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A wonderful way to spend a Saturday morning. I visited this place today. A fascinating showcase of their history and their past together with an amazing collection of their vintage cars, motor cycles and their engines over the years all displayed in their Museum.

The World features all the latest models of their cars.

There is a constant stream of people coming here. It’s a good showcase of their engineering prowess. BMW was making aircraft engines before progressing to making cars a hundred years ago. They were innovating with new and more powerful engines when the Chinese were nowhere. Of course now they are having difficulty competing in the EV marketplace with the Chinese.

Lets hope they keep progressing and continue making top end cars.

Had my morning coffee here this morning. It is a cafe connected to the hotel. Had my coffee with a chia seed pudding and a croissant.

Reasonably priced and good service. The croissant and the chia pudding was good. They have no service charge so tips are optional.

There are many cafes here. They are all well patronised and decently priced. I saw about 5 within 50 meters of the hotel. All with yummy looking bakes

I also visited the nearly Lidl supermarket. The things are so well priced, in particular the fruits. Stocked up on snacks for my next train ride.

I have to say the people in Germany are courteous and helpful. And you feel safe here. Not like Paris or London where you are worried about snatch thieves or pickpockets. Also such beautiful weather at this time of the year. Sunny and cool.

Munich is certainly a good place to visit although I have to say there are so many museums and historical sites I have skipped. Sigh.

My dinner last night was at this restaurant at my hotel in Munich. I had read the reviews about this place and they were good. But what clinched my eating here last evening was that I was tired and hungry after my train ride and when I checked in, it suddenly started pouring.

They focus on steaks and meats. And so they named the restaurant the lonely broccoli cos with all the many meat options, the veggies such as broccoli would be lonely!

Excellent food and service and at very good prices. Lovely setting too. I had a wagyu burger, eggplant and sauteed spinach with garlic. All yummy!

The chocolate dessert was glorious!

I didn’t know there was going to be such good food in Germany. And at such good prices. I thought it would be such lots of sausages.

Singapore is such a sad place when it comes to dining and finding reasonably priced good food. Sad. Everywhere else I go, I end up with wonderful food and coffee options which make you look forward to dining the next meal. And you have so many options too.

Took this train to Munich from Frankfurt airport. Was told it’s a high speed train but it’s not. Most of the time it was about 120km/h and it slowed down many times. The trip was delayed too.

It left Frankfurt airport at 1135 promptly. It was supposed to arrive in Munich at 1512 but it only got in about 1550. Rather annoying.

The German trains cannot compare to the Chinese HSRs. Those are spot on in terms of punctuality and are much faster. Also the Chinese are much more security conscious when it comes to trains. They check and screen all bags brought into the station. They also check your identify before you are allowed to board. Germans didn’t check luggages before entering the station and neither did they check identity before boarding. Hmmm..mixed views on this.

Comfort wise it was alright. A bit bumpy at times but otherwise ok.

Today I took a flight to Frankfurt. It was on a A380.

I have not taken a long flight since Covid. Before that I used to fly regularly and in fact used to look forward to flying.

Perhaps it is because I am out of practice? I found it tiring. I was bored. Didn’t sleep much, which is probably because it was a day flight. Didn’t feel like watching a movie as well.

The entire flight was full on every single class. Flying has really picked up!

The upper deck was just suites and business class and I pity the crew. Non stop service.

I have to say the plane looks dated. These planes have been in service for some time now. I used to love flying on this plane. I remember going on this to New York via Frankfurt and I will specially choose this plane when going to London. I thought they were retiring the A380s but apparently not.

Last night I had dinner with Michael. He is the owner of Dejade in Mandarin Gallery. He was here for a brief visit and he suggested dinner.

I first met him years ago when I visited the famous Canton Street in HK looking for jade. I visited a shop owned by his parents and met him and his brother there.

Over the years I have met him and his family at various jewelry fairs in Singapore.

Some 2 years back, he decided to open a shop in Singapore to diversity from HK, which was experiencing a huge exodus of people then. I remember visiting his shop on the opening day. I bought a green Jade bangle that day to support him. I have been wearing this bangle ever since. I paid a very decent price for it and it is a purchase I have been very happy with since!

