A Contrast in Cities

The contrast between Vienna and Bratislava becomes apparent immediately upon arrival. While both cities share a Habsburg heritage, Bratislava’s economic situation differs markedly from its Austrian neighbour.

This disparity likely stems from Austria flourishing being a primary driver of European prosperity, while Slovakia being a part of another empires/kingdoms for centuries, and then spending four decades behind the Iron Curtain under Communist rule.

Christmas Spirit

Despite December temperatures hovering around freezing and biting winds sweeping through the streets, Bratislava’s Christmas markets created a warm atmosphere. Unlike Vienna’s markets, which balance merchandise and food, Bratislava’s focus heavily on traditional Slovak cuisine and glühwein.

We sampled a traditional potato pancake served with sour cream and various toppings. It tasted pretty much like a hashbrown with toppings. I also got to try glühwein mixed with absinthe, something I hadn’t had in years and isn’t common to find in North America.

Čumil the Sewer Worker

Among Bratislava’s most photographed attractions is Čumil, the “Man at Work” sculpture. Created by Viktor Hulík in 1997, this bronze figure peers out from a manhole cover. The sculpture brings a bit of character to the old town. While photographing Čumil, we noticed people observing tourists – a reminder to stay vigilant in crowded tourist areas.

The Opera House and National Identity

Our walking tour took us past the Slovak National Theatre. The Neo-Renaissance opera house, completed in 1886, was built during the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The facade features busts of famous playwrights and composers, none of whom are ethnically Slovak. This reflects the historical reality that Slovak national identity was still forming during the theatre’s construction. The first Slovak-language play was not performed at the opera house until the early 20th century.

Slovakia’s path to nationhood was complex, involving centuries under Hungarian rule, followed by inclusion in Czechoslovakia after World War I. The eventual peaceful dissolution of Czechoslovakia in 1993, known as the Velvet Divorce, marked Slovakia’s emergence as an independent nation. The Czech and Slovak languages illustrate this shared heritage, and are still mutually intelligible.

The UFO Bridge and the Memorial to the Jewish Quarter

A poignant stop on our tour was the site of a former synagogue. The Jewish Quarter was demolished during the construction of the UFO Bridge, officially known as the Bridge of the Slovak National Uprising, in the 1970s under Soviet rule. By that time, the area had been neglected for decades, likely due to the decimation of Bratislava’s Jewish population during the Holocaust. In its place, there’s now a memorial for where the old synagogue used to be.

The UFO Bridge itself has now become one of Bratislava’s most recognizable landmarks. Spanning the Danube without any supporting columns in the water, the bridge relies on suspension cables for structural integrity. Its unique design, with a circular restaurant perched atop, resembles a flying saucer, giving it the UFO moniker.

Christmas and Easter Traditions

Our guide shared some interesting Slovak holiday traditions. At Christmas, families often purchase live carp, allowing children to play with the fish in the bathtub for a day or two before it is prepared for dinner. Instead of Santa Claus, Slovakia’s version, Ježiško (Baby Jesus), visits children and brings them gifts. Easter brings another curious custom where boys pour water on girls they admire or value (romantic interests and female family members), a tradition thought to bring health and beauty. In return, the girls offer decorated eggs, booze or even money. The guide was completely aware how strange these traditions would sound to foreigners, and if you ask me, the Easter one seems a little bit one-sided.

Ascending to Bratislava Castle

The tour concluded with a climb to Bratislava Castle. Compared to grander castles in the region, Bratislava Castle reflects the city’s more modest resources.

Originally a military fortification, it achieved its greatest splendour under Maria Theresa’s reign in the 18th century when it was converted into a Habsburg residence. After a devastating fire in 1811, the castle fell into disrepair. During the communist era, reconstruction efforts were modest compared to its former glory, resulting in the simpler structure we see today.

From the top of the castle hill, visitors can see wind turbines in the distance. Interestingly, these turbines are located in Austria, as Slovakia does not yet have significant investments in wind energy.

