Waldshut, Germany

15th May, we went to Waldshut to do some sightseeing and some shopping. Waldshut is a district in the south of Germany. It dates back in the beginning of the 19th century. Aargau kanton of the Schweiz borders it in the south. The main industry of Waldshut is the hydroelectrics which is one of the symbols of its coat of arms. For more info of Waldshut, click here.

Entering the German border, River Rhine below. If you click the picture, you clould clearly see the German flag and the EU flag beside it.

Entering Kaiserstraße.

Kids playing in the pool. A fun thing to do during the Spring.

We ate pizza kebab at Birtat's, a Turkish restaurant at Kaiserstraße.

Restaurant, apotheke (pharmacy), ice-cream parlor, mobile phone shop, electronics store, boutiques, general store and more others can be found in this one street alone!

Faridah looking at aktionspreis (sale price) handbags.

Baby Firdaus looking back at his mom :)

Spring flowers out with a vengeance.

Waiting for a train at Waldshut, the train does not go direct to Brugg, we have to change trains at Turgi. If we miss this one, we have to get the Waldshut-Koblenz-Turgi-Brugg which is a bit of a hassle as we need to change trains twice.

Swissminiatur, Melide

View of Lugano

Today (12/05/08) we went to the Swissminiatur located at Melide. Melide is a municipality in Lugano district in the canton of Ticino, Switzerland. It is located at the south of Switzerland, very close to the Swiss-Italy border. Down south, they don't speak German anymore, it's Italiano.  Italiano is one of the four official language in Switzerland besides deutsch, français and romansh. The buildings and the people are different. It feels like i'm in Italy :)

The train ride from Brugg to Lugano took about 3+ hours. We need to change trains in Zürich, by the way. The train ride was very scenic as we pass the snow capped mountains to left and right of us. The train ascended to about 1200m at one point of the journey and descends to about 300+m before reaching Lugano. From Lugano, we took a 30min ride by boat to Melide where we watch city of Lugano from the lake.

It is so life like.

Even miniatures have flat tires.

All of these are miniatures, really!

In Bern I guess.

Mount Titlis

On the 10th May 2008, Faridah, Zul, Baby Firdaus, Lyn and  myself went to Mount Titlis. It is located in the canton of Obwalden which is about 2 hours journey by train. We took a train from Brugg to Zürich where we switched train to Luzern (or Lucerne in English). We again changed train to Engelberg which is the last stop at 1,015m before proceeding to snow capped top of Mount Titlis using the cable car system. All of us got the Tageskarte which is a day pass to use all of the transportation system under the SBB. It is considerably a lot cheaper than getting a return ticket to Engelberg. The railway system is really efficient here. Rarely we need to wait at the gleis (platform) to switch trains. It is operated by Schweizerische Bundesbahnen (Swiss Federal Railways). By the way, the SBB CFF FFS you see in the picture means German: SBB, Schweizerische Bundesbahnen; French: CFF, Chemins de fer fédéraux suisses; Italian: FFS, Ferrovie federali svizzere (they speak German on the east side of Switzerland, French to the west and Italian to the south).

In Luzern, before getting to another train to Engelberg.

Baby Firdaus, Zul and Faridah posing for a photo :)

The route from Luzern. There are 2 routes, to Engelberg and Interlaken.

Moments before getting our tickets to the cable cars.

Engelberg, at 1015 meters.

The first stop at Trübsee, before continuing to Jochpass and to the peak, Titlis.

The Rotair, the revolving cable car to Titlis. You can get 360° view! 

Lyn and Faridah relaxing after throwing snowballs at each other.

View from Titlis

Me at Titlis, 3020 meters above sea level, overlooking Engelberg behind me. The temperature was about -3°C.

Tasty Dinner

My wife and sister made a wonderful dinner today. It was a bit chilly as the sun was on the other side of the apartment. Once we started having out dinner though, we soon forget the lowering temperature.

Moments before digging in.

I'm salivating just to blog about this picture!

Tastes just like back home.

Sliced potatoes, dried chilies, dried anchovies and the secret weapon, belacan.

Hey!! Where's my baby food?

Trip to Zürich

We took a train from Brugg to Zürich. The train arrived precisely 11am as expected. It took 24 minutes one way.

Pretty expensive for a train journey that lasts 24 minutes.

Having a lunch break at Bahnhof strasse. 

Bahnhof strasse. Heading to the lake

Catching some sun near the lake.

Nokia N95, makro shot. Impressive.

Baby Firdaus feeling a bit shy.

Baby Firdaus with his Pak Long & Maklong. Zürich old buildings at the background.

I can't read German. You'd have to guess what it says.

We found this fountain hidden in between the buildings in Bahnhof strasse.

Views of one of the side streets in Zürich.

Grocery shopping

around Windisch. It's a sunny day today and according to the weather forecast and my Casio barometer, it will be sunny with 19 degrees Celsius maximum with low possibility of rain. It's a good time to go out to do some grocery shopping and bring baby Firdaus out for some fresh air. First stop, we went to an asian grocery shop to get some tom yam ingredients before heading to Migros to get some vegetables, chocolates for friends and family back home, yoghurts, and other stuff.  I was surprised to see durian in the asian shop! Didn't ask the price though. Must've cost an arm an a leg.

The Vindonissa, a roman relic near my sister's house. "Vindonissa was a Roman legion camp at modern Windisch, Switzerland. It was probably established in AD 15. In an expansion around 30, thermal baths were added. The Legio XIII Gemina was stationed at Vindonissa until 44 or 45. With the arrival of the 21st legion (XXI Rapax) the camp was rebuilt with stone fortifications. After the 21st legion had looted the countryside in 69, it was replaced by the 11th legion (XI Claudia) which remained stationed until 101. After this date, Vindonissa was a civilian settlement, with a castle built in the 4th century. The remains of the camp are listed as a heritage site of national significance." - Taken from Wikipedia

My wife and sister bought some clothes in Brugg which is a short walk from Windisch. The clothes were on aktion (sale).

City of Brugg. A quiet city as you can see.

On a bridge overlooking a hill in Brugg.

Flowers start to blossom in spring.

Baby Firdaus, Lyn and Faridah doing some grocery shopping in Migros.

Spring and Winter views in front of Faridah's house.