[🏔️ yodel ⛰️] Day 17: München ⟿ Singapore
Hello hello hello, friends!
I know, I know. It's been about a week since I've returned to Singapore and this newsletter still hasn't been wrapped up yet.
Things have been going slowly because guess what — I ended up with COVID (my second time actually) and had to spend the past week or so recuperating. Your gal's old and this tickle in my throat isn't going away. Thankfully I've been testing negative for a while now and truth be told, the second time — or at least this strain that I caught — wasn't as bad as the first time.
So besides sleeping a lot and unpacking, what have I been up to?
I've been thinking a lot about how I travel versus how SD prefers to travel. I say 'prefer to' because thanks to my overbearing will and very insistent personality (my words, not his), we generally have travel the way I'm used to travelling.
Which is to say, days packed with activity and hours spent outside roaming about with dawn-to-dusk itineraries. To be fair to myself, most of our previous holidays together were event-based. We did two Setouchi Triennales, a trip where we exhibited at the Tokyo Art Book Fair, and a couple of other vacations with my ex-colleagues who are all about hitting up hip and cool joints one after the other.
SD on the other hand, really just wants to relax. I can't blame him, because his work is intense and stressful. He'd like to escape into restfulness, I just thrive on restlessness.
I was brought up in a family that has FOMO in our DNA. We want to get our money and time's worth when we go somewhere new and we want to do all the cool things, take all the iconic shots to prove that we were there, eat all the famous foods we're supposed to eat. It's a very tourist's idea of what travel is and as I grow older, I don't see anything wrong with it. (This is in reference to the eternal debate on whether it's better to be a tourist or a traveller.)
All travel is a mediated experience, whether you're following a guidebook or your gut. So I try not to knock it. I've got my preferences and I won't force them on anyone else.
Back to the topic at hand — the first half of the trip was just a whiz of things to do and places to see. I couldn't help myself. It was my first overseas trip since 2019 (a luxury for most, perhaps?) and first time in Switzerland. We slowed down a lot in the second half, mainly because SD was ill and injured and I realized that I wasn't as sprightly as I was anymore. Afternoon naps were very, very enticing and I am beginning to see the appeal.
So now I'm seriously considering implementing some sort of less is more approach to travel. Winging it, as opposed to making the most of every minute. Thinking about it makes my hair stand — it really goes that much against my base programming — but it's an interesting thought.
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I've also been thinking about these Weisswursts, which are a Bavarian specialty. Honestly though, they taste like chipolata. But that doesn't mean that I don't want to eat more! Can you believe I only had these at the airport? They were easily found though — the station near our hotel had a medium-sized kiosk hawking the stuff. Along with huge chunks of roast pork and crispy pork knuckle. I don't really understand Bavarian cuisine but it's in many ways better than Swiss food.
These weisswurst came in a huge lion's head bowl. The typical or 'correct' way of eating a weisswurst is to peel it from its casing. The delicious insides are usually made from veal and pork back bacon mixed in lots of herbs. The end result is a gentle tasting sausage. Maybe that's why it's most commonly eaten during breakfast. Weisswurst are usually eaten with a pretzel and sweet mustard! The sweet mustard was suuuuuuper good and I wish I brought back a tube. People also drink weissbier (in the morning!!!!) but I wasn't about to chug 500ml of beer before a flight so I just had water.
And just like how Switzerland has the Röstigraben (lit. "rosti ditch", a cultural border that separates French- and German-speaking parts of Switzerland), the Germans also have Weißwurstäquator (lit. "white sausage equator") that demarcates the cultural boundary of South Germany from other parts of the country.
I wonder if Southeast Asia has food-related equators or boundaries.
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The flight back was... well... It made me reconsider Economy Class. We flew back on Singapore Airlines and even the fantastic inflight entertainment couldn't distract me from mediocre seat arrangements and general comfort. Of course the seats were much, much more comfy than the hard-ass seats on Swiss Air (my tailbone is thankful) but somehow the narrow-ish space and 3-4-3 configuration of our section of the plane left much to be desired. I didn't manage to get much sleep because of how uncomfortable it was and ended up binging more A24 films than I should have. The service was also quite spotty.
They're all minor (though not insignificant) complaints though. I totally understand that it's a privilege to be able to even travel, but at the same time... These two flights make me want to work harder and upgrade to at least Premium Economy for anything over 7 hours.
With that being said, my next flight is 8 hours on All Nippon Airways. Fingers crossed my tailbone doesn't suffer as much.
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This marks the unofficial official end of 🏔️ yodel ⛰️! I can't believe I've stuck through it. You guys? I never had a doubt at all.
Some 🏔️ yodel ⛰️ stats:
15 emails written
27 subscribers
22433 words written
On average, most of you have opened (and hopefully read) all the e-mails. Some of you have DMed me on Instagram as encouragement. One of you even sent a reply! I'm truly honoured and thankful for your attention. I'm more excited about writing now, and am mulling over how to present my next trip. Thanks to all of you, I'm feeling hopeful about writing for pleasure now.
There might be one or two more extra e-mails about the hotels we stayed in, and the things I used, as well as a thought or two about how feasible our itinerary was — but all of that is on the back-burner for now. I've got another trip to prepare for! You can keep an eye out on my Instagram account for more updates if you're so inclined.
Thank you again, and may your journeys be satisfying.