Munich's Pride and Joy: BMW

The BMW headquarters (left) and the museum (right)

You can't go to Munich and not go to the BMW Museum! We got there via a hop on, hop off bus and everyone gets off at this stop. Anyone who is a fan of the German "ultimate driving machine" comes here to make a pilgrimage. And if you really want, you can buy a BMW as a souvenir of your trip too.

This is the showroom across the street with a sleek bridge

The showroom is a massive building that includes the Mini, and you can buy not only the cars, but also lifestyle products, from jackets to baseball hats to suitcases and toy cars. Some people were trying on the cars for size, getting in and out of them, while others were there to pick up their cars and drive them off in a special exit driveway for them that looks space age (from what we could see from the outside).

Meanwhile across the street via a sleek elevated walkway, is the BMW headquarters, a distinctive building that looks like four vertical cylinders in a car engine, while the museum looks like the cylinder head, both designed by Austrian architect Karl Schwanzer.

They were built between 1968 and 1972, finished in time for the 1972 Summer Olympics and the BMW headquarters is very close to the Olympic Village, giving the company greater exposure.

Inside the showroom, many were eager to look at BMWs

One good tip is that because we took the hop on, hop off bus, the BMW Museum also gave us a few euros off on admission! Bonus!

The museum is laid out in a linear way and goes through the entire history of BMW. Its origins go back to World War I when an unknown aircraft engine manufacturer called Rapp Motorenwerke GmbH presented a newly and innovative aircraft engine to the Prussian military authorities, the company was renamed Bayerische Moteren Werke (BMW) in 1917.

This is also when BMW's logo was developed -- the company name in a black circle, with blue and white panels from the Bavarian national flag.

One of the early motorcycles BMW produced

From there the company designed engines for motorcycles and then cars in 1929. Up until World War II, BMW's main products were aircraft engines, motorcycles and cars. Then during the war the company focused on aircraft engines, and motorcycles were a sideline business, while car production was stopped altogether.

But during this time, the BMW factory in Eisenach, in central Germany, was in the Soviet-occupied zone, and so the Soviets produced pre-war BMW motorcycles and cars there until 1955. However, its Munich plant was completely destroyed and it took time for the company to not only rebuild but also find another means of business because BMW was banned from producing motor vehicles the Allies.

One of BMWs first Formula 1 cars in a beautiful shade of blue

As a result, BMW made pots and pans, other kitchen equipment and bicycles, and finally got permission from the United States to restart motor production, in particular motorcycles in 1947. BMW started manufacturing cars in the early 1950s which was good timing because by this point the market for motorcycles was saturated and people were starting to demand cars.

The company started making mini cars called Isetta, but it couldn't compete against the Volkwagen Beetle. But by the early 1960s BMW was back on its feet with investors showing faith in the company and not wanting to merge with Daimler-Benz, and new cars that had powerful engines.

The BMW 1600, my father's first BMW!

We got to see those motorcycles and early Formula 1 cars contrasting against today's models. You had to be a petite driver -- practically the size of a horse jockey -- to fit into the old school racing car. Even back in the late 1920s they already knew about aerodynamics, with one racer who broke time records with BMW-designed motorcycles with an aerodynamic body like a fish.

There are a lot of consumer cars on display -- the 1600 from 1966 was there -- my father's first BMW which was fun for him to reminisce about as well as other models. The Z3 was also there, which 007 drove in Goldeneye -- the first time James Bond drove a non-British car.

For design fans, there are 1:1 clay models and videos of how the engineers, designers and modellers need to work together to figure out how every detail of the car is going to look like. Another section of the museum also explains the need to transfer from fossil fuels to electricity, and shows off its BEVs or battery electric vehicles.

Contrast it with this futuristic car powered by fuel cells

If that visit to the museum doesn't inspire you to go buy a BMW I don't know what will. It definitely emits those aspiration vibes for those who want to buy their first car, or their next...! Fantastic marketing tool that BMW has done tastefully and not overtly.

And if you want a bite to eat, their cafeteria does pretty good food too!

