Our major activities today were the visit to the Main Tower , a city tour, a dinner at the farm and an evening sharing session where we listened to our tour leader's education experience in Germany. So, let's go...
What could top the bird's eye view over the central area of Frankfurt under the blue sky? Funny enough, our initial plan to visit the Sunday market was in vain as it didn't exist. And we ended up visiting the tower, which seemed to be way better! The river visible from this picture is River Main (pronounced as mine). It's like River Thames in London that runs through the city. |
The city tour in the afternoon was short but highly informative. Another tour guide (lady in the middle) was invited to bring us around Bahnhofsviertel, the central business district of Frankfurt and told us funny stories of the city. The building at the background of this picture is now a restaurant but used to be a police station and a prison! |
The most interesting part to me, however, was when we arrived at the entrance of the Heinrich Hoffmann museum, the guide introduced to us Dr Hoffmann's poetry work. He is one of the most influential German poets for the country. I was particularly intrigued by one of his work, “The story of little suck-a-thumb” (translated) which was about a naughty boy whose thumbs got chopped off as he sucked his thumbs too much. Imagine you learnt this poem at school! |
For dinner, a special meal at a restaurant located in a farmland near our hotel impressed us all. Of course, we were glad for Mrs Lam's return from Berlin, and our mood was further boosted by the bright sky even at 8 pm! Don't mind the photo-bomber in this photo; he's a friendly local guest of the restaurant! |
We ended the day with our main tour guide Tabea sharing with us her education path. It was a relaxing session at the hotel lobby. My impression was that German schools do not push students to achieve high goals but to give them space and time to explore their interests. But students were streamed into ability levels at the age of around 10 when they are allocated into secondary schools that suit their levels. It might be both a strength and weakness of the German education system. I'm looking forward to learning more as the trip unfolds. |
Dr H C Lee