Hamburg trip

The Rathaus: Mayor and city council building

I know this is a LOOONNNNGGGG ago post. Well what can I say? Better late than never, right? :)

Was there for hub's cousin's wedding which was on 9th of July. So it was sort like a long weekend with his side of the family only difference is that this time around its with his aunts and uncle.

View from a veiwing deck near Unilever HQ.

We flew with Lufthansa airlines this time since there was on sale when I booked this trip a few months back. The flight there was good my only complaint was that of the really small plane from Geneva to Dusseldorf airport; lots of turbulence, and that the next flight from Dusseldorf to Hamburg was delayed for 2 hours! Nice. :p But then again this is still better than having to missed a flight and awaiting for the next one for 6 hours at the Orly airport, just because they have a strike. Got to know about it when we met by chance one of his cousins that just arrived an hour after us. 

The many overpriced apartments along the river...

We didn't managed to get to see much of the city on our 1st 2 days when we were there. That's because the very next day was the wedding and by the time we check into out hotel it was really late. Thank goodness I've booked us a triple as we managed to get a glimpse of the several rooms that were being made up, it was TINY! Breakfast was the typical German continental style; choice of cheese, choice of hams, hard boiled eggs, fruits, cereals, milk and yogurt. Love their hams, cheese and the breads were different as well. Like the fact that its full cereal type and using unbleached flour in their breads. :)

Really like the shape of the windows here.

As with any typical Chinese (they are Vietnamese Chinese) wedding, there's the tea ceremony at home in the morning and then followed by the couples church ceremony in afternoon. It was a really nice weather for a wedding that Saturday. And since I didn't really understand the whole wedding, they were always spoken in either Vietnamese or German, I had a ball with the kids! ;p

Some apartements along the river view from the boat ride.

Since the youngest did not rest well, he was pretty edgy the whole time. And the older one decide its funny to irritate the hell out of mummy by running around, causing trouble and of course making noises during the church thing. I was pretty much worn thin by the time we reach the hotel at 1am! Until now I did not know that my 1 year old can scream and scream for 1 hour non-stop in a moving car on our way back. :( No mater what I did, it just made him scream louder still! Sigh.... The best part was how Owen managed to sleep through the ENTIRE screaming!!!! LOL! It just amazes me.

The pier.

Sunday was a LAZY day for us. I some how manage to wake up at 8:30am despite the fact I slept at 3am! So decide to let the boys sleep in while I ate breakfast and surf the net at the breakfast area. We then met up with another aunt who came to "pick us up" to head towards another aunt's restaurant for a late lunch.



Rickmer Rickmers; built in 1896 and now a permanently moored as a museum ship.



The S bahns were really well maintained and clean. Its even better than the metro in Paris! We went to window shop in the city after lunch and we've notice that the prices displayed on their windows is cheaper compared to Paris. Even eating their traditional hot dog (wrust with a slice of bread), french fries and drinks costs us less than having a sandwich in any Parisian side walk vendor. The city itself is very clean. Must be the clean and tidy German mentality? Any mind you, Hamburg city has a 1.8 mil population, coming 7th place while Paris ranked 5th with 2.2 mil. Paris is really filthy, with dog poo, so called gang tagging, over flowing rubbish bins, smell of pee in and around the metro stations.... Must be their French, laissez faire attitude? Anyways, don't let my statements put you off visiting Paris. Its really a beautiful city if you close one eye.

One of the many WWII relics

The following day, we went to tour the city again this time going a little bit further the city limits towards the Elbe river. We went for ice-cream at the Walls store right in the Unilever Haus. I made an order for a really delicious cherry jam, cherries, berries mix fruit, with chocolate chips, crushed nuts and natural yogurt mix! It was YUM!!!

One thing that strikes me is that the new area where the Unilever building was built on, there's a lot of creative architectural office and apartment buildings all round. There's also a lot of really wide pedestrian walk paths along the river as well. Which was a nice change. And topped off the day, we took a boat ride along the Elbe river. The boat is like a bus as is stops at its "stations" to drop and pick up passengers along the river.

Lunch at the street walk with hub's aunts.

As our flight is only late in the evening, we met up with another aunt of his for lunch and some last minute shopping before our taxi arrives. Did some walking about at the nearby park before we realised that we're going to be late to meet up with the taxi driver! LOL! How time flies when you're having a good time eh?

There's still a lot of places we didn't go to due to lack of time and having small kids is not really ideal to travel with when one wants to do the walking tour. May be next time we'll return there for a longer and well planned trip.