Munich: The Grandeur of Nymphenburg Palace

The idyllic fresco on the ceiling in the Grand Hall

It was raining this morning when we woke up... but the precipitation let up by the time we left the hotel to catch a tour bus to Schloss Nymphenburg. It was built as a gift from Bavarian Elector Ferdinand Maria of the Wittelsbachs to his wife, Henriette Adelaide of Savoy, who finally gave birth to an heir to the throne, Maximillian II Emanuel, in 1662.

Construction began two years later, employing Italian architect Agostino Barelli. Henriette Adelaide of Savoy was an Italian-born princess, and called her Baroque home, "Borgo delle ninte", or "Castle of the Nymphs", hence Nymphenburg.

Maria Leopoldine of Austria-Este

After Elector Maximillian Emanuel grew up, he expanded the country home to create a summer residence, expanding to its left and right to accommodate the entire court during the summer months. Today the additions create a giant curve around the man-made pond and canal.

There is a long driveway to the palace and then for just 6 euros you can check out some rooms inside the palace. It isn't on the same scale as say the Palace of Versailles, but still grand nonetheless.

The first room we entered was the Great Hall, which is in the centre of the palace with a lavish Rococo style. There's a fresco on the ceiling featuring an idyllic scenery and suspended are stunning chandeliers that are covered in crystal beads.

On the walls are portraits of many people, some with interesting backstories. One is Maria Leopoldine of Austria-Este. She had the misfortune of marrying at age 18 to the 70-year-old Elector Karl Theodor.

Her main role was the produce her husband an heir, but she refused to obey, and after Karl Theodor died in 1799, she managed to negotiate the succession to another line of the Wittlesbach family, than a competing Habsburg imperial house.

The Chinese-themed walls and lacquer cabinet

As a result she became very popular which helped Mari Leopoldine become an estate owner, successful property agent and a stock market speculator. She was a very independent woman in the 18th and early 19th century.

Meanwhile the rooms are furnished with beautiful pieces, like a table that has designs of realistic-looking birds, flowers, fruits and insects that are inset with precious stones in marble. Another room has a Chinese theme, the walls looking like floor-to-ceiling screens, while the room also features a beautiful lacquer table with gold Chinoiserie design.

There's one room that has 36 portraits of women that King Ludwig I of Bavaria deemed beautiful women. They weren't all aristocrats or royalty -- there's even a daughter of a shoemaker in one of the portraits painted by Joseph Stieler. Interesting to note is that the king had something for brunettes...

This "collection of the most beautiful" was made open to the public. They were shown in two salons in the Festsaalbau of the Munich Residence, and only after the war in 1945 were the portraits moved to Nymphenburg.

From his youth, King Ludwig I was fascinated by female beauty. He was also a generous art patron, transforming Munich into the art centre of Germany.

A beautiful table of flowers, birds, insects and fruits

One of the bedrooms we get to visit is Queen Caroline's, which still has the original furnishings for visitors to see, complete with mahogany furniture.

In 1842, then Crown Prince Maximillian II and his wife Marie of Prussia took up residence in Nymphenburg Palace. Three years later, she gave birth to the heir to the throne in this bedroom. The son was named Ludwig in honour of his grandfather, Ludwig I.

However this son, Ludwig II ascended the throne at the age of 18, but he had a difficult relationship with his parents and he had is own psychological issues. Partly because he was so indulged and reminded of his royal status, Ludwig II became eccentric, shunning big social events and preferred to be secluded, and became very interested in the works of Richard Wagner.

The bedroom where the future King Ludwig II was born

Ludwig II also spent a lot of his money constructing castles, the most famous of which is Neuschwanstein, located about an hour a way by train from Munich. Apparently Walt Disney modeled his famous fairytale castle on Neuschwanstein.

In the end it was determined Ludwig II suffered from paranoia and was deemed incapable of being king; in the end he died a mysterious death, found dead in shallow water with one of his psychiatrists in 1886...

After wandering through the palace apartments, we took a long stroll to try to find the Chinese-inspired pagoda. We did find it, a Baroque-style small building, and inside is Chinoiserie style wallpaper and furniture. However, the security guard said that our ticket did not include admission to this pagoda so we had to leave.

The palace should really have staff on standby in these extra places to accept additional admission fees -- it is already a 20-minute walk to get to the pagoda from the palace -- why can't we just pay extra on the spot?

A look at the palace from the garden at the back

Nevertheless, we had a good time visiting the palace, as well as seeing all the birds, in particular the swans and ducks that occupy the grounds. They make good natural lawnmowers, which means we had to avoid the green-coloured poo...

Mickey Mouse Turns 90

A tribute to Walt Disney with Mickey drawing his portrait...

