We left Paris early this morning from the Gare du Nord taking the Thalys train back to Cologne. We were reluctant to leave as there are still so many things left to explore. But Hubby said that it's also good to leave some things out so that we still have something to look forward to on our next visit. So instead of saying "goodbye", we said "au revoir Paris!". Until we meet again...

Hello again Cologne! It was raining a bit hard when we reached Cologne at around 11.20am. It was nearing lunch time and Hubby wanted to go back to the Haxenhaus zum Rheingarten because he wanted to enjoy their nice food perhaps for the last time in this trip. So, although the rain could soak us wet and I only have a small umbrella with me, we walked to the Old Town passing by the Cologne Cathedral. Today, I can definitely declare that there are 3 things I will never forget about this church:

1. Its huge size and the special mass I attended here on Sunday
2. Climbing its bell tower and almost fainting
3. Today I slipped and fell butt-first on the wet ground in front of it! (it looked funny but it's painful too)

Finally, with our wet bags and partially wet selves, we reached the Haxenhaus zum Rheingarten. As usual, they were quite full inside and even outside. We wanted to sit at the same table they assigned to us that night because it's a bit private and there would be lots of space for our luggage. But they asked us to sit in the middle instead because there will be a tour group coming later on. It was only then that I realized that this restaurant is really very much a part of Cologne's history and that they are indeed one of the stops for tour groups.

We did not order the pork knuckles anymore. Instead, we ordered the 1/2 meter German sausage with different side dishes. When I first thought about half a meter length of sausage, I thought I wouldn't be able to finish it. But I was too hungry and the dish was too good not to devour all of it.

After lunch, Hubby and I walked back to the Dom Hauptbahnhof. We had already bought train tickets going to the Dusseldorf Airport. I convinced him to get a train instead of a taxi to avoid the traffic and to save on the cost. While waiting for our train, I just stayed in Starbucks while Hubby went back to the church to take more photos. This time it had stopped raining.

The time came for us to board the train. It was just a normal train with no seat numbers. But when we were inside, we found that there's actually a first class section on the second level. We had a problem at first on where to sit, because there was no indication on our tickets if we were first class or economy, but then decided to stay in the economy section for convenience. It was quite scary at first because I didn't know all the stops and I was supposed to be the "leader" in riding trains. All my instincts were telling me though that it was the correct train. And it was.

We reached Dusseldorf Airport station in less than 30 minutes. We encountered another dilemma as to which stop of the "sky train" we were supposed to go down to. There was A&B and C stops. We chose A&B and luckily we were right. I must say though that Dusseldorf Airport has a real "sky train". It was like a short tram suspended in the air sort of like a longer and bigger cable car. Unfortunately, I was not able to take a picture. They also have a nice airport with lots of shops but we went straight to our gate after checking in.

Well, truly this is it! It's the end of our trip to Cologne and Paris for the year 2011. I'm keeping a positive mindset that we will be able to go there again next year or in the years to come. Au revoir!

Traveling to Paris has always been our dream. It seemed impossible to do before, but thanks to our Cologne trip, it finally happened this year.

I'm very glad we took the train to Paris from Cologne, never mind the 3-hour journey, because the train ride was altogether a totally different experience for Hubby and me. We were really lucky to get reasonably-priced first class tickets although I only bought the tickets 2 days ago.

The Thalys train has very comfortable seats in first class and we also get to be served lunch and afternoon snacks on our seats. We also got access to their free and fast WIFI connection. Although I was tempted to just log in to my Facebook the whole time, I did manage to see the sights outside the window and to take pictures of interesting places. But then, always when you ride trains, you only get to see the "back view" of the places you pass by. I still enjoyed it though. We passed through Belgium's "back view" and we've seen some parts of the countrysides of Germany, Belgium and Paris. Wasn't that lovely indeed! I didn't want the train journey to end, but hey, we needed to be in Paris, right?

Today was our last full day in Cologne because tomorrow at around 12.43PM, we will board the Thalys train to Paris. Despite being here for already 4 days now, I still haven't really done all the recommended tourist activities for Cologne. So my day started early today so that I can cram it all in.