See more of Bratislava here

Christmas Markets and Festive Atmosphere

Vienna transforms into a winter wonderland during the holiday season, with Christmas markets dotting the city landscape. We explored markets at various iconic locations such as St. Stephen’s Cathedral, Rathausplatz (City Hall), Schloss Schönbrunn, and Schloss Belvedere. Each market featured rows of wooden stalls selling ornaments, handcrafted gifts, and warm seasonal drinks.

The markets feature countless stalls serving Glühwein (mulled wine) in decorative mugs, which visitors can keep as souvenirs for a €5 deposit. The hot drinks were perfect for when walking around in the cold. There’s also food like Kaiserschmarrn (like a fluffy shredded pancake with sugar and jam), hot dogs, and chimney cakes.

While many stalls offer Christmas merchandise, we discovered that most vendors source similar items (likely outsourced). However, we learned of an artisanal market featuring exclusively local craftwork, though we weren’t able to visit it during our stay.

We heard about a market that exclusively sold locally made items, though unfortunately, we missed the chance to visit it. Another notable scene was the line of people outside Stephansdom, awaiting Christmas mass, reflecting the importance of the cathedral in Vienna’s holiday traditions. Despite this, the atmosphere remained lively

Museums and Palaces

Vienna is known for its rich collection of museums and palaces. Among the highlights of our visit was the Albertina, though art museums are not my usual preference. A more engaging stop was the Schmetterlinghaus, the butterfly house, located near the Hofburg Palace. This greenhouse contained numerous butterfly species that fluttered among tropical plants, including banana trees. The butterflies flew around at their leisure. Some would land on the leaves, or even on the walking path, so we had to be careful as we walked.

One of the more memorable moments was witnessing a butterfly emerge from its chrysalis. However, the warmth inside contrasted sharply with the cold winter air outside, making heavy winter clothing less comfortable during the visit.

The Schatzkammer, Vienna’s imperial treasury, presented a vast collection of jewellery and regalia from the Habsburg era. The treasury holds significant historical pieces, including the Imperial Crown of Austria and the Royal Scepter, reflecting the power and influence the Habsburg dynasty once held. The collection includes the largest emeralds in the world.

At Schloss Schönbrunn (a UNESCO World Heritage site), we took a guided tour through Maria Theresa’s private quarters, which are only accessible with a guide. Maria Theresa, the only female ruler of the Habsburg dominions, was a pivotal figure in European history, known for modernizing the empire and her diplomatic maneuvers, including the marriage of her daughter Marie Antoinette (one of her 16 children) to Louis XVI of France. Schönbrunn, often likened to Versailles, served as a summer residence for the Habsburgs and features intricate Rococo interiors.

The Kapuzinergruft, the Imperial Crypt, provided a sobering experience as we explored the tombs of the Habsburg family, including those of Franz Joseph I and Maria Theresa. Franz Joseph, who reigned for nearly 68 years, oversaw significant political changes in Europe. The crypt narrates the legacy of the Habsburgs, a family that ruled Austria and much of Europe for centuries.

Culinary Experiences

Vienna’s culinary scene combines traditional Austrian dishes with influences from neighbouring regions. We sampled Flammkuchen, a thin flatbread from the Alsace region topped with crème fraîche instead of tomato sauce. The local Schweinsbraten (roasted pork) came served with Knödel (potato dumplings). This hearty dish involves slow-roasting marinated pork until tender, and the dumplings soak up the rich gravy, creating a filling and comforting plate.

Wiener Schnitzel, one of Austria’s most famous dishes, did not particularly stand out to me. I found the Japanese variation, tonkatsu, to be more enjoyable.

Flight Home in Comfort

The return flight offered a chance to experience business class. Upon boarding, sparkling wine was served, and throughout the flight, options for higher-quality food and drinks were available, including steak, cheese plates, smoked salmon, and Johnnie Walker Black.

