Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween to everyone !

Captain's Words

Finally....

On our last day, after checking out from our hotel at Wurzburg, we drive straight to the airport. In foreign countries, unfortunately, "Straight" is a formidable challenge. Driving in Austria and Germany or any countries is an experience on its own. You really need to be, first of all, well prepared and then open up your eyes and the rest of your senses to the maximum so that you would be able to deal with any event immediately. If not, "straight" will become an illusion.

Finally, after 10 days, we are back at the Frankfurt Airport... waiting for our flight. One common question in the aftermaths of an adventure is....... "how do you feel?" or rather "do you feel sad because it is the end of the trip?" My answer would be "NO", actually I felt relief and relax. There are 2 reason. First, there are so many obstacles and challenges that we need to overcome (eg, kids get sick, bad whether, got lost, accident on the road), and I must say that this trip is 90% smooth which is ... a relief.

My aim for this trip is for an experience that will forever become part of our life ... an adventure in the our occasionally boring and stressful world........ a perspective that will later affect our being... and most importantly, I want to see smiles and happiness on my wife and my kids..and I have seen it. For that, I am contented and happy even at the end of the trip.

The end of a journey is only the beginning of bigger ones to come. Where will we be going next year???


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The above was not written by me...
Captain had promised to write the closing of the trip for me.

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I waited, 1 month had passed...2 month had passed...3 month had passed, but nothing happened. End up, I gave up. Then this afternoon, suddenly he called me, asked me the way to log in to finish up his unfinished business. So, today, I gonna to check if the sun had gone down at the east.

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Lastly, I'm glad he put our happiness at the top priority. For this, thank you.

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First Maidless-Anniversary

Once upon a time, my elder son came back from school, brought home a piece of worksheet that he had done in the classroom. The worksheet was about " what does your mom do at home? "

There were several pictures, depicting what a mom would normally does at home, like...sweeping the floor, cleaning the window, washing the plates, laundering, cooking, ironing the clothes, taking kid to-and-fro school, reading story books to kid. All a student needed to do was just to put a tick in the box below the pictures, to show what their mom does at home, ok.

Naturally, my son who was honest enough won't know how to take care of his mom's face. Out of so many boxes, he only tick one of it (let me count, 1 out of 7, how pathetic). When I saw my score, I was disturbed.

Well then, one fine day, my newly hired ex-maid ran away from home. And God know, just at that particular critical time, I have the chance to work from home. So, that's it. I thought instead of hiring another full time maid, might as well I tried to run my family, right? After all, I believe things happen for a reason.

It was a bit messy at the beginning, always hesitated whether to hire another maid when things get a bit out of control. But I hang on...1 month pass, 2 months pass, slowly we survive without the help of a full time maid at home.

Yes, it's 1 year by now. Even my younger son had entered P1 to the same school this year. I have confident that he would tick all the boxes when that worksheet would ever be given to him again. But 2 months had passed, I still haven't seen that worksheet yet. Could it be this survey had been cancelled off because it aroused some sort of "anxiety" amongst the working mom in the past? Well, whatever, doesn't really matter to me.

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I just want to remember this month as the 1st anniversary of our fresh life.

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Last Stop - Wurzburg

After leaving Rothenburg, we drove to the gate of romantic road, Wurzburg.

Wurzburg city straddles the River Main some 60 km north of Rothenburg, so we really got to go with no delay. When we reached the exit leading to town, we've got some confusion. Our confusion get bigger when we were driving in the heart of its city.

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Wurzburg is a bigger place than our expectation. In fact, it is Bavaria's fourth largest metropolis and the capital of Lower Franconia. Like every big city around the world, the road system inside the city center are for sure complicated, plus the alien word signage, busy traffic, even the excellent driver had to surrender.

We had tried many ways to try to get out from spinning around the unknown roads. There was a time when I had to wind down the window before a traffic light, and asked a motorcyclist who stopped next to us for direction; also, there was a time we had to stop by a road side and discuss the map with a woman....In doing so, we got to use sign language to facilitate the communication. Gee, it was tough.

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When we finally had located the Novotel Hotel that husband had booked on line, it's 6 pm already. We all felt mentally exhausted. Anyway, after off loading the baggage, we went to the old town straight away. Thank God the sky won't turn dark before 9 pm.

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For the people who is traveling the Romantic Road, Wurzburg Residence is one of the essentials landmark to visit. Once this palace had served as a home for Wurzburg's powerful prince-bishops family, today the Wurzburg Residence attracts visitors as a famous World Heritage site.

The Bishop's crest.




In 1981 the Wurzburg Residence with the beautiful Court Gardens and Residence Square was inscribed in the UNESCO World Heritage List, said to be the most homogeneous and the most extraordinary of Baroque palaces.




Since the time was getting late, we couldn't tour the residence. Instead, we strolled through the beautiful garden outside it.











One of the sculptures in the residence garden.




Side view of Würzburg Residence.

Anyway, the residence's chapel (Hofkirche of Residence) was still opened to the public at that time. So, we walked in quickly to take a look.

The interior of the church is richly decorated with paintings, sculptures and stucco ornaments.

"mom, I want to eat my candy first..."

"not until you go to pee and wash your hand first..."






The amazing decoration of the interior makes it to one of the finest examples of religious art in Wurzburg.





We sat there for some quiet moments, then left the chapel.

In front of the statue of the Bishop.

The little thing that the boys were holding is a soft toy that was given by Novotel Hotel, as a welcoming gift. William had declared it as his best friend almost instantly. So, I asked him what its name? He thought for 5 minutes long, then he told me its name is "阿鹿" (ah deer). How "creative" he is...

Front view of Residence.

Strolling around this place, it's hard to believe that 90% of the city were destroyed in a 20 min bombing in World War 2nd, March 1945. In a miraculous rebuilding program, almost every major structure has been restored as well as the World Heritage Wurzburg Residence, which was suffered serious damage in war.

The Fortress Marienberg is the castle on a hill across the Old Main Bridge, overlooking the whole town area as well as the surrounding hills.





It would take about 20-minute to walk up the wine-covered hill before reaching the Fortress Marienberg. Well, we really were too tired to walk that distance. So, we just hang around the Old Main Bridge for a while.




Würzburg's Old Main Bridge (Alte Mainbrücke) was built 1473–1543 to replace the destroyed Romanesque bridge from 1133. It was adorned from 1730 on in two phases with well-known statues of saints and famous persons.



Along the Old Bridge is a line with many nice statues of saints and is known as the oldest bridge still existing over the Main River.



Another saint. Don't know who he was?

Well, I didn't get to see many romantic scenes or romantic couples walking on this bridge, except Vincent and I.

A lovely balcony-restaurant as backdrop.
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Actually, we would love to take our dinner over there. Unfortunately, the place was fully occupied, and we don't think we could get a table soon enough. So, we walked down the street a little bit and finally settled down at a open air restaurant for dinner. Dinner for that night was pizza and spaghetti.




Our stroll in Wurzburg old town was ended at the Church of Our Lady (Marienkapelle).
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In fact, this also represent the end of our vacation in Germany too. Same like past years, I will store those wonderful memories internally (my mind) and externally (my blog).
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Again, thank you for hubby who made this trip a very successful one (must polish his shoes hard). The 3 of us are very look forward to the places he will take us to next year.