THE SCHOKOLADENMUSEUM

My first agenda of the day was to pay a visit to the Schokoladenmuseum (Chocolate Museum). In order to reach the place, I went down at the Severinstrasse station and walked for about 15 minutes towards the river. The Chocolate Museum is one very big building at one side of the Rhine river. The entrance fee was 7.50 Euros and they give you a free small piece of Lindt chocolate upon payment of the fee.

The museum has several sections all very educational especially to those who really don't know where chocolates come from, how it is produced and how the cacao plant looks like. There's a section which is like a mini-factory where real Lindt chocolates are being produced from the mixing to the packing. They also have displays of the old machines used in producing chocolates in the early days of the 1800s. There's even one mixer (conche) invented by Lindt himself in 1879 but is still operating today. They also have a simulated tropical greenhouse in the front part of the museum where a real cacao plant is growing and bearing fruits together with other very familiar tropical plants like the papaya. But one of the crowd-drawers must be the ever-flowing chocolate fountain flowing with Lindt milk chocolate and the pretty girl beside it dipping plain waffers to the liquid and giving them to the visitors. There's no limit as to how much you can eat. I myself ended up consuming 5 of those. 

The museum also has an open-air rooftop with a very good view of both sides of the Rhine river. I also went up there to snap pictures of Cologne before going down and proceeding with my day's activities. 

From the Chocolate Museum, I just walked by the Rhine river to reach the Old Town. This is a place overlooking the river where old picture-perfect buildings are located. Some of these buildings function as hotels but most of them are restaurants. By the time I reached there, it was already lunch time and I was drawn to one orange-colored building (most of the buildings there are either white or beige) that looks like a very old traditional German restaurant. Most of all, I was also drawn by their lunch special (slices of grilled pork knuckles in Madagascar sause) and their very nice outdoor setting. I decided to have my lunch and coffee there. 

After having the huge pork knuckles for the first time 2 nights ago, I swore not to eat pork for 2 months but here was I today! So after my very heavy lunch, I kept on walking along the riverside until I reached a flight of steps leading to the rear part of the cathedral. The cathedral never stopped to amaze me. It has been like a magnet for me everytime I'm in the city. Today I discovered so much more how dynamic its design is in every angle. When I looked at its "behind" it was as if I was looking at another church because the design there was again different. 

One of the attractions of the cathedral is the climb to its belfry in one of the towers. Some of the girls recommended it and I decided to give it a try today without knowing how high it is or how hard it is to climb. I went in blindly and paid the 3 Euro entrance fee. In my mind I was thinking: "This is just climbing a staircase. I can just rest if I get tired". I was wrong!

The tower stands 157m tall and 533 steps if you really complete the climb and will take you 30 minutes to complete if you never stop to breathe. Sounds easy, doesn't it? The beginning of the climb from the ticket booth (some 23 steps or more) also never looked so intimidating. But when we turned to the corner from there and inside the dark tower, it was altogether a different story...

The staircase became circular with only a meter (maximum) in width and it was used both ways (going up and going down). It was very hard to fit 2 people on both sides of it at once. There were also no railings on the outer part (away from the wall), so if you are not careful, you might come tumbling down until you reach the ground. Another scary thing was that there was nowhere to rest. If I remember correctly, from the ground up, there were only 3 small enclaves on the wall side where only 1 or 2 people can stand on to catch their breaths. Of course, because the staircase is not wide enough for other climbing people to overtake you, you have no choice but to keep going. You don't want to stop everyone else on their tracks just because you want to rest! That was what I did until I felt like I couldn't really breathe anymore. I really thought right then and there I will have a heart attack.

