer evenings, cause down here its still cold. But what can I say, I will be back at the middle of July to enjoy the rest of the german summer. And I am really looking forward to it.

The other thing is that I uploaded a few pictures from my bungy jump. http://blog.com/photos/album/253518/ Don’t laugh too hard because some of them look pretty silly. The rest of the travel pics will be online soon since I will be back in Sydney for three more days next week before I head over to Singapore for another 3 days and in Sydney I will upload them.

Alright fellows, tomorrow I will probably do another hiking tour on the so called Tongariro Crossing, a very popular route that takes about 6 to 7 hours to complete and features some still active volcanos, and one of them is the mountain that gained famousness through the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Its Mount Ngauruhoe, or better known as Mount Doom. So stay tuned for a last travel report from chilly New Zealand and await the arrival of the last set of pictures at the middle of next week.

Stay warm and have fun with the worldcup!!

Hey folks!

Now its definite. I did it. I jumped into a deep canyon, 134m deep. On my feet only one cable made from a bunch of many thin latex chords. It was the highest bungy jump that New Zealand has to offer and its called Nervis jump. Until I jumped I hardly realized what I was doing and when I stood on the edge with the security stuff between my feet and somebody counted backwards: “three two one, gooo”, I didn’t think but just jumped. Only a second later I realized that I had jumped and was freefalling into the endless depth of a canyon. I honestly thought I was gonna die. The experience was so intense but stunning that I definetely wanna do it again. The city to give any sort of adventure and hazardous sports a go is Queenstown on the south Island, which actually has only 7500 inhabitants, plus thousands of tourists.

Yesterday me and Sebastian met again in Te Anau, which is even more south and is the entrance point to the marvellous “Fjordland” similar to the famous scaninavian ones, and went onto a really steep and exhausting hiking tour called the Kepler Track. We stayed one night at around 1000m above sea level in a very cold hut but were able to make fire with some wood logs. This morning we descended down, out of the deep snow and were lucky to be back in civilisation. No time left so see ya later

Hi folks!

A couple of other interesting days lay behind me now. Sebastian and me got two rental cars, since we are now more ore less travelling separately due to different interests. We got these cars for a really cheap price since they are “well used”, which means that my one has already been driven for 250000 km. But until now it works without a problem, although in the first night the horn suddenly kept making noise so that the neighbors came to my hostel and wanted the guy who was owning the car out on the streets.

So after I left Christchurch on Monday I drove to Methven, which is the entry point to the Mt Hutt Reserve, the NZ ski wintersport area that provides the longest snow in NZ. On Wednesday we hired some snowboard gear and off we went to the slopes on Mt Hutt. Since I had done snowboarding only once which was 2 years ago I had some severe problems in the beginning, including some very rough bounces onto the ground. But fortunately Sebastian helped me out with some good advice with which I could improve my skills enourmously. At the end of the day I finished the slope very easy and almost without falling down. It was great fun actually and very different from skiing.

The day after I drove off to Lake Tekapo, a huge mountain lake which is famous for its blue-green colour. Unfortunately the road conditions were so bad that I had to put snowchains on, but the road remained a hazardous ice track. Because of heavy clouds and snowfalls the lake’s beautiful colour was not really recognizable, and driving further was not really advisable as well due to increasing strength of snowfalls and freezing due to evening darkness. So finally I stayed at the local YHA (the international version of the german “Jugendherberge”) and had a nice evening in front of a woodfire in the lounge room. There were not many people but there was one interesting italian guy who was doing kate snowboarding. Just imagine a guy on a snowboard riding through snow covered hills while being pulled by a kind of parachute.

The next day I drove to Mt Cook, which is the highest mountain in New Zealand with 3750m. I met up with Sebastian there and we did an extensive snow hike into the valley from where we could catch a few views on the massive mountain. Sometimes our legs disappeared until the knee into the snow and it was hard to follow the walking track since there were no markers. We managed to get into the valley a few km and came back some time after darkness had taken place. Fortunately Sebastian had a torch so we could follow our traces back.

Today I drove all the way down to Queenstown, which is the adventure capital of NZ. The first commercial bungee jump in the world was established here from the kawarau bridge, which rises up to 43 m above a river. I finally want to face a bungy jump, but I am about to decide for the much more scary thing, a jump down from a steel cord held gondola, which lets you drop down from 134 m. I saw photos today and I can tell you, I was frightened only by the sight of it…

I will let you know if I really had the guts to do it.

Until then take care and stay easy!!