Surviving Munich (Germany) 101

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I've probably say this too much but it's been AWHILE since I've blogged
I didn't even blog at all for the whole of 2016 and my seoul posts just stopped abruptly due to my laziness

Okay, this is not really a coming back post but more information-sharing kinda post?

Backstory, I'd just came back from a month-long work cum travel trip in Germany and London.
It's mostly for work in Germany, specifically Munich and I'm not going to talk about London today since there're already plenty info online.

What I'm going to share in this post is about what to expect in Munich, Germany when you're there as a foreigner. Before going over to Munich, it was a pain in the ass trying to look for proper information online about the city. Most of the info online are either in German or really outdated.

I was really "lucky" to have landed in Munich on the exact day the whole of Germany starts to implement this new sim card law which has made my life a living hell.

1. How to get a working Sim Card in Munich?
Since it was a totally new law when I just got there, I literally couldn't find anything useful online.
It's actually really easy to look for a sim card (telco stores, supermarket, convenient stores etc) the tricky part is to get it activated.
I'd actually got a sim card from a computer store but after several attempts, I still couldn't activate it.
How to activate your sim card?
- go to the respective telco website, follow their instructions and choose one of the options to verify your identity
I've tried 1. video call ( nobody pick up after many attempts , so failed)
2. postident ( bring the letter that you've printed it from the telco website to your nearby deutche post, I went to the one just outside the munich Haupbanhof and the person told me that the format of my name in my passport does not tally with the system, thus I'm not eligible for postident) ( please tell me what is that bullshit?)

In the end, how did I get a working sim card?
I stumbled upon a convenient store inside Karlsplatz station, and the store keeper activated my sim card without even asking for my passport. ( 25 Euro for 10Gb internet data *Ortel D) which is a lot! because the bigger telcos like O2, vodafone etc has a limit of 2Gb internet data only for prepaid cards and usually it's only 1Gb internet data for 10 Euro !

I'd assume that things would be easier now since it's been over a month of the new implementation.

Suggestions: If you want it the proper way, go to a big Telco store and ask them to activate the card for you there and then or go to a shady convenient store for more data at a cheaper price.

2. Does your sim card work in other EU countries?
Yes and No.
My sim card is from Ortel D and based on their website and other telco websites, the new law states that we can now roam like home, which means that we could use our German sim cards in other EU countries without paying extra.
I've even emailed Ortel D to clarify this and they said yes but sadly it did not work when I was in the UK.
However, it did work when I was in Salzburg, Austria. So I do not know if it's working properly now or if it's the UK.

3. Getting around
It's fairly easy to get around in Munich. Public transport here is quite convenient besides that one incident when I was about to fly home from Munich. I will get to that later.
I would say that the system here goes by trust, there's no barrier at metro stations and for my whole month here in Munich, I've never encountered any ticket inspections on any public transportations

which ticket to buy?
There're many types of fares to be considered : daily, weekly, monthly, single-trip
buy your tickets according to your traveling plans
tickets here goes by Zone and the partitions of Zones differs for single-trip, daily and weekly, monthly tickets

Zone partitions for single-trip fare and daily fare:

example: if you're traveling to Marienplatz from the airport with a single-trip ticket, you should choose the ticket that covers the entire network
if you're traveling within the white zone you can just choose to buy inner district
Suggestions: go for daily ticket instead of single fare if you will be traveling around the city because it's significantly cheaper because a single trip ticket for inner district cost 2.8 euro whereas a daily ticket for inner district is 6+ euro which could be use on S-bahn, U-bahn, buses etc

For weekly and monthly ticket,
the partition of zones differs, you could see the numbers on the pictures which shows which stations falls under which zone.
Example: Oberwiesenfeld is in Zone 3 and Marienplatz is in Zone 1. If I were to travel around within these areas everyday for a week/month, I should choose Zone 1,2,3 when buying my ticket.

So what was my incident?
I was abruptly asked to get down of the S-bahn when I was on my way to the airport due to some rail maintenance which I was unaware of.
The captain just announced that we should get down now and there will be free taxis to send us to the airport which was so chaotic as no one was there to direct and control the situation.

There were a lot of people than taxis available and I'm sure many of them couldn't make it to their flight on time.

Fortunately, I'd managed to get on one of the taxis on time.

Advice:
You might have heard that the German transportation systems are really punctual and efficient but after a month of living here, I don't think that it's really that great now?
I would suggest you to plan ahead and give yourself more time allowance if you're traveling to somewhere far. Do not be too dependable on the timetable because things might go south.
Better be early than be late right?

Soulful Seoul- Day 3

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Today is our first day out of seoul and we're heading to seoraksan! 

I was quite anxious because after reading a few blogs, some failed to get into the national park due to high traffic and crowd and not many gave detailed infos on how to get there

woke up at 4-ish i think 

oh- my- god..i was dead tired

so our first traveling leg is to get to seoul express bus station (line 3, 7) 

took us awhile to locate the bus terminal because the info that we got were wrong online

and take note! the bus terminal is in the same building as the subway station

do not leave the premise

just ascend the escalator and look for the seoul express bus terminal inside the building

we finally managed to find the ticket counter after 20 mins of walking blindly and bought the 7.30am ticket to Sokcho 

 yes! you have to get to sokcho to get to seoraksan 

 our bus ticket

 hello~! we bought gimbap to eat on the bus since we didn't have time to eat beforehand 

 on the way to sokcho 

 we're finally at sokcho bus terminal 

in order to get to seoraksan national park

cross the road from the bus station to the nearest bus stop and take bus no 7 or 7-1 to the last stop =) and yes! you're there 

 us walking to the bus stop 

 finally at seoraksan national park 

 3500 won per person for the entrance fee

 it was still quite green at that point of time, 2 weeks later and it would be all yellow and red 