The seats reclined fully, providing a more restful sleep, and the thicker blankets added to the comfort. Skippable ads during in-flight entertainment and access to the lounge with additional food and beverages rounded out the experience, making the flight much more enjoyable.

See more of Vienna here

Beef noodles: a soup noodle with big chunks of half fatty and half lean beef in a beef broth. One of the quintessential parts of Taiwanese food culture.

Hot pot: it’s the idea of taking a pot of boiling water or soup and cooking meat and vegetables in it. Pretty much anything goes here: any kind of meat, vegetable, mushroom, etc.

Stir fried morning glory: not a vegetable that’s common in Canada/USA, but can be found in Asian supermarkets. It looks and feels like green onion with a slightly thicker skin, but tastes like spinach and has a nice crunch.

Szechuan style spicy wontons: the wonton is very similar to other kinds of wontons (ground pork and shrimp in a dough wrapper). In this case, it’s got a spicy, yet savoury sauce that slightly numbs the tongue.

Xiaolongbao (soup dumplings): similar to a wonton as far as its filling goes (it can be pure pork, pure shrimp, or mixed) with a key difference in that it contains hot soup. They originated from Shanghai, but it’s made its way into mainstream Taiwanese cuisine.

Shaoxing drunken chicken: it’s essentially chicken that has been steamed and marinated in a brine of shaoxing wine and chicken broth.

Bubble tea: yet another famous part of Taiwanese cuisine. The original variant was a milk tea with tapioca pearls, but now it’s evolved and comes in many flavours, from any kind of tea to a fruit slushie, with either tapioca pearls or fruit jellies (or even ice cream!)

Grilled giant prawns: Prawns a pretty regular thing in a lot of places, but at the local Shilin nightmarket, they are fished out and cooked only when ordered – so they are guaranteed fresh. These prawns are also HUGE. The three in the photo were around half a pound in total.

Oyster pancake: a popular food at the night markets, it’s essentially an omelette (with added starch for thickness) with oysters inside, with a savoury sauce poured on top.

Popcorn chicken: can be summarized as Taiwan’s take on fried chicken. It’s got Chinese style seasonings such as five-spice, and Thai basil. It can be found at many street vendors and night markets.

Kaoliang wine: this wine is made from fermented sorghum. It’s got a nice strong kick, and not so much a wide flavour profile. This alcohol is a big export of the Taiwanese island of Kinmen

Three cup chicken: named after the three key ingredients for the sauce: rice wine, soy sauce, and sesame oil. The chicken is cooked in the skillet.

Mango shaved ice: mango chunks with mango ice cream on top of mango flavoured shaved ice. It tastes exactly like what one would imagine. The little purple and orange balls are made of taro and potato/sweet potato flour and are nice and chewy.

Of all the food I miss, I’d say it’s the beef noodles. That’s the one thing I have the strongest craving for and unfortunately for me, there aren’t any that I like where I live. To see other parts of my trip to Taipei, click here.

Okonomiyaki (お好み焼き) is a sort-of pancake that is made with batter, soba noodles, cabbage, meat, mayo, and really anything that people want in it. The “okonomi” part of the word means “whatever you like”, and “yaki” means “grilled”. This was at a place called Micchan (みっちゃん), which is one of Hiroshima’s most famous okonomiyaki chains, but my friend who has lived in Hiroshima for a bit told me that there were definitely better places to eat Okonomiyaki.

We visited the Atomic Bomb Dome (原爆ドーム), which is a building that symbolically represents the destruction of the atomic bomb. When the bomb exploded in the sky over the city, over 70,000 people died instantly. Some buildings managed to remain standing, and this was one of them. On one hand, it is a sad reminder of the history’s tragic past, and on the other hand, it speaks of the horrors of the use of atomic weapons. It was quite rainy that day, which added to the depressing effect of the history of the tragedy.