Monkey Business with Curious George

Well-researched and beautifully executed documentary mixed with animation

Another wonderful documentary that you can tell the filmmaker has poured their heart and soul is Monkey Business: The Adventures of Curious George's Creators that was released in June last year.

For the past 75 years, millions have loved reading Curious George books as children, but not many know about the couple who created the lovable simian character.

Margaret and Hans Rey created Curious George

Filmmaker Ema Ryan Yamazaki gives a pretty comprehensive presentation of Hans and Margaret Rey not only through interviews with their literary executor, Lay Lee Ong, some academics, and even the Rey's neighbours in Waterville Valley, New Hampshire, who back in the 1950s were young children that Hans would play with and entertain.

These interviews are interlaced with historical footage and -- even better -- animation of Hans and Margaret that are dropped into the black and white film to illustrate they were there.

They were both German Jews and Hans was originally dating Margaret's older sister when they met -- Margaret was only around nine years old. But they later kept in touch and while he went to Brazil to work with his entrepreneurial brother-in-law, Margaret later paid a visit to see him and decided they should get married and start an advertising firm.

Hans was always an artist, and even his studying medicine could not keep him from doodling. Margaret saw his talent and incorporated his cartoons with her copywriting and photographs for ads.

They left Paris by bicycle with only some precious items

They tied the knot in 1935 and moved to France, but this was just as Adolf Hitler was making his plans to take over the continent. By using cartoons of Hans and Margaret, Yamazaki is able to illustrate how the Reys were able to escape the Nazis in June 1940.

Hans built two bicycles out of spare parts and together they rode hundreds of kilometres south of Paris, to get to a town where they sold their bicycles to catch a train to get to the southwest coat to take a ship to Lisbon.

While they were in Paris, they had started writing a book about Fifi the monkey who later became George. They took this manuscript with them, and just before they escaped the French capital, they received an advance for the book that helped fund their journey.

The couple in their later years in the United States

They managed to get on a ship to the United States and thanks to one of Margaret's sisters who lived in Long Island received a letter from an editor who was familiar with the monkey book and gave them an advance for more Curious George books.

There are seven in total and each of them are a collaboration between the husband and wife.

It's so interesting they would spend their summers in Waterville Valley in the 1950s, at the time when anti-Semitism was very popular in the United States. The children neighbours, now in their 70s, remember Margaret as being scary, while Hans was very nice.

So while much is discussed about the Reys and how Curious George came about, there isn't much information about the Man in the Yellow Hat. Guess he will continue to remain a mystery.

Nevertheless the animation really makes Monkey Business an endearing film, inserting the couple into the story to "reenact" scenes in their lives and definitely adding a humorous touch.

Monkey Business: The Adventures of Curious George's Creators

Directed: Ema Ryan Yamazaki

1 hour and 21 minutes

Photo of the Day: Bike Sharing

A Gobee bike along Victoria Road, west of Kennedy Town of all places!

Gobee Bike is a Hong Kong initiative in the bike-sharing business. It launched in April to lacklustre fanfare when it turned out the app was only available on Android and not iPhones on the first day.

Then a few days later it was back in the headlines because it was discovered that several of its green bikes were in the Shing Mun River in Sha Tin, while others were found damaged.

But somehow earlier this month, Gobee Bike got HK$9 billion -- yes billion -- from internet-of-things fund led by Mail.Ru co-founder Dmitry Grishin, with Alibaba's Hong Kong entrepreneurship fund kicking in some of the dough too.

To start up the service, Gobee previously got pre-launch seed money led by Swiss Founders Fund.

Hong Kong people are naturally skeptical about bike sharing -- not many people even ride bikes to start with since a good part of the area is too hilly, and also bike lanes are relegated to the New Territories, where leisure bike riders clog up the paths for more serious ones.

A stunning view further up from where the bike was...

So it was to my great surprise when I was walking up Victoria Road towards Pokfulam to see a Gobee Bike parked on the sidewalk. How the heck did it get all the way from the New Territories to here?

I walked and ran a bit further along Victoria Road and then turned back to go home to see the green bicycle still there!

