0925trip to Munich

I went to Munich on last weekends with my friends. We went there by night bus and it took 15hours to get there..I arrived sooner than expected. I heard if you go to Munich directly it takes only 9 hours, but we went to Munich via Belgium so it took more than 15 hours. Met up in Rotterdam with my friends from Singapore at 16pm and headed to Munich together. Actually it was the first time to meet them, but they were so friendly that we could be friends with them easily. On our way to Munich, we got off the bus to take a rest at the parking area. They sold sandwiches and drinks, functionally looked like Japanese convenient store. But all of the goods at the store were very expensive. The sandwich costed 5€. Everything is expensive in Europe. Also we paid 0.5€ just to do pee at the entrance of toilet. It imaginable in Japan. Even at midnight, you can use toilet at convenience store for free. But I think Japan should change the way of working near future. Paying entrance fee at toilet or being served in impolite way at some stores are unacceptable, but surely you can say this is the Japanese way of “omotenashi”. Why everything is expensive here? Consumption tax in the Netherlands is 19%, and 6% for grocery. Also according to the world bank data 2016, GDP per capita of the Netherlands is 50,000$ and it means almost 10,000$ higher than Japanese GDP per capita. From where does the difference come? Hanging outside on weekends, you would find there are much fewer shops open even during daytime. Even in tourist area, many shops do not run on weekends. I think everyone wants to hang out and buy some stuffs on weekends. If I were a clothing shop owner, I will open the store on weekends and close it on a day, which I chose from Monday to Friday. Why is it possible to produce such amount of GDP for much less working hours? Germany and the Netherlands are the place in which capitalism originated. Therefore I guess they like to earn money as much as possible, however, indeed most of them try to go back home by 5 or 6 pm and value the time spending with their families. From these statistics, Dutch people seem to have a good life in both mental and physical point of view. I’m not sure that this data and argument are true. I would like to ask my dutch friends about how they think of the result. I think it is time to think about the American model of mass production and consumption and their working style. To where the act of pursuing the benefits and capital bring us? Working without a certain goal is worthless I think.

Anyway let me back to write the trip to Munich. 15 hours later, we arrived at the ground of October festa at 8am. It opened at 9am, but there were already very long lines. No sooner had the door opened, everyone started to run into the beer tents to get tables. It was still 9am but the tent was very crowed with hundreds of beer lovers. We enjoyed the atmosphere and intense beer!! I was in the festa till 10pm. I had an awesome time with meeting up with German friends from the same uni and talking with strangers. The festa was a blast! Especially I was amazed by the enormous energy of German guys. I’ve never experienced such a hot event and such a great sense of unity among strangers. After coming back to the camp site, I went back to sleeping bag very soon and slept very well, the temperature was around 10 degree though. Second day, we went to the center of Munich and do sightseeing. Marienplatz, Residents, small October festa, etc… it was Sunday and there were many tourists but most of shops were closed. What I reconfirmed during this trip was the perfect combination of beer and sausages with awesome friends. 

Extremely fortune to have met these awesome people over exchange. 

Wanna come back to Germany again as a business man. Until then, I swear to improve English with enough courage and confidence.