Going to Berlin is a part of my dream for the longest time. Having been working in and out of Germany and France for almost 15 years. Going to Germany has been one of those trips that has become almost a second home to me, but getting to Berlin is exciting. After driving 1000 miles from Paris to Koln, Frankfurt, Dusseldorf, Wuppertal, Wolfsburg, and working and meetings and sight seeing, we are finally arrived in dream city of Berlin. The World Cup crowd is madness when I was there and hotels are 3 times the price, 250 Euros for a 2 star hotel in town like Wuppertal????? Unheard of! That town has nothing going for it except a stupid elephant who struggle on the Schwebbelbahn and fell into the river Wupper and survived! The train is very strange, it has its railway on top of the train instead of below. This system was designed by Eiffel, the one who built the Eiffel Tower for the World Fair as a temporary item, they forgotten to take it down there after. Millions flock to this temporary structure to view the ancient overcrowded province of Africa now that its overran by Africans....the French lived outside of it ..... this is my personal opinion and that of another million honest-to-themselves natives of the land. This land who claims to be the most non racist will charge you 65 Euros per KG for 21 kg load on Air France but will let a white french man in for 36 kg. SNUB that! Moi being their repeated victim, I boycott that stupid airline who hires women older than my mother and treats every asian like a rodent. You bet I have an axe to grind! A French Axe that is!
Festivals are everywhere, so everyone is in festive mood and whole cities are filled with tourists. With football lotteries like this one, Wuppertal comes alive for once. And when Germany won, the traffic were jammed and polizei officers joining the crowds celebrating in the streets with cars tooting their horns and dancing in the streets. Amazing!
This is one place I had always wanted to come see where Eisenhower stood one side and Stalin on the other, the face down between a Sherman M4 and the almighty T34/85. The city was split into 4, the Soviet Quarters, which we see here at the infamous Checkpoint Charlie, the French and the British. How the French got the cut from being a loser and turn coat is still a puzzle to me. Oh yes, recently, in the last two days, one chap from ebay copied wholesale Bernard Cher's Website bidding layout and wordings that Dinesh Ned wrote....what wanton way....there is the gentleman way, and there is always the french way, turning left from the right lane on a 4 lane road....there is always the right way and the french way.....been to Paris 11 times so far and hated every trip.
The once mighty soviet star that is painted with human blood. How Stalin became a hero is a great mystery. He killed three times more people than Hitler, took 5 times more land and did more insane human experiments than the whole history of mankind put together and still get to be the hero. Well, history is written by the victorious and the vanquished often is made the villain. However, that does not mean I support Nazism....it is crazy, but communism is even more crazy than shooting yourself with a small calibre handgun reminding yourself the right footwork while teaching yourself to dance.
The Hindenburg, the president who has to reluctantly accept Hitler as the Chancellor. The latter used his youth wing and thugs to murder, kidnap and instil fear in all aristocracy so that the polls swing in his favour painted in blood. However, in the great depression, where 1 million marks buys a few loaves of bread, when in just five years before 9000 buys you a nice car, turning a 3000% run away inflation to massive nationalised industry through the exploitation of the internal combustion engine, the extensive building of the rail system plus the invention of the Autobahn, this so-called tyrant(which he later turned out to be), turned the country around in a span of a few years into a economic powerhouse, effects still felt today.
The saddest part of the tour is the wall, its a pity looking at those memorials, some were shot trying to cross this stream over to western Berlin just 3 to 4 days before the walls came down...
Remains of the Berlin Wall in central Berlin in the Hauptbahnhof ... Portsdamer Platz, next to the Jewish Massacre Monument, behind me is the hippest place in Europe....the SONY Centre @ Portsdamer Platz!
This picture show comrades that had fallen in their attempts to scale the wall or swim across the freezing river, often cheered on by the yankies, only to be yanked out of the water dead and frozen.
IMAX 3D Theatres, lights after dark till dawn. This place is spectacular. In November while we are there, here are pictures taken 4.30 in the afternoon when the sun has set.
The famous SONY CENTRE in Berlin. 5 to 7 floors of entertainment lies behind these walls in a giant atrium covered by a parachute wall enough to save a dozen falling A380 super jumbo jets! Maybe they should place it in Airbus HQ in France.
Inside the Sony Centre, see the parachute roof?
Entertainment, food, recreation, workplaces and residences all at one stop, this is a small city in its own right, and an intelligent building too managed by state-of-the-art eco-friendly system. Wish our Raffles Place can be done like this. But Asians has a problem that is deeply ingrained into their genes, they can't work together.... they need to have one-up-man-ship.
Building as a giant video wall for advertising, only 40 times larger than our Panasonic screen at Sommerset MRT station....sad case....some more we dare to shout about it!
This restaurant has lights that changes every 1 minute.....6 to 7 styles. its amazing to look at as the mood around it changes completely with the lights.
The train station entrance. Portsdamer Platz Station.
Over view of the city within a city.
The place where we illegally parked our car. Since we drive a Touareg, no body asked thinking that we may be a big shot from this building....heh...heh....heh....
The Opera House....it was Einstein festival. Now hailed as a German...had he stayed, he would have been part of the gassed in Auschwitz in Austria.
Me at the city's cultural centre behind the supreme court.
Slow Taxi at 10 Deg weather is quite lovely. But for 30 Euro an hour rate of sightseeing, I prefer the Touareg, park anywhere we like attitude......
Supreme Court. Click on picture ot look at the larger one and see the amount of nice sculptures that was decked on this building. Its spectacular.
Bungee bouncing in the city.....World Cup festival!