Berlin Day One
Travelogue: Berlin
10th October 2005
13:00 hours
We arrived in Berlin at around 08:45 hours, but before that we had some luggage problem at Changi Airport. Exceeded more than the normal weight, well, basically the equipments were the fault of it all.
Everything had to be improvised; we managed to get Zul to leave his bag in Singapore. Everything was minimised, I had to leave a set of clothes, and some of the merchandise were left behind as well.
All in all we managed to cut the excess price by half, which was enough damage for us.
The flight was long, tedious and boring, first and foremost we had no personal TV (damn), food was terrible, I had to make do with watching Monster-In-Law, with Jennifer Lopez and the jaded Jane Fonda. 15 hours was long enough to make me have neck aches and disrupted sleep, and they woke me up for ice cream at around 4 in the morning. It was my fault actually; I had a choice between ice cream and instant noodles, but I was to sleepy to make a choice.
Now, I would like to rate KLM and Qantas as my least favourite airlines.
The transit in Amsterdam was blurry and hazy, but I remember it reminded me so much of Melbourne Airport, the best thing when you are in transit is to find a place to smoke. So monkey-see-and-monkey-do, people were just streaming into this closed pub with ashtrays, so we just went with the flow. After 15 hours, you can’t complain…
It takes about an hour from Amsterdam to Berlin, the skyline was amazing, a mixture of orange, red and purple, a fantastic photo opportunity for the sedated souls alike.
Upon arrival, in Berlin, we were greeted with another disaster; they left my bag (which contain my clothes) in Amsterdam. Amazing! There you go, as I am writing this I am still waiting for that bag, my sweater and all my warm clothes are in that bag. SO its important, if not I will freeze to death. Its about 10 – 15 ˚c here, not so bad actually. It’s the beginning of autumn, but still, the distance from the hotel is about 10 minutes where we have to walk along the river, which I assume will be freezing in the morning and evening.
Apart from that, I hope all will be good in the next couple of days or so. Berlin is a beautiful city as for now, House of World Culture, where we will be presenting POP Station used to be a congress/governmental building that was a gift by the Americans to the Germans 30 years ago. The Chancellor office is just around the corner; the whole area is actually part of the government administration district if I am not wrong.
I managed to catch a glimpse of the Victoria Tower; the one Bono stood on in ‘Stay’, and of course, the monument where the angels hung out in Wim Wenders’ ‘Wings of Desire’. So everything is a little bit surreal here and there.
After lingering/German channel surfing in the hotel room long enough, Karin our assistant from HDW picked us up in a HDW van.(awesome!) We met Doris, the officer in charge of this project, she brought us on a tour of HDW, I think it is about the size of 2/3 of the Esplanade Dome.
The meeting in the evening was laced with jetlag, hunger and technicalities, but thank god Ka Fai was there in full consciousness to explain the detailed technical jargon which I am always lost with. So all was good! And met Ming Wong, our Singaporean assistant who is currently meditating in Heman’s studio here in Berlin.
After the meeting, Karin drove us around the city, I saw the Reichstag, the oldest Synagogue, old ancient churches, East Berlin which you can actually tell from the architecture of old socialist buildings.
We decided upon a Turkish restaurant recommended by Ming, pretty nice Turkish interior complete with the décor. Ming ordered kebabs, turkischer tee, kizartma and all that jazz. All I knew I was too tired to even chew but managed to fill in some meat into the system, my body is still in Singapore time.
Reached the hotel and asked about my luggage that has not arrived yet, so I am still wearing the same set of clothes I wore 2 days ago. Hopefully it will come by today. The evening chill can go down to 15˚c, not sure what it will be like the next couple of days.
10th October 2005
13:00 hours
We arrived in Berlin at around 08:45 hours, but before that we had some luggage problem at Changi Airport. Exceeded more than the normal weight, well, basically the equipments were the fault of it all.
Everything had to be improvised; we managed to get Zul to leave his bag in Singapore. Everything was minimised, I had to leave a set of clothes, and some of the merchandise were left behind as well.
All in all we managed to cut the excess price by half, which was enough damage for us.
The flight was long, tedious and boring, first and foremost we had no personal TV (damn), food was terrible, I had to make do with watching Monster-In-Law, with Jennifer Lopez and the jaded Jane Fonda. 15 hours was long enough to make me have neck aches and disrupted sleep, and they woke me up for ice cream at around 4 in the morning. It was my fault actually; I had a choice between ice cream and instant noodles, but I was to sleepy to make a choice.
Now, I would like to rate KLM and Qantas as my least favourite airlines.
The transit in Amsterdam was blurry and hazy, but I remember it reminded me so much of Melbourne Airport, the best thing when you are in transit is to find a place to smoke. So monkey-see-and-monkey-do, people were just streaming into this closed pub with ashtrays, so we just went with the flow. After 15 hours, you can’t complain…
It takes about an hour from Amsterdam to Berlin, the skyline was amazing, a mixture of orange, red and purple, a fantastic photo opportunity for the sedated souls alike.
Upon arrival, in Berlin, we were greeted with another disaster; they left my bag (which contain my clothes) in Amsterdam. Amazing! There you go, as I am writing this I am still waiting for that bag, my sweater and all my warm clothes are in that bag. SO its important, if not I will freeze to death. Its about 10 – 15 ˚c here, not so bad actually. It’s the beginning of autumn, but still, the distance from the hotel is about 10 minutes where we have to walk along the river, which I assume will be freezing in the morning and evening.
Apart from that, I hope all will be good in the next couple of days or so. Berlin is a beautiful city as for now, House of World Culture, where we will be presenting POP Station used to be a congress/governmental building that was a gift by the Americans to the Germans 30 years ago. The Chancellor office is just around the corner; the whole area is actually part of the government administration district if I am not wrong.
I managed to catch a glimpse of the Victoria Tower; the one Bono stood on in ‘Stay’, and of course, the monument where the angels hung out in Wim Wenders’ ‘Wings of Desire’. So everything is a little bit surreal here and there.
After lingering/German channel surfing in the hotel room long enough, Karin our assistant from HDW picked us up in a HDW van.(awesome!) We met Doris, the officer in charge of this project, she brought us on a tour of HDW, I think it is about the size of 2/3 of the Esplanade Dome.
The meeting in the evening was laced with jetlag, hunger and technicalities, but thank god Ka Fai was there in full consciousness to explain the detailed technical jargon which I am always lost with. So all was good! And met Ming Wong, our Singaporean assistant who is currently meditating in Heman’s studio here in Berlin.
After the meeting, Karin drove us around the city, I saw the Reichstag, the oldest Synagogue, old ancient churches, East Berlin which you can actually tell from the architecture of old socialist buildings.
We decided upon a Turkish restaurant recommended by Ming, pretty nice Turkish interior complete with the décor. Ming ordered kebabs, turkischer tee, kizartma and all that jazz. All I knew I was too tired to even chew but managed to fill in some meat into the system, my body is still in Singapore time.
Reached the hotel and asked about my luggage that has not arrived yet, so I am still wearing the same set of clothes I wore 2 days ago. Hopefully it will come by today. The evening chill can go down to 15˚c, not sure what it will be like the next couple of days.
posted by TIRAMISU at
6:24 AM
1 Comments:
bummer about losing your luggage and the horrible flight there man. hope the rest of the trip runs smooth and safe!
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