12 Jul 2013: Exploring Munich

12 Jul 2013: It was free-and-easy time in the morning and early afternoon. With the guidance of a few friends, I was able to tag along to visit the city area of Munich yet again. We visited Bauer-Hieber which essentially is a place to find various sheet music. I wondered why we could find musically inspired rubber ducks there too?

Another destination was the Neue Pinakothek Museum in Munich. The museum has a post-modern architectural style. For a distance, the museum blended very well into the surrounding picturesque landscape.

Neue Pinakothek Museum. Photo courtesy of Terence Low.

In this museum, visitors would have the privilege to view Van Gogh's Sunflowers (1888) and Claude Monet's Water Lilies (1915). Van Gogh's Plain near Auvers (1890) is also a part of the museum's collection. These were the paintings that I had used to study in art-history class when I was a teenager. Somehow, I felt comforted to see the original works face-to-face. The flowers in Van Gogh's Sunflowers looked alive!

Van Gogh's Sunflowers (1888).

I was attracted to a sculpture, The Fallen (1915/16), by Wilhelm Lehmbruck. It seemed to connect with me at some level. It was also an interesting piece of art compared to a museum that was dominated by paintings.

The group of us had lunch nearby the museum. Our meeting place was at the train station at Marienplatz. On my way to the train station, I met a local who had generously showed the way about Marienplatz and the nearby areas. That was an unexpected surprise.

Then time seemed to pass so fast and soon we would on the train that took us from Marienplatz to Haar, where the hotel was located. We were on the roads again to get to Munich airport. We were on our way back to Singapore. In the meantime, a number of the orchestra members chose to extend the trip.

Bye Europe.
A memorable journey.