I will report recent progress in understanding properties of stellar and interstellar components of the Milky Way Galaxy on the two extremes - ongoing star formation activities in the Galactic center and stellar relics in the halo. Properties of the interstellar medium in the Galactic center and their relationship with star formation activities will be discussed based on by far the largest mid-IR spectroscopic data set in this region. Correlations between stellar kinematics and metallicities in the halo will be presented, along with a discussion on the estimation of fundamental stellar parameters from a set of empirically calibrated isochrones.