Vacations in Düsseldorf in April 2016
This post describes my vacations in Düsseldorf, from April 27 to May 1, 2016. I already visited Düsseldorf once in May 2013, therefore the typical sight-seeing spots are not part of this entry.
We (me, my boyfriend and a friend) went to Düsseldorf by car. We stopped at Subway for some food. I had not eaten at subways for years. ;)
I chose the special, the pulled pork sandwich as menu with an oat-and-raisins cookie and lemon ice tea as drink. It tasted good, I should have ordered the 30cm size!
It seems that the staff was quite new because my friends told it took us 30 minutes from entering the shop to paying... The service was not really efficient, for example one of us had to wait (and his sandwich started getting cold) while the staff prepared a sandwich for a different customer...
Subway currently sells cute jungle book tote bags with the kid's menu, but I found them a bit too small to be useful for me.
Well, highway toilets are never really clean. I was at one where somebody had spread tooth paste over the door handle, the door closer, the seat and one of the paper rolls... Why...?
Fortunately, I managed not to get in touch with the tooth paste. ;)
Upon reaching the densely populated area of Köln / Bonn, the navigation system constantly repeated one sentence: ;) "Die Route wird aufgrund der aktuellen Verkehrslage geändert." (The route was adjusted due to the current traffic situation.)
We stayed at the hotel Bellevue for 4 nights.
The rooms were nice and clean. Our double-room had enough space to open two suitcases and had a hair dryer. ;) A simple German breakfast with bread, rolls, eggs, sausages, Wurst, jam, vegetables and fruits was included. And the hotel was only a 10 minutes walk away from Immermannstraße with the Japanese shops and only a 5 minutes walk from the central station.
For our evening meal on the arrival date, we went to the Japanese restaurant Takumi 2nd.
(The menu is not exactly the same as in the first Takumi.)
I ate Gyoza with Teriyaki chicken on rice, my friends ate different variations of Japanese curry.
Vanilla had asked me if I could send her some melon pans by mail because she loves them and misses Japan.
Due to traffic jam, we arrived too late on Wednesday and the bakeries had closed already. We went to the Japanese bakeries on the next day after breakfast.
Café Cérisier and Ho's bakery next to the fresh asia supermarket were still closed. Bakery Taka was open, but melon pans were not in stock and would arrive in one hour from now. I bought a box of mixed sandwiches with ham and salat, egg and Schnitzel (cutlet). Wakuraku was closed as well, so we could not buy Onigiri...
We bought melon pans at the bakery My Heart. They had a huge selection of pastries and some sandwiches. Most of the pastries costed 1,50 €.
This is what I bought for Vanilla:
We went to Zoo Krefeld on Thursday morning.
The entrance fee was 10,50 €. It is a small zoo with snow leopards, jaguars, an old tiger, a red panda, penguins, rhinoceros, butterflies, fluffy sheeps from the Arktis area and more.
dall sheep snow owl
One of the two snow owls made a strange sound when I went by, probably a warning call...
I was sad when reading that a couple of exotic birds had been stolen from the zoo and that it was not the first couple of birds that was stolen...
I really wanted to see the red pandas, so I was very sad when the only red panda was sleeping high above in a tree. Shortly before we left the zoo, the panda descended for her breakfast so that I could see her more close, jippie. (Red pandas are more active in the evenings.)
I loved the butterfly area. The butterflies were sooo beautiful, and were flying closely around the visitors. Unfortunately, the room was too humid to take pictures with my camera. (I did not consider to use the camera of my smartphone.)
We ate some of our pans from the bakery My Heart before traveling to the next zoo.
We went to Zoo Köln on Thursday afternoon.
The ticket costed 19,50 €. It is a big zoo with snow leopards, a red panda, gepards, capybaras, a tiger, lions, alpakas, elephants, a giant anteater, suricates (Erdmännchen), different kind of bears and a lot more animals.
capybaras snow leopards
As before in the other zoo, there was only one red panda and it was sleeping in one of its houses. It showed up later in the evening. ;)
We ate sandwiches from Bakery Taka and later bought a currywurst from a food stand. The zoo was full with food stands, but they were all closed... So we were very happy when we finally found an open food stand!
