15th October 2005 - Day 12

This morning, I woke up at 0730. I still haven't decided on where to go for the weekend. But I didn't want to waste a Saturday at hostel doing nothing. Hence, I decided to go to Baden Baden to do some walking.

After the usual lazing around and coffee drinking, I finally set off at 1118. Just in time to catch the 1120 bus. However, I had to wait until 1149 before I could board on S4.

That wasn't all. Because this particular S4 doesn't travel the whole stretch, I had to get on another S4 at 1236. I finally reached Baden Baden Bahnhof at 1310. There, I took another bus to get to the town centre.

The town was quite lively. I think it was because of the tourists (I overheard many of them speaking in English). Here are some pictures I took.

Looks like some countryside view

Just found the orange tower eye-catching

2 Rows of Trees

A fountain and some don't-know-what-building

A typical street in Baden Baden

Seriously, because I didn't do much research about Baden Baden, I don't know what I was looking at or whether did I miss out anything interesting. Anyway, it's not that far away from Karlsruhe. I can always revisit the place in the future.

Some more pictures:

Tree in a park

Another 2 rows of trees. Notice the roads besides it

A building which caught my eye

Anyway, I was back in Karlsruhe by 1500. There wasn't much to do. I was thinking of steaming a chicken for dinner tonight. Enough of bread and ham I guess. So I went back to hostel and logged on to MSN.

I consulted my mother on how to steam the chicken through the help of my younger sister. I can only vaguely remember what my mother told me before. Besides, I've never tried steaming a chicken. I remember that the ingredients were quite simple. Just a chicken, salt and sesame oil.

After confirming some finer details with my mother, I went out to Postgalerie am Europaplatz to get my sesame oil. It's only sold in shops dealing with Asian foodstuffs. It's really daylight robbery. A 375ml bottle costs 3.99€. In Singapore, a 320ml bottle costs only S$2.60! Oh well, when you need to have it, you have to get it.

After getting the chicken and the salt next, I went back to prepare to chicken.

Defrosting the chicken really took up a lot of time. The rest of the steps were actually quite easy.

1. Get a pot filled with water. Bring to boil.
2. After boiling, put in the chicken into the pot and switch the fire to "medium".
3. Allow to cook for 15-20 minutes.
4. Remove the chicken from the pot.
5. Rub salt and sesame oil on the chicken while it is still hot (No kidding).
6. Chop up the chicken into smaller pieces.

This time round, I had my camera with me.

The finished product 1

The finished product 2

I also cooked rice again.

Cooked rice

Ok. I must admit the colour of the chicken doesn't really look very appetizing. But it was not too bad. After getting rid of the bloody pieces of meat, it was much better. Think I will have to learn how to cut up a chicken correctly. Some pieces were simply too big!

2 very patronising floor mates came over and gave it a try. They decided that it tasted ziemlich gut. Oh yes. It's edible all right. So that was my dinner for today.

There was a sit down, eat, drink and talk cock session with some of my floormates. Simon, Sebastian, Jan, someguywhosenameiforgot, and I were having some Nudelnsalat und Rotwein. Mostly, they were doing the talking and I didn't understand everything. But I guess it should help me with learning German in some way.

So, bedtime and I haven't started on my revisions yet!