At the Children’s Peace Monument, there is a statue of a little girl holding up an origami crane. It commemorates a Sadako Sasaki, who was two years old at the time when the bomb dropped. Before her death from Leukemia at the age of 12, she folded 1,000 origami cranes, which according to an ancient Japanese legend, would grant her one wish. On the day we visited, a large group of people gathered around the statue reciting something together, presumably, the story of Sadako Sasaki.

Behind the statue are display cases full of origami cranes.

Another monument, the Peace Flame, has been lit since 1964 and will continue being lit until the world is free from nuclear weapons.

At the Peace Memorial Museum, a quote reads:

War is the work of man
War is destruction of human life
War is death
To remember the past is to commit oneself to the future
To remember Hiroshima is to abhor nuclear war
To remember Hiroshima is to commit oneself to peace

The purpose of the museum is to tell the story of Hiroshima, so that the same thing does not happen again anywhere else in the world. One of the artifacts at the museum is a simple watch, but it is stuck at the time 8:15, which is the time of the detonation.

This scale model shows the magnitude of the destruction. The red ball represents the location where the bomb exploded.

As a plea to end the use of nuclear weapons, every mayor of Hiroshima sends a letter of protest to the country that performs any nuclear testing. There is definitely still more work to be done before this goal is reached.

Link to photos: here

The day after going to Munich, some of my friends and I went to eat some traditional Japanese food.  We went to a restaurant called Tokio Dining (http://www.tokiodining.de) and at the time they had a deal (until the end of June) where the first 20 bowls of Miso Ramen served each day would be half price.  I actually went to this restaurant once before, but for some reason I never blogged about it the first time.  As I kept writing this, it sounded more and more like a restaurant review.  Either way, the food was so good the first time I went, I decided to go again.  It was the best Japanese food I’ve ever had.  And by Japanese food, I don’t mean sushi.

I’ve never had Japanese food in Japan before, but I’d say this place was the closest thing.  As we walked in, the chefs greeted us in Japanese, and if I knew how to reply in Japanese, I totally would have done that.  When we went in, we were the only people there and that usually says something about how good the restaurant is, but not for this place.

Jasmine Tea

Unlike Japanese restaurants in North America, they do not serve green tea to all their customers by default.  It might be a German thing where they like to charge for every drink – even water.  I ordered their Jasmine tea since it is one of my favourites.  They served it in a very traditional looking (at least to me) teapot with a teacup.

In addition to looking good, it also tasted good.  The tea had been steeped for the right amount of time for it to have flavour and yet not have taste that was too concentrated.

Edamame

My friend had this the first time we went and this dish was perfect for him because he is a vegetarian.  Edamame is a dish that has immature soybeans that have been boiled in water with a little bit of salt.

I tried a little bit and it was pretty good.  I can’t say that it’s super delicious or anything because I’m a huge fan of meat.  It was pretty fun trying to get the beans out of the pod though.

Takoyaki

The appetizer I had the first time I went was the Takoyaki.  It is a dish that has a ball-shaped pancake with grilled octopus meat as filling.  It is also served with Japanese mayonnaise, takoyaki sauce, katsuobushi (dried fish flakes), and green onion flakes.  The restaurant served it in a wooden boat shaped dish, which made it extra cool.

When I bit into one of the takoyaki balls, the pancake layer felt so soft and delicious.  The octopus part was even better, but I think I say that only because I’m a huge fan of octopus meat.  The sauce and the fish flakes made it even better.  As I’m writing this part, I’m craving more of it.

Ikura

Ikura is the Japanese word for roe, which are basically fish eggs.  The restaurant called it Ikura Oroshi and the word Oroshi apparently means a strong wind blowing down a slope (if I got the context correct too).  I guess it makes sense when considering how it was served.  It was served on a small mound of water chestnut with the caviar on top.  On the side of the mound, there were a few strips of sliced cucumber and I guess that would represent the wind.  I never realized how much sense the name of the dish made until I looked it up while writing this part.