The zoo ticket was also valid for the aquarium, so we took a quick look nefore it closed. It contained a lot of different fishes and animals in terrariums.
After visiting the two zoos, we went to the Japanese restaurant Naniwa - noodles and soup for the evening meal on our second day. (There is a second branch of Naniwa - sushi on the other side of the street.)
The queue in front of the restaurant was surprisingly short.
The food was tasty, but I did not like the atmosphere inside the restaurant: It was was packed with people, very loud and not enough space. The space between the groups was really tiny and also the space for each group: We three sat on a table of approx. 50 x 50cm together. The staff placed five adults and one child on two of these tables.
I would not want to go there again, it was not relaxing.
I spent the Friday before the Putumayo teaparty with my dear lolita friend SweetManiac. She was my "guide" during my stay ;)
We met for lunch at the Japanese restaurant Takumi 2nd. (Yes, I had already been there on Wednesday evening.)
I ordered a menu with gyoza and meat on rice. Barley tea was included for free, including free refill ;)
After the meal, we went to the Schadow Arkaden, a shopping mall. We wanted to take some pictures of our teaparty outfits. Before entering the shopping mall, a woman in her smoking break approached SweetManiac and asked if she could take some pictures of her in her professional photo studio. ^__^
SweetManiac agreed, so the photographer took pictures of her and some with us together. We did not receive the pictures yet, so I will show you the pictures later in a separate blog entry. (You can see our outfits when you scroll down in this blog entry.)
I asked SweetManiac to show me the Konditorei Heinemann (a famous patisserie) because the Lolita model Misako Aoki posted a picture of herself in front of the cafe on her instagram some days before. We did not have time to eat cake there due to the delay from the unexpected photo shooting.
By chance, my boyfriend went to the cafe the next day and bought a cake with whiskey and chocolates in a box with champagne for us. ;)
SweetManiac and me had some time left before the Putumayo teaparty , so we went to Königsalle, a shopping street for the upper class with shops of Hermès and Prada. The street has two sidewalks for each side ;)
We found a small park where we took some outfit pictures with our cameras.
SweetManiac me (rommily)
Then we went to the central station and took the bus number 722 to the congress center.
I attended the Putumayo teaparty on Friday. You can read all about it in an entry of its own.
SweetManiac also blogged about the teaparty.
I attended the Dokomi convention on Saturday. You can read all about it in an entry of its own.
SweetManiac also blogged about the Dokomi.
While I was at the Dokomi convention on Saturday, my boyfriend and our friend went shopping at the Japanese supermarket Shochiku. My boyfriend bought for us
- 5 kg of the expensive Japanese sushi rice (we already know that it tastes great)
- nori leaves for making Sushi
- Mitsukan (a special sauce for making sushi rice) and
- a jelly candy in the shape of a red panda (as a gift for me ;)
On Sunday, May 1st 2016, we visited the witch market at castle Satzvey, near Bonn. The parking ticket was 2 €, the ticket costed 8 €.
Don't drink and fly Castle Satzvey
The stalls were all outside around the castle. The stalls sold jewelry, leather items, wood items, wool, incense sticks and food. Children could make a driver's license for a witch's broom and blow soup-bubbles.
Some of the market tents
In one of the castle's buildings you could play "Magic the gathering", buy board games and Harry Potter magic wands and the release of the first book with illustrations (auf Deutsch: Schmuckausgabe). There were also some information plates on cosplay and manga.
In my opinion, it was a Medieval market, not a witch market: There were no furtune-tellers and no stands sold tarot cards or other Wicca items. Some vendors and guests were dresed as witches, though. ;)
I liked the market and the castle! And the food was tasty, too! I shared with my friends waffles on a stick, currywurst with french fries and Poffertjes. I had never eaten Poffertjes before (originally from the Netherlands), but they seem to be quite popular in that area of Germany.
Currywurst with french fries Poffertjes
We also bought strawberries from the fields of the castle's owner ^__^ (But they were not very tasty...)
Unfortunately, we did not have time for a guided tour inside the castle.
A lot of interesting events will be hosted by castle Satzvey, related to Goths, the middle ages, horses / riding and Halloween.