Saturday 11 August 2012

Gehen nach die Stadt

Today I made a trip to town to get some supplies. And also to have a nice meal since I'll need to cook the whole day tomorrow as all the shops are closed on Sunday here.

So I took a tram to Pirnaischer Platz, which is like a plaza/kind-of-city-centre. I dunno really, I just saw a lot of shops and places while passing through in a tram.



I've passed by here previously, but only briefly to go to the Foreign Visitors Office to register my arrival in Germany.  A lot of trams and busses pass by here, and lots of tourists too I suppose. There's quite a number of shops and eateries around.


 
After having been here a week and a half, it's nice to be greeted with the sight of familiar food.



The little blue packet on the left is Europe's answer to our 'pop-pop' towels. You know, the scented damp tissue wrapped in plastic typically found in Chinese restaurants. Except that it's packed like a sterilised alcohol swab, smaller in size, stronger scent and only a polite inaudible tearing sound upon opening. I've seen them before when I was in Aberdeen, which I will make a blog post erm.. later.. :P

So I decided to try  the McRibs, which turns out to be like a slice of pork fillet with a dollop of meat/barbeque. Tastes alright, though the sauce can be a slightly overwhelming.




There's also a small section of McD, known as McCafethat sells coffee, pastries, and bubble tea! Yes, I kid you not. I think this is the next big thing in Dresden, at least. Incidentally I had passed quite a large Bubble Tea Original (hehe..) shop a couple of minutes away from McD.



This is the supposed plaza which gave rise to the name, I suppose. There's also a tiny row of open market stalls at the far end of the pic, selling mostly sausages, ice cream, coffee and knick-knacks.



ZOMG! Civilisation at last! An actual shopping complex! This is the first shopping complex I've seen in Europe that's comparable to the ones we have in Malaysia. There's quite a number of eateries too, will try them out next time.



As usual, you can check out a few more pics on my google+.

Auf wiedersehen!

Monday 6 August 2012

Guten Tag!

Ok, so I still haven't posted bout my previous trip to Scotland, but that's gonna have to wait. 'Cos this post is THE update (in the loosest sense) of where I am.

Right now I'm in Dresden, Germany! To make it easier for you, I'm right here:


So what am I doing there? Well I'm currently a research assistant at the Max-Planck- Institut für Physik komplexer Systeme, aka Max-Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems. No, my disdain and suckitude at physics since secondary school was not a cleverly-concealed latent ability. Which, by the way, most of the research here is comprised of biophysicists that do research like kinetics of cell movement, protein shapes etc aka the physics of living systems.

It's just that I'm tied to a research group leader, Dr. Michael Hiller, who has links to this institute and another Max-Planck Institute, i.e Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics. So for now I'm doing work here.

I just got here and work has already started piling up. Lots of new things to learn, considering that I'm shifting to a slightly different research area, which is more towards computational biology and comparative genomics (wait till I find a nice introductory video for it.). 

I'll update more stuff next time (*cough, ahem) such as how all this crazy stuff came together as well as my attachment/trip to UK, but for now here's a picture of the guesthouse (behind the institute) that I'm staying at for now.


p/s: The suitcase is mine and did not come with the room.

Tschüs!

pp/s: there are more photos in my Google+, though I'm not too sure if you can see them since I'm still kinda new to this.