A flying shithole

To get to Germany and back, I flew with Ryanair for the first time. I never expected much from it because it was pretty cheap and I just wanted a ride. I've been on easyjet a few times and everything was fairly good, but when it comes to Ryanair.... I have to say they have managed to show the world how bad can an airline be. The horrible experience starts from the moment that you type ryanair.com into you computer, then the homepage shows up. For a moment I thought I accidentally gone into some website that some primary school kids created for their school project, but no! it's their actually site... The yellow and blue colour is everywhere and is horrible, the choice of font is a joke. Even booking the ticket is a pain, there are millions of extra charges that you have to click through but I'm not going to go on with that. 

Once you managed to get into the plane after you passed the challenge of fitting your stuff into the metal box (they use it as an opportunity to rip people off another £40 for over size bags) you don't get the normal interior that you would expect, instead everything is blue and yellow, they even stick thousands of ads on the overhead storage. And of course, the seat is in blue with a bright yellow piece of plastic covering the back. The safety card is stuck on the back of the seat, so you will just have to stare at it for you whole flight. Oh and btw, you will want to bring alone your iPod with you because if you dont, all you are going to hear during the flight is the flight attendent going on the PA selling crap that no one really needs like lottery tickets, cigarette, tickets that you don't need. What is most annoying is how as soon as the plane touch down, they play some triumph music and blah about how they are the most on time airline in europe.

As you can already tell everything about the airline pisses me off, except the price... so I guess I will end up going on it again some other time...

If you want a cheap ticket the site is www.Ryanir.com, have fun dealing with the website and good luck with you flight!

Few hours in the steel and glass box

As I mentioned in my last post I was in Berlin for a few days, I took a few hours to go to the Neue Nationalgalerie by Mies van der Rohe. Since i suddenly decided to go there while i was having a coffee, i did no research on where it is. So after getting lost in the U-bahn for about an hour, by chance I found the famous glass box (it was only one station from where I started). It is remarkable how simple it is, I walked around the museum before going in, looking at all the detailing of this piece of architecture. Mies was famous for his use of material and detailing in his work. What makes this gallery special is that the main floor is normally empty, all the art work goes into the basement, which I have to say is quite strange for a museum. However they were holding a temporary expedition on the main floor when I was there so it kind of ruins the idea...
As an minimalist architect, Mies goes by the philosophy `Less is more', the work he does looks very simply, it even gives the impression that minimalist architecture is very easy to design but trust me, its not... I tried in my uni project and it didn't work well.
Another thing that I like by Mies is his Barcelona Chair, not only they are very nice to sit in, I think they simply look amazing, I would love to have a few of those at my flat, maybe I should start saving up...

I need a room for the night!

Last week, I randomly decided that i wanted to spend the weekend away from uni. I just wanted to get away for little bit because it does get a little bit dull staying in the same place and seeing the same people 7 days a week... Anyway, I went to Berlin. There wasn't really a major reason why i choose Berlin when I could have gone to somewhere warm, maybe one reason is because I could check back into one of my favourite hotel, Michelberger Hotel. It sits on Warschauer Straße and is pretty close to the east side gallery. What makes me fall in love with this place is how laid back and informal it is. On the friday night they decided to throw a party at the lounge for all the staff and guest and it was great, although I wish I could remember more details. Why doesn't holiday inn ever do something like this? 

Most of the hotel is designed by the german actress Anja Knauer and a group of friends, they manage to turn all the boring things of a hotel into something that can make you laugh.

My favourite part of the entire place has to be the 

the lounge, my favourite part of it is the book lamps, made from magazine pages and hanging in the centre of the lounge, which is filled with books that you can just take out and read while you are chilling.

I think I can go on forever to talk about how much i like this place and how I wish my home is just like this, but i'm getting tired, so just go and stay there yourself! www.michelbergerhotel.com 

ps.I hope they will forgive me for keeping the do not disturb and the no smoking sign....

Let's take a coffee break....

Enough of architecture... I'm going to take about coffee this time. Being a coffeeholic i do seem to spend as much money on starbucks n stuff as food. It got me thinking, how can people not get bore? No matter which country I go in the world there seem to be one just round the next corner, but whats most frustrating is how you always have to wait for a year to get your coffee then you find out they made you a mocha instead of the gande latte that you ordered. So in high school I started using french press but even that was too much fuss for a lazy bugger like me. Then I came across the nespresso capsule, it seemed pretty interesting and the espresso is actually pretty good too. What caught my eyes were the new-ish Citiz range. Hence the name, they got the idea from skyscrapers and the atmosphere of cities. They managed to make the espresso machine pretty thin so it doesn't take up too much kitchen space. And capsule system they have made the whole brewing process a lot easier and it never create a mess, perfect for me!

Hamburg has always been important for Germany, famous for its free port. Other than that, its just  a lovely city be in. When the old docks became too small for the big ships and the increasing amount of goods that go through the harbour, it moved to the other part of the city. The old dock quarter was left abandoned for a while, until the government announces number of plans to completely redevelop the whole area. Compare to other similar redevelopment projects this is a huge success. With the backing of government and private investors, it attracts some of the world's biggest name in the architectural field such as Rem Koolhaas, David Chipperfield and so on. One major feature of this project is that the whole are is floor proof, none of the flat is located on the ground floor, garage doors are also use as flood gate and a whole series of footbridge network to ensure that people does not get trap. The whole project is not schedule to finish in the next 10 - 20 years but the first phrase was already complete when I was there. For me it was quite a good place to chill out after spending a day in the area around Jungfernstieg. The list of things to do is constantly adding up as more and more projects are being complete, is you want a good panoramic view of the Hafen city and the harbour, you should head to the bright orange observation tower called View Point. For more information, go to hafencity.com

Design by Koolhaas, made in China

The capital was famous for its historic sites, the forbidden city and so on... Then 2 years ago all the attention came on the bird nest and blue cube with which sit just outside of the city, both for the olympic game. For china it was a prefect opportunity to show the rest of the world what it has, well i personally can't deny that it was truly spectacular for a traditional city like beijing to have something so impressive and untraditional. But for them this is only the beginning, the news of big projects being announce and complete at the speed of light is nothing new. While the olympic stadiums are being left to rot, I turn my attention to other things that they are actually planning to use for a little while longer.


Here it is, an office block that looks like a giant pair of trousers (at least thats what the local thinks) designed by OMA. It's next to the Mandarin Oriental Hotel which completely burnt down before it even opens its door. The office block will be the headquarter for the national TV station, it is seen as one of the most amazing structure ever built in modern time. To see more, just go to the OMA website, they have plenty of pretty pictures and CAD drawing up there which looks way better than the ones that I took last year.