November 8 is the 90th birthday of Mickey Mouse who made his debut in Steamboat Willie in 1928. And The Walt Disney Archives is touring around the world showing off only a fraction of its artefacts of the famous mouse. Almost 90 items are now on show at The Times Square Piazza in Causeway Bay until October 31.

I managed to get a very quick preview minus the hordes of people...

An original doll Charlotte Clark created

There's reproduction of animation drawings, comic books about Mickey Mouse in Chinese printed in Hong Kong in 1972, a Mickey Mouse watch and a Standard Oil Map of the United States and children could collect Mickey Mouse cards at Standard Oil gas stations.

Two things we found particularly interesting thanks to information provided by Robert Maxhimer, exhibition manager of the Walt Disney Archives.

First is the one of the original Mickey Mouse stuffed dolls designed by Charlotte Clark. According to Maxhimer, she was a big fan of the mouse and made her own stuffed version of Mickey Mouse in the early 1930s and showed it to the Disney Studio. She got permission to make the dolls and produced some 200 of them, all sewn by hand.

But then demand was so great that she came up with the idea of designing the pattern so that people could make their own Mickey Mouse doll.

Walt and Roy Disney were so impressed with the doll that they rented a building near the studio and called it the Doll House where Clark and six other seamstresses churned out 300 to 400 dolls per week.

Mickey with the sorcerer Yen Sid in a drawing of Fantasia

The next interesting bit of trivia is about Fantasia. It's one of Maxhimer's all time favourite Mickey Mouse films and he explained the Sorcerer's Apprentice was based on Goethe's 1797 poem Der Zauberlehring.

In the animation, Mickey is apprentice to sorcerer Yen Sid, which is Disney spelled backwards...

By the way on November 8 this year, The Walt Disney Archives will have a pop-up exhibition in New York's Meatpacking District with over 200 items on display.

Review: Moana

Moana is another fun action adventure about finding your calling

I had extra time off for Lunar New Year and decided to check out another movie, Moana with YTSL at The One in Tsim Sha Tsui. This mall is so narrow that it really shouldn't be a mall, as the space is very awkward, and also manoeuvering to get around is tedious going up and down several escalators, or waiting for lifts.

Anyway Walt Disney seems to have ursuped Pixar completely, as the preceding credits made no mention of the plucky desk light that jumps on the letter "I" in Pixar.

A short film advising to follow your heart for some fun

And now, like Zootopia, there is a short animation completely unrelated to the feature film as a warm-up act. For Zootopia, it was a love story between two Hawaiian volcanoes, which now in retrospect was a hint of Moana, and this time it was Inner Workings.

It's a hand drawn animation that at first looks like a biology lesson in how the human body works (albeit very simplistic), how the brain, heart, lungs and bladder function. The body we see belongs to a young man who rushes to work, but along the way he is distracted by a delicious pancake breakfast, the beautiful beach, and an attractive sunglass stall owner.

However his brain puts his heart, or emotional side in check before arriving just in time to work at Boring, Boring & Glum. It's another reminder to not have a boring job -- how many people in the audience would be nodding? -- and to find your passion in life.

Moana is a strong-willed determined character in the film

Does this mean the next feature length animation will be similar to Inside Out? Stay tuned.

Moana is a great girl power story -- seems like Disney is keen on female heroes these days, as boys don't seem to mind characters like Frozen's Elsa, Merida in Brave, and bunny rabbit Judy Hopps in Zootopia.

Here Moana is the daughter and heir to the chief of the Polynesian island of Motonui, and even as a child she has an adventurous spirit, keen on going into the ocean. However, her father forbids not only her but everyone else from going past the reef, following his own scary experience when he was younger.

But the island's natural environment is deteriorating, so there is not enough coconuts, fruits or fish to feed on. Moana's grandmother tells her she must save the island by taking a green stone that is the heart of goddess Te Fiti and return it to her. It was stolen by a demi-god called Maui, and he must help Moana bring it back to Te Fiti.

Does Maui (left) look like Dwayne Johnson (right)?

It's not clear how old Moana is in the film, but probably a teenager. It's interesting she was not drawn to have the old school Barbie doll shape, but a very sturdy and strong-looking young woman who is also strong-willed and clever.

There's some hilarious scenes involving a really dumb rooster, a very shiny crab with a huge ego, and an army of evil coconut creatures.

When the characters sang, particularly Moana, they felt like they were written and staged to look like a musical. Is this something in the works for Moana, the Musical? Perhaps it has something to do with Lin-Manuel Miranda of Hamilton fame for writing the lyrics.

Heihei the Rooster is Moana's sidekick, but not that helpful

In any event, girls will enjoy watching the film, boys will get a kick out of Maui, played by "The Rock" Dwayne Johnson -- and yes he can sing! His tattoos are fun too.

The animation here is really impressive. As you watch each successive feature, the computer generated images become progressively more sophisticated. This time the focus was on the hair, the sea, the details of feathers and skin. Even compared to Inside Out, Moana has far more detail that is really exciting to see and appreciate.

