Meet Up in Munich

At the Augustiner Keller, Munich, Germany

We finally met! Kim’s family and us. And of all places, it was in Munich, Germany! This will be the first time we meet Daniel and baby Jared, and it’ll be their first time meeting us, plus Kim’s first time seeing little Jayden. It didn’t go very smoothly at first, …thanks in part to me, …no, actually it’s all me haha. We invited Kim & family to meet us in Munich on the 20th of August, because we would be in Munich then. What I didn’t mention was that we’d be staying in Lienz, East Tirol, Austria on the night before. No, it’s not too far, only about 300km away. But that 300km included a mountain pass named the Grossglockner High Alpine Road, which passes through the highest mountain in Austria (Grossglockner) and its glacier. The estimated journey time calculated using Google Maps is err… 4 hours 30 mins (not too much, right). But that doesn’t take into account our frequent stops, for photos, washroom, diesel, snacks, etc… and the way I drive nowadays (i.e. slow, hey, my family’s in the car OK, and I’m not too familiar with Austrian and German road regulations! Besides… I’m not as young as I used to be, ahem). We tried our best to start early, but with 2 kids around, sometimes things don’t just go as planned. Nevertheless we started early (at least an hour earlier that on the other days of our trip, anyway). And by 5pm we reached our destination, or what I thought was our destination, but …it’s chock-a-block filled with residential flats, where’s the friggin hotel?

The friggin hotel, i.e. the Holiday Inn Express, Munich Airport, turned out to be another 45km+ away, in a godforsaken place named Öberding. (No one told me that the airport hotel address is NOT inside Munich! So the smartass GPS, …or more like the smartass who keyed the address into the GPS, i.e. yours truly, led us right smack into the city). Now, it’s evening rush hour time, and we’re right in the middle of it. But we finally made it to the hotel, at friggin 7pm. By then, Kim was brooding mad, having to wait for us for an entire day (their train reached Munich in the morning, and it’s another 2.5 hours by public transport from Munich to Öberding), and they’ve been stuck in the hotel, with nowhere to go (unless you wanna go to the airport, told ya it’s in a godforsaken place), till the time we arrived.

But all was forgiven when we met. And we had dinner, …umm, a not very 'halal' dinner (after all this is Germany, sorry dad, not a place for you), in Munich. It was raining dogs and cats, and we didn’t have time to do any last minute shopping in the city before we flew off the next day, :(. (I’ll make up for it honey, in one way or another, OK?)


Augustiner Keller (a beer cellar, crowded to the brim with patrons, even though it was a weekday and was raining heavily outside).




Justin with his uncle, planning out how to tackle the food – pork, duck, potato and cabbages – nothing much for you here, Dad, not the most ‘halal’ of places, I’d say. Oh yeah, you can have the beer hehe




Kimmikimkim, with baby Jared




The 2 babies, Jayden and Jared, at the Holiday Inn Express, Munich Airport


The Müllers, dad’s German, mom’s Malaysian and baby holds a NZ passport. They’re in Germany for a one month visit before returning to New Zealand


Finally, a family picture with Anu in it. The others were all taken by her, …I dunno what’s wrong with my photos, …must be the camera, yeah, blame it on the camera. At Munich Airport before we fly off