I was just happy when I finally reached the level where the bells are located because I can finally rest for a while. But it was also very deafening in there when the bells ring. I counted 5 bells inside there. I'm not sure exactly how many there are. From there, I continued to climb higher (maybe another 50 or 100 steps) until the final level was reached. And from this level, which I think is already the roof of the tower, you can continue on to climb a wider set of stairs up to the topmost part. I did not do that anymore. I had no more energy to do so and I was starting to get concerned about the way down. I was actually surprised by my smooth way down and I was so much relieved when I was finally back on the ground. I could not believe that I have conquered the tower! 

Today, I didn't do much "tourist thing" in the city because my main purpose of going there is to buy our tickets to Paris. We can't afford to delay the purchase any longer. We will be traveling there on Wednesday and the ticket prices go up higher when it's nearer the travel date.

After buying the tickets at the Dom Hauptbahnhof, I squeezed in some photography with the cathedral once again and its nearby surroundings. When I got tired of it for the day, I went back to the shopping street where the shops are finally open. I went to H&M because I really love their merchandise and I was very happy to find a dress for my sister-in-law's wedding there! All in all, I think I spent around 2 hours in there as the queue for the fitting room was always long like their shop in Hong Kong.

For my late lunch, I chose a fish sandwich at Nordsee. I have noticed these shops during our first trips to the city and I found they are serving Norwegian seafood. I had been watching a Norwegian cooking show before coming here so I had been curious with their fresh seafood. The fish sandwich was waaay better than the one I had yesterday so I was happy. Then tonight I took Hubby, Cindy and their distributor from the The Netherlands named Dennis back to Nordsee for dinner. We all ordered the hot fish meals and were all very satisfied with the food.

Last night, all of us Asians left the hotel at around 7.30PM to get some dinner in the city. But when we stopped at Neumarkt, we went our separate ways in two groups. The first group with Fitri, Atri and Lydia wanted to have Vietnamese food so they went back to Cyclo. The second group with me, Hubby, Cindy, Febby, Strela and Ani went further up to get some German-style dinner.

Prior to this trip, I was really unfamiliar with German cuisine. The only German food I know is sausage and sauerkraut (the latter I learned about in Melbourne) and I know that they have different kinds of sausages. But the girls (Febby and Cindy) who had been to Germany many times before kept telling us to try the pork knuckles. After mastering Schildergasse yesterday morning, I was able to guide the group to the German restaurant where according to Cindy, they had their company dinner 2 years ago. I was not able to get the name though.

All six of us ordered the pork knuckles mostly the grilled form except for Strela who was accidentally given the boiled version. Her original order though was chicken! No choice, she had to eat it. It was the first one served and since we were all very hungry, some of us helped her a bit in consuming the dish, all wanting to just "taste" it.

When our real orders came, it was very shocking as all the knuckles were gigantic. It was a struggle just cutting it into small pieces as it always rolls over to its side. It was quite tough and the skin was still rubbery and not crispy. I thought it wasn't really cooked well enough. We made quite a spectacle with the other customers. They all looked at us everytime they pass by our table because "here are these small Asians consuming giant German pork knuckles!"

See for yourself with these pictures...

Today is our third day in Cologne and I am already very eager to start my tourist duties. So after a heavy breakfast in the hotel restaurant, I got ready to walk with them once again to the Koelnmesse. I still didn't feel confident about looking for the other tram stop near our hotel. Some of the girls already left and only Hubby and Strela and their German colleagues were left in the hotel.

We prepared to walk but it started raining and I'm the only one with an umbrella (Girl Scouts are always prepared!). Luckily, one of the guys brought his car to the hotel so we rode with him to the Koelnmesse. Unfortunately for me though, he entered in another section of the center and since I didn't look like an exhibitor with my casual getup, I decided not to enter the building with them and just walked back outside to the tram stop. Really unfortunately for me, the exit I took was very far from the tram stop. When I finally reached there, I was already so sweaty and grimy that I decided to walk back again to the hotel to freshen myself first before heading out to the city.

This time, my walk took me 40 minutes to reach the hotel but I'm still glad I did because on my way, I saw a familiar sign saying "Stegerwaldsiedlung" in one of the street corners near our hotel. I remember seeing this sign last night in the city when Febby and I were looking at the transportation map in the city. I was thinking, this could be the name of the tram stop near our hotel.