In any event one does wonder if Gobee is making any money and who are using the bikes anyway?

Just seems like the wrong service to launch in the city when drivers don't care to share the road, nor pay much attention to pedestrians either!

Trying to Emulate China's Bike Culture

Recreational cyclists out pedaling in the New Territories

A non-local entrepreneur has taken the idea of bike sharing from China to Hong Kong, but it's had a rough start.

Gobee.bike feature lime green bikes with a logo of a bee on two wheels. It's the brainchild of Raphael Cohen, who launched the service this past Wednesday.

People basically download the app -- but currently it's only available on Android phones -- and then they can sign up with their credit card. They scan the bike to unlock it, and then ride it for HK$5 per half hour. Other offline bike rental shops will lease bikes for HK$40 a day.

Bike sharing is now available in Hong Kong...

The other hitch is that while the bikes are available in Sha Tin, though you can leave the bikes afterwards in any public place, where else are you going to ride the bike except along the bike paths in the New Territories where it's flat?

One would have to be crazy to ride a bike on the main streets of Hong Kong as there are no bike lanes. Only when you have bike lanes, like they do in China will you have more people feeling safe enough to ride two wheelers.

Now a few days after the service was launched, there are reports that three goobee.bike bicycles were found in the Shing Mun River in Sha Tin, while six others were damaged or had parts like handles, brakes and lights stolen.

...But some bikes have been damaged since its launch

"They are trying to make [the bikes] unsafe to use," Cohen said. "It feels pretty sad. I thought Hong Kong was a very safe city."

A safe city doesn't mean its residents don't steal things.

My cyclist friends tell me they can barely leave their own bikes alone for a minute -- locked -- without some part of the bike or the whole thing being stolen.

Maybe Cohen should have studied Hong Kong a bit more before deciding to launch the service, but it's admirable of him to try to get people out exercising more...

Picture of the Day: The Bike Masses

A mass of bicycles just outside Nanluoguxiang this evening

When I lived in Beijing 10 years ago, bicycles were starting to die out and being replaced with electric bikes or cars.

But in the last year or so, the humble bicycle is back, thanks to traffic jams and environmental concerns.

There are at least four companies that rent out these simple bicycles for a very cheap rate. Just download the app, put down a deposit and then for around 1.50 kuai you can ride a bike for any hour and leave it anywhere for the next person to use.

Here is a ton of bicycles parked tonight just outside Nanluoguxiang, a famous hutong near Houhai.

Seems like everyone rode over here...

We love this trend of people riding again, bringing back a Beijing tradition back to the city.

Biking and Hiking at Badachu

We biked and the hiked up to see this view!

This morning my friend and I met at Dongdan subway station and took it almost all the way west on Line 1 to Bajiao Amusement Park station.

We had the option of taking a bus to Badachu, which is a park north of there at the bottom of the Fragrant Hills or Xiangshan, or bike there.

My friend looked at it on the map app she had on her phone and it said it was 7.5km to get there, so we figured we could bike it there.

Luckily last night I had a test run so today wasn't as scary. And with gorgeous blue skies, why not enjoy them with the sunshine?

We set off and our route was mostly straight or turning right so it was fine for the most part. Also the bike lanes were a good way to keep safe from the cars, though they were patient if you were in front of them.

However we must have ridden way more than 7.5km because it took almost an hour to get there!

Nevertheless after we arrived, we had to use our legs even more -- climbing up the hill! Badachu means "Eight Great Sites" in terms of Buddhist monasteries and nunneries.

Both of us don't know much about Buddhism, though we saw some monks prostrating themselves in front of Buddha statues and many lighting big sticks of incense and praying.

Here is the view of Linguang Temple in the distance, and to our right a view of Beijing from below. Apart from the fantastic weather, there weren't too many people either.

To get down, we could take the cable car but we chose to slide down on a kind of plastic sled with brakes, but sitting up. My friend opted for speed, on the metal slide, while I made it down relatively gently!

Needless to say we were quite tired after our double workout but it was definitely memorable and fun.