Moana

Directed by Ron Clements and Jon Musker

Co-directed by Don Hall and Chris Williams

Auli'i' Cravalho as Moana

Dwayne Johnson as Maui

Jemaine Clement as Tamatoa (the treasure-hoarding crab)

Alan Tudyk as Heihei, the rooster

Our Princess Leia

Princesses can also hold their own, in a galaxy far, far, away...

There are only a few more days left in the year and it was very sad to hear the news that yet another celebrity who made an impression on my youth was gone.

Actress Carrie Fisher passed away this morning at the age of 60, a few days after she had had a heart attack on a flight from London to Los Angeles.

Actress Carrie Fisher died today at the age of 60

We all thought our Princess Leia had died.

Many of us remember when Star Wars came out in 1977, watching this beautiful brunette woman with these large buns around her ears and dressed in white.

Up until that point, my preconceptions of what a princess was was developed from watching Walt Disney movies, like Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella and Snow White -- how the princess or the beautiful woman was saved by a dashing prince and how they would live happily ever after.

Princess Leia shattered those old fashioned images for me -- and countless other little girls -- love her. While she might be a princess, she was very adept at shooting guns to kill storm troopers, knowing her way around the Death Star, wearing a long dress that covered her up and flat boots, and even having funny zingers to fend off the attentions of Han Solo and Luke Skywalker.

Fisher in Star Wars with Mark Hamill and Harrison Ford

The next Halloween I was Princess Leia though I remember it was very cold wearing that thin white outfit with a brown belt. But we all wanted to be Princess Leias and Luke Skywalkers.

Watching the original Star Wars trilogy again in my 20s made me see how the dialogue was much more wittier than my six-year-old brain could figure out, and I could see the sexual chemistry between Han Solo and Princess Leia.

She redefined for me the definition of a heroine -- that she could achieve things herself -- she didn't need to depend on a man. They seemed like tools she could use to achieve her means.

I didn't watch the thinly autobiographical Postcards from the Edge, but I later saw Fisher in When Harry Met Sally..., another favourite movie of mine, where she plays Sally's best friend Marie, who immediately clicks with Harry's best friend Jess and they soon get married.

Fisher with Bruno Kirby in When Harry Met Sally...

It was lovely to see Fisher again, and saying some funny lines.

Now I feel like I should read some of her books, where I am reading in obituaries that she was an even better writer than actress, writing about her life experiences as the daughter of Eddie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds, growing up in Hollywood and getting into drugs, and being diagnosed bipolar.

Carrie Fisher, thank you. Thank you for telling an entire generation of little girls in the late 1970s that we too can be our own Princess Leias -- able to hold our own, witty, smart, strong and caring.

Knick Knack to Zootopia

Zootopia is the latest Pixar movie that takes animals to greater sophistication

Many moons ago -- in the late 80s in Vancouver, there used to be a movie theatre called The Ridge on Arbutus Street where it showed a balance of arty and blockbuster films. And it was also the place that hosted the Festival of Animation each year in the fall.

I was a fan already in senior high school and to be honest most of the cartoons were not the Walt Disney type. There was a really gory one called Lupo the Butcher who would be carving meat and mistakenly cutting up his digits and other body parts...

Toy Story was Lasseter's break out box office hit

These were perfect for the high school and university crowd looking for edgy stuff that was completely unconventional.

Oh yes, and Godzilla Meets Bambi...

But I digress.

One year a guy called John Lasseter designed the poster for the animation festival and was there signing autographs if you bought the poster. I got him to sign it and loved one of his first CGI cartoons called Knick Knack that was a lot of fun, and a precursor to Toy Story.

So every time a new Pixar movie comes out I'm reminded of briefly meeting Lasseter many moons ago in Vancouver and the latest one Zootopia is a feel-good movie that teaches the importance of perseverance, but also size doesn't matter as long as you use your brains.

John Lasseter continues to have fun on the job

Zootopia is a metropolis where animals all live together, and a determined rabbit Judy Hopps (Ginnifer Goodwin) from a small town wants to make a name for herself as the first rabbit officer there.

She has 48 hours to crack a case that hasn't been solved in the past two weeks and she enlists the help of a con artist fox Nick Wilde (Jason Bateman) to find the clues.

Along the way some of the characters they come across are hilarious, like the sloth Flash and Mr. Big.

Looking at Zootopia and Lasseter's stuff in the 80s, you can see how far CGI has gone, and of course having a lot of resources behind you.

Apparently the animal hairs in each character in Zootopia are many times more than what was shown in Elsa's hair in Frozen.

Fans will never let go of Frozen...

We're glad to see the quirky and witty humour is still there, as there's one scene where Pixar pokes fun at itself.

Now where is that poster I had over 25 years ago? I could have sworn it's in my closet somewhere...