So on the way back to the city, I decided to look for that stop by turning in on that street corner. And there it was, just behind Penny Markt, on the highway! I was really happy to see it and to finally board the tram. I decided to go down Neumarkt stop in the city and just walk back to the Cologne Cathedral. My first agenda of the day is to hear mass because it's a Sunday.

The enormous size of the cathedral is so unbelievable! I had glimpses of it the first two nights that we went to the city, but I was only able to view it today in all its magnificence. It was so hard to fit all of it in my lens! My point and shoot has quite a wide lens but it still cannot fit the whole structure in. Finally I was able to go in and I was more astounded with its size and interior design. It has the highest church ceiling I have ever seen in my life! There were a lot of tourists inside snapping pictures and a mass is concluding. Luckily, there's another one at 12NN and this was the one I attended.

The mass I attended seemed to be special, I gathered, because when it started there was a long procession of some uniformed men holding banners and flags of some sort and some women wearing gowns and small crowns on their heads. The missalette they gave us says "150 Jahre..." on the cover and from my 2 days of stay here I was able to gather that "jahre" means "years" in English so I figured they might be celebrating "150 years of something" today (the last 2 words I couldn't make out). It was really so special attending a German mass. It felt wonderful!

After the mass, I went to the Tourist Information Center just across the cathedral to ask for some help as to where I can break down our 500 Euro bill. It's very hard to buy anything with the big bill because nobody wants to accept it saying they don't have enough change. Hubby and I tried it once at Penny Markt on the first day. Our total bill was only 4.12 Euros and the cashier almost killed us when we tried to pay him the 500 bill. We tried it again at the Cyclo dinner that night for a total bill worth 121.60 Euros but they still didn't have change.

Thankfully the helpful people at the center told me there are banks that will break down the bill for me inside the Dom Hauptbahnhof (train station) and it is also just a few steps away from the cathedral and the tourist center. While in the station, I also made inquiries as to where we can buy Thalys train tickets to Paris and I also just had lunch there. That was a forgettable lunch. Apart from just being a sandwich, I didn't get the correct sandwich I ordered but I didn't bother to complain anymore.

I planned to do some window shopping after that to look for souvenirs in the Schildergasse shopping street but found that all the shops are closed on Sundays. I decided to go back to the hotel but first I needed to walk back to the main train station to buy water in the only open grocery store inside.

I went back to the hotel via the tram again and by now I feel like I'm already an expert. I texted Cindy to tell them how to ride the tram and where to stop so that they don't have to walk back to the hotel. They were all very happy that they followed my advice as they were all very tired from the exhibit.

I still don't know how to get to the city and I don't want to waste money on a taxi so I decided to walk with them to the Koelnmesse this morning to try to familiarize myself with the place and to find out where is the tram stop to the city. Walking to the exhibition center took 30 minutes and the only tram stop I saw was the one at Koelnmesse.

I didn't go directly to the city because Hubby asked me to go inside the exhibition center with them. After all, I was given a pass by one of the girls and the nice thing about that pass is that we can also use it for free public transportation (bus or train) for the whole duration of the show.

As usual, I was once again impressed by the size of the Koelnmesse and the complexity of the placement of the buildings. I've been to many exhibition halls before when I was still working, the biggest of which was the Melbourne Exhibition Centre, but none of them even with their sizes were hard to navigate. They were all just pretty rectangular and very straightforward. The Koelnmesse is different that if you don't remember where you entered, chances are you will get lost in there and might exit somewhere else as well.

I was planning to just stay there in the morning but ended up staying the whole day instead. To try to get out of their way, I just spent most of the day outside enjoying the nice cool weather and smelling the fresh air until a lot of smokers gathered around me. I was, after all, in the smoking area. (LOL!)

Hubby and I left the venue at around 6.30PM with Febby (one of the Indonesian girls). The other girls just wanted to rest in the hotel but the 3 of us wanted to have dinner in the city and Febby also needed to buy a new pair of shoes because she brought the wrong ones.