The dish was really small, but that makes sense because roe is quite expensive to serve in large volumes.  When I bit into one of them, they just pop as my teeth sinks through the outer protective layer and when that happens juice comes out.  It had the coolest mouthfeel.

Miso Ramen

Our main dish was the Miso Ramen.  The noodles had a soup base made of miso (hence the name) and was served with a slice of pork.  It also had other ingredients such as bean sprouts, seaweed, half a boiled egg and corn.  All of that made the noodles so much more delicious.

The noodles were soft yet chewy in a way and that was perfect for my tastes.  Many people think that the instant ramen and this kind of ramen are similar, but their only similarity is that they’re both noodles with the same name.  They taste completely different.  Although the dish was kind of small, everything in it was so good that I ate all of it – even the soup.  While I was eating this, I faced a dilemma.  In Japan, it is customary to slurp the ramen loudly to show appreciation of the food, but in western countries nobody does that.  In the end, I just slurped it like how I normally ate noodles (something like in between the two extremes), while my friends were really careful about making any slurping noises.

Conclusion

Everything here was so good that I would want to go there to eat all the time until I get sick of it.  I never thought I’d be going out for Japanese food while in Germany, but I think this worked out really well.  On our way out, we said thank you to the chefs there in Japanese.

When I go back to Vancouver, I will try to find another restaurant that is on par with this if not better.  That shouldn’t be too hard since Vancouver does have amazing Japanese food.

Being in a different country, it’s pretty much a necessity to try out the local cuisine. However, since I’m not rich enough to try really unique and high quality German food all the time, I’ve kind of failed in this regard. Luckily for me though, I get to try different types of German from the cafeteria at work. But then again, it’s not quite the same thing, but I’ll try my best. And since the German food I’ve been eating comes from the cafeteria, I didn’t think it seemed appropriate at the time for me to take pictures, so the pictures I won’t be from me, but from Wikipedia (the best source for all knowledge).

Bratwurst

Pretty much everyone who lives in a western country knows what bratwurst is. In short, it’s a German-style sausage. It’s different from North American sausages in the fact that a whole lot better. I haven’t got a clue at the differences in the what parts of the cow/pig they use, but it tastes damn good. I eat bratwurst pretty much every morning.

Kaiserschmarrn

Simply speaking, Kaiserschmarrn is pretty much a German/Austrian pancake. People in Austria eat it for dessert. When it comes to food, I rarely ask what it is made of. I just eat it, so I’m going to have to quote Wikipedia on this one to find out what it’s made of.

Kaiserschmarrn is a light, caramelized pancake made from a sweet batter with flour, eggs, sugar, salt, and milk, baked in butter.

Wikipedia said it’s a dessert, but I ate this as my main meal. Personal taste I guess.

Maultaschen

Maultasche are a Swabian food, which is like ravioli. It’s got pasta on the outside and meat on the inside. Wiki says its got different kinds of meat, spinach, bread crumbs, and onions with flavoring from various herbs and spices. It wasn’t super delicious (but still good), and doesn’t look super delicious, but it’s worth a try just to get a taste of Swabian culture.

Spaetzle

Also a Swabian specialty food, Spaetzle is a type of noodle. I was explicitly told by a colleague of mine not to call this pasta. Apparently Swabians like to make a distinction between Spaetzle and pasta. To go with the Spaetzle, I had lentils and sausages. It tasted okay I guess (if you’re Swabian and reading this, don’t hate me). It’s not one of my favorites, but for those who want to eat Swabian food, this is something to try.

Semmelknoedel

A southern German and Austrian specialty food, semmelknoedel is made of mostly bread. That probably doesn’t make the food sound delicious, but when I ate it, i thought it was good. It’s not super fancy or anything, just something unique that people in Germany eat.

There is way more German food that I ate since I’ve been here, but unfortunately most of the time I eat the food, I have no idea what it is or that I can’t remember the name. Oh how inconvenient it is to not be able to read/speak German. As I try more and more different kinds of food, I’ll be sure to post more.