This morning I saw a report that stated that this year alone some 11,000 millionaires have or are expected to leave the UK.

This for a variety of reasons. The primary ones being higher taxes targeted at the wealthy, a general clouding of the economic prospects for the UK and a lack of incentives to generate wealth there.

I was surprised seeing these kind of numbers. These wealthy people are generally the ones who purchase higher end properties, thereby contributing to stamp duty revenue. They spend money and consume more and therefore contribute to the tax coffers, pay income tax and employ people in businesses they operate. If they leave, wouldn’t that have a huge impact on tax collection. By imposing a higher tax burden on the wealthy to collect more revenue it would have the exact opposite effect of driving them away and thereby leading to lower tax collection.

Countries everywhere are trying to attract the wealthy and here you have a country shooting itself in the foot by driving them away! I always regarded the UK as a wealthy nation. Beautiful stately homes, gardens and tops in art and culture. Who will support any of these if the wealthy abandon the country?

But the UK has been making a series of disastrous decisions recently, starting with Brexit, so perhaps it is not at all surprising.

Yesterday morning, a participant at this year’s NDP parade collapsed and died during the rehearsal.

He was 47. That is sad in of itself.

But what surprised me was how it was reported.

There was no mention of his name, no details about him or his family, no interviews with anyone around him to note whether he felt unwell before he collapsed or said anything, why he wanted to participate in NDP, his health condition or the weather conditions at that time.

Of course the rehearsal continued, notwithstanding his untimely and unfortunate death, and everyone must have enjoyed the show later that evening.

But is this what we are about? The individual is irrelevant in the context of the bigger picture, a must have grand parade to showcase our “talents” before our VIPs and audience? Downplay the death and instead focus on how everyone had done their best to revive him after he collapsed?

In today’s weather conditions is it fair to ask people, including children, to spend hours out in the sun for months to rehearse for a perfect parade lasting 90 minutes? Is a parade still important in today’s world? Fostering patriotism is good but are there better ways than this? With increasing temperatures and humidity are outdoor parades and rehearsals still healthy? Most people are there to see only the fireworks anyway. Would watching fireworks instil patriotism?

Sometime after Covid, five of us, who knew each other from our NWCDC days, started meeting once a month for lunch. The group comprised Dr Teo, Vincent Chong, Sim Chuan San, Michael Lau and myself. We set up a chat group under the name “lunch buddies”.

We have not met as a group for quite some time for a meal.

Recently Michael had to undergo surgery for his right eye. He suddenly saw floaters and had blurred vision with flashing lights. He saw an eye doctor who recommended immediate surgery. He has had a detached retina. It’s been about 2 months since the operation and his right eye has not recovered at all.

So I arranged dinner with him and the group to catch up with him and keep up his spirits. I arranged it at the Palermo Restaurant at Keppel marina, which is near his place.

He says he’s prepared for the fact that his right eye may never recover. That’s bad cos he can’t read or drive now. His sense of perception has been affected and he has constant headaches because of the impairment in one eye.

I have since arranged an eye check for myself! We never realise how important eye sight is till its gone.

San couldn’t make it for the dinner.

Yesterday’s lunch was with the Wong sisters, Virginia and Valerie.

We had our lunch at Pulsii bistro at Tras Street. The food was decent and the set lunch was well priced.

I have known the sisters for a very long time. I first met Virginia sometime in 1998, I think. Later I got to know her twin sister. I have also met their mother who is, at least to me, a very happy and cheerful person.

Two wonderful hardworking sisters, one in finance and the other in property, who have been very good friends over the years. Both are very kind and helpful but they can, at the same time, be firm and will not tolerate any nonsense. I have been to Japan and Phuket with them years ago. They have over the years also introduced me to their friends, though I have lost touch with most of them.

We make it a point to catch up regularly and it is always an enjoyable two hours mealtime with them, talking about everything and nothing!

Both believe in very colourful dressing!