After buying her shoes, she took us to a Greek restaurant aptly named "Athens" in one of the quiet corners of the city. The food there was good. I ordered grilled salmon, Hubby ordered a dish with souvlaki meat on it and Febby ordered her favorite lamb chops. She told me there is actually a tram stop near Penny Markt (the nearest grocery store to our hotel) but she cannot remember the name, so I decided to look for it tomorrow.

After only 2 days to prepare for myself (I have already prepared for Hubby), finally Hubby, Cindy and I left Guangzhou last night via Emirates. It was my first time to fly with this airline and they quite impressed me - the seats were the most comfortable seats I've ever tried before (even in economy), the inflight entertainment was superb and the food was great. So even if the flight to Dubai (our stopover city) took almost 8 hours, I still felt comfortable and although not really well-rested (I never really get any sleep on the plane) but good and in high spirits.

I was also looking forward to stopping in Dubai (even only in their airport) because of the many nice things I've been hearing about the place. I've even considered looking for a job there many times in the last 2 years. But now to be honest, I was quite disappointed with their airport. Dubai likes to make things "grand". A good example is their 7-star hotel which is the only one in the world so far and also now the tallest building in the world is there. I thought their airport would be "grand" too knowing that a lot of international flights especially from Asia to Europe stopover there. Unfortunately, it's not as what I had expected.

One of the problems that their airport should address is the lack of toilets. Yeah I know there are quite a few in there but they are quite small and hard to find at some point. The queue is always very long that if you can't really hold it, you can pee in your pants. They should put toilets in every gate or make them bigger because they always have a lot of people flying in and out of their airport. The second problem is the lousy wifi connection. Hubby and I tried to connect many times and only ended up draining our batteries. Third, and this might not be important to some, is the lack of shops. All these considered, I couldn't help but think that to me, the Hong Kong airport is still the best airport in the world.

Unfortunately, we had to stay there for 5 hours so we had no choice but to make do with what they have. We also met with the rest of their company's delegation to the Spoga Exhibition in the airport (6 girls from Indonesia). I actually felt a little left out since I'm not working with them and this is the first time I met them. Luckily, a girl named Strela was so friendly and talkative, we hit it off right away during this first meeting.

Finally, at 8.40AM Dubai time, our flight for Dusseldorf left and it was another 7 hours on board the plane. Hubby and I were more excited this time because this is both our first time to Germany and first time to any country in Europe for that matter. We were more excited after touch down and after clearing customs and immigration and aboard the taxi to the hotel with Cindy. We all had to take separate taxis because the one sent to fetch us is the small version and can only fit the 3 of us plus our luggages.

The drive from Dusseldorf airport to Cologne took more than 30 minutes I gather because of the traffic. Normally, according to the driver, it should only take 30 minutes. I was very much impressed because the taxi was a black Mercedes and still looked and felt quite new. Well, I soon found out that most of their taxis are Mercedeses so it wasn't a big deal after all.

During the drive, I couldn't help but be in awe once again with the beauty and cleanliness and comfort of a first world country. This is, after all, my first time in one since we left Australia 2 years ago. I had been very observant with our surroundings the whole time and I couldn't help but feel like I'm in Melbourne once again: the highway looked a bit similar (although they drive on the other side), the trees, plants and even weeds are also the same.

Our hotel is located in a quiet residential area. But I know the reason why their company chose this is because of its close proximity to the Koelnmesse (the exhibition center). After settling in and waiting for the other girls to arrive, we all headed out to dinner in the city. Three of the girls are already experts in the city of Cologne so we just trusted them to bring us to the city and to dinner. We had our first dinner in Cologne at the Cyclo Vietnamese Restaurant. The food was alright but not as good as the Vietnamese food in Melbourne. Sorry, I really can't help but compare all the time.

There wasn't much to do after dinner because the shops close at 8PM so we all just headed back to the hotel to get some rest. Tomorrow, all of them will have to be at the exhibition center to help in preparing their booth and for a product training to be conducted by Hubby.