 nothing is complete without ice cream 

 on the way up taking the cable car

even at non-peak period, it's already quite packed

so be as early as possible if you want to beat the crowd

 like sardines inside the cable car

 at the observatory deck 

 took a 15 mins walk up the mountain and I stayed there because I'm really bad at steepness

my fear for hiking or anything steep like escalators and stairs is absurd 

 just taking pics while waiting for bum as he climb to the peak 

pictures taken by bum on the peak 

 sweaty bum is back! the sun was horrendous 

 after that we came back down to this buddha temple

 found a very old temple and I couldn't resist taking cute pictures

after an hour of walking around, we decided to leave the park and we took the bus back to the bus terminal but we were super hungry , so we went on a hunt for food around the area 

managed to find a very small local restaurant owned by a old couple

english doesn't work at all so I had to utilize my horrible korean once again and luckily they understand hahaha 

food is here! mine is pepper beef soup and i've forgotten what bum has ordered LOL 

 so cute =D 

after lunch, we embarked on our journey back to seoul

and after 4 hours, we've finally reached the express bus terminal station 

it seems like we kept eating but i swear it's many hours later when we had our dinner 

we went back to yeongdeungpo to hunt for dinner because we were really excited after last night's discover

we finally settled at this korean bbq place -hwa dong sam

OMG! no regrets! 26,000 won for this set and I'm very sure that we wouldn't get this amount and quality of food at this price in Malaysia 

 knackered after a day of traveling

so good! recommend this place! 

after dinner, we just walked around the area and called it a day~ 

stay tuned for day 4 =D 

Soulful Seoul- Day 2

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was really lazy to blog because I have to make sure all my info are correct haha

so this day was gangnam day~ 

our first stop was garosugil @ shinsadong

 selfie in the hotel room before heading out

sinsa station ( Line 3) Exit 8

just walk straight after exiting the station until you see SK telecom on your right then turn left after that shop and you're on garosugil 

if you're looking for Line friends shop, just keep walking straight and it's just a few shop after hollister

 along garosugil and it reminded a lot of ginza

the quaint and obviously the more "expensive" place compared to hongdae or myeongdong

 it's like the Bangsar in Seoul 

 tadaaa..line store

 typical picture with huge brown

 so cute laaaa the whole store was filled with line merchandises but very pricey though

 line macarons

brown brownie~! so cute! 

I only bought a brown cookie because everything in there was so expensive but i wanted to get something to prove that I came hahaha 

*excuse to spend money*

 random 3D picture along the street

 looking for lunch but everything here is expensive so we wandered into the back alley and found a small local shop that serves sam gye tang =D 

 my cutie <3 and we were the only foreigners there but luckily I could read korean so it's all good 

 so many ban chan! and the sam gye tang was awesome! 

reminded me why I liked it so much when I last went to seoul 10 years ago 

 went into A land to buy my bro's snapback 

 just strolling along the streets and we stumbled upon

 jeng jeng~ o'sulloc! one place that I really wanted to try 

 just day dreaming and the toilet there was very clean 

tried their greentea swissroll and ice cream

wanted to try their softserve but this branch doesn't hv it =( 

But I love the cream inside the swiss roll so creamy <3 

me and my brother always joke that we should bring in o'sulloc because we love it so much hahaha 

but who can afford ? == 

 Coex atrium was our next stop just right next to coex mall which is the largest underground mall in Asia

Samseong station ( Line 2) exit 5 or 6 depending whether you want to enter coex mall or coex atrium 

this is for all the fangirls and boys out there

I was an ELF but i outgrew the whole star chasing phase but still I wanted to go take a look since I was their fan what 

but to my disappointment, I feel like it caters more to EXO-L rather than other fan bases

 large posters everywhere

 you can even go for tours and classes or make overs but it's not cheap TBH 

 they even have a cafe and the queue was horrendous

everyone are obviously there for their idol only 

 food and drinks with their face or song names on it 

 bum in front of a large screen showing shinee's MV 

 i think we left the building after an hour or so then headed to coex mall

 so cute

 we went to the hyundai department store 

so many interesting pastries and fooodddddd 

I love browsing at beautiful looking food and desserts *drools* 

 so many cakessss 

 then we happened to pass by a hyundai shop that showcases their new car models and we got to experience their car simulator which was quite fun and it's free hahahaha *cheap thrills* 

 Lotte world! no laa...we just went there for lotte mart

Jamsil Station ( Line 2, 8 ) Exit 4

and I'm amazed by how big lotte is in Korea

literally all the buildings around there are owned by Lotte =O 

Lotte mart! 

didn't buy much but bought mandu and taco bells for our impromptu "picnic" at yeouido park 

Yeouido station (Line 5 ) exit 3

just exit the station and walk straight until you see the sign below, you'll have to cross a huge main road

 reached there but it's already dark =( and we witnessed a car accident

apparently in Korea, you're not supposed to move your car until the police come for proof sake even when you're causing traffic congestions 

 our "picnic" 

if only we were a bit earlier it would be much much better but it gets dark really early here since it was already autumn 

 a huge plane in the middle of the park 

people watching while eating

after finishing our "snacks" we walked around and guess what?

we found two two chicken while talking about two two chicken hahahaha

so we had our "chimek" moment

 the boss was very friendly and this bum was practicing how to say bill please in korean to show off hahaha 

 our fried chicken and cass beer

not bad but i feel like kyochon does it better 

went back to our hotel area and we found a hidden gem

streets full of restaurants and noraebang (karaoke) 

we were so stoked and excited and vowed to come back here for dinner the next day

that's the ending of day 2 and we were knackered! almost 20km of walking =O