Winter Trip - Frankenmuth

The day after the long walk to Boba Island, complete with our feet getting ached and soaked, Aymee planned on going to Frankenmuth. I've never heard of Frankenmuth until the day before our departure. I was unaware with what else Michigan had to offer, and that would be Frankenmuth. According to Aymee, who knew that place from Ashley who hasn't even been there either, Frankenmuth is a small German town located about 20-40 miles from Ann Arbor.

Getting there by public transportation such as buses would be possible, seeing Frankenmuth really is a small town and quite isolated too. It's not one of the big cities in Michigan, such as Detroit or Ann Arbor. Getting there would require a taxi, and that was what we were planning.

I'm not sure what happened to Aymee and me but for sure, we woke up quite late when we were in Michigan, even Aymee continued to wake up late until the day she had to come back to Davis came. I gradually overcame that issue after going back to New York. Apparently, I found out I might get a minor jetlag. Michigan is in the Eastern time zone, which is 3 hours later than California. That might explain why I wasn't sleepy at all at 1 am and I always woke up past 10 am. Anyway, enough with the sleeping stuff.

Once we woke up, we had a brief lunch with our Trader Joe's frozen food. Ashley came along. Then we took off to Trader Joe's to get some more of its frozen food. As lame as it sounds, the frozen food actually tastes pretty dang good. We booked a cab over the phone to go to Frankenmuth. The only cab available is one of the priciest ones, but we decided to just go with it because when else could we go to a Christmastown when it's not Christmas? The fee to get there was going to get ugly but at least it's worth it.

The cab came around 20 minutes later. Apparently, it took an hour to get to Frankenmuth. It's almost like to San Francisco from San Jose. I didn't know it was going to be that far.

The driver asked us which part of Frankenmuth she wanted to drop us off. Since we weren't so familiar with the place, she recommended an interesting place tourists usually passed by and it's the Frankenmuth River Place. She also mentioned about Bronner's Christmas Store, which is essentially the biggest Christmas store in the world that we should check out. We'd save that store for later as the driver was going to drop us off in the River Place first. 

Frankenmuth River Place is so pretty and cute! It definitely has the Christmas vibe that I'd been looking for. No wonder it's called Little Bavaria because of the German-looking architecture that actually houses Celtic, Norse-themed stores and snack parlors. One thing that really lacks from the place despite its distinct atmosphere: there's barely any visitor! I was expecting the place to be really packed with people. Come on, who doesn't love this cute little German town in the middle of Midwest? Especially approaching Christmas?

Aymee, Ashley, and I just hung around and we dropped by in this crepes' restaurant to have lunch. It was a light lunch but the crepes were so good. In the mean time, we booked a taxi back to Ann Arbor at 8pm.

So we had actually four to five hours in Frankenmuth under the below zero temperature. The other stores, which practically have similar themes from one another, aren't that interesting to me. They sell pretty much Celtic, Irish, Norse-related stuff that aren't to my liking. The only reason why I came in to those stores were because of the cold weather outside, and those stores were so warm. Perhaps that's why not so many people came over?

One store though, is unexceptionally cute because they sell stuff dedicated to dogs...and probably cats too.

They also got a popcorn wagon store which sells popcorns with over 50 different flavors. I couldn't help but to get the cheddar cheese one.

Then we walked out of the River Place to an adjacent shopping place when the sun set. This place is so much cuter, and the best thing about it is, it's located underground, and it's warm. The stores had a more diverse and common themes instead of all Celtic-related. I fell in love with the German feeling to it even though I myself have never to been to Germany.  Basically, all we did in Frankenmuth from one place to another, was just sightseeing and windowshopping. The stores sold stuff that are far too distinct from my taste. From the underground stores, we got up and started walking to Bronner's.

We did pass Bronner's by taxi before we got to River Place earlier, but then now we were in a different location, we had to find our way back to where Bronner's was. My battery was dead because apparently I was using it too much for video recording. The only functioning device was Aymee's phone, and we fully depend our lives with it as it's the only device that's going to lead us to the biggest Christmas store in the world.

Aymee's phone led us through a long road full of thick, knee-depth snow. The area that we had to go through was, again, pretty quite. The snow hasn't been cleaned from the streets. I had to experience the whole snow-leaking-into-my-boots-and-into-my-socks. I should've really known UGGS wasn't water repellent. 

Our struggle to get through the deep snow was paid off as we saw Bronner's at the right side of the street. Now we know why other places in Frankenmuth was quiet, because everyone literally packed this place.

This place is amazing. When I first entered it, I felt like I was in another world, that kind of feeling you get when you enter Disneyland but it wasn't that mindblowing. It does have sort of a Disneyland feeling to it but this store is a fully Christmas-themed. So expect to see tons of Christmas lights on display, the Nativity statues of all different styles, and a forest of Christmas trees.

I didn't buy anything from that store. Everything looks pricey and even if I buy some of the Christmas decorations, I don't think I'll ever get time to set them up since Christmas will be over once I get back to California. The only thing I bought there was food. I had a bowl of soup and a German potato salad. It sounded like a lame dinner, but the cold air outside just made the simple dinner feel like a feast to me. Yes, I get hungry easily in cold weather haha.

Before leaving the store after 2 hours of indulging ourselves with the store's great display and items, Aymee did a quick shopping and she ended up getting something that doesn't even have anything to do with Christmas at all, which is a Thomas Kinkade puzzle. Well, she loved it anyway.

The cab arrived on time just approaching the store's closing. The driver was so cool and goofy. He talked a lot, shared a bit about his going to Chicago earlier in the day, what his plans were for Christmas, and even let us choose the playlist. He also recommended us some good eateries in Ann Arbor. However, halfway through the trip back to Ann Arbor, the three of us fell asleep.