we need a break...

2008 has been a year full of ups and downs in all aspects.

time for an+dh to take a break...

our initial options:

1. Okinawa
2. Ireland
3. England + Wales
4. Turkey

and in the final weeks, a few images caused us to make a swift change of mind...Petra and Krak des Chevaliers.

Jordan, Syria, that's where we want to be!

intuition...

well, I stopped for another few months before picking up the writing on this particular topic, simply what happened still troubled me deep in the night...

when travelling along the edge of the only route leading to the summit, I could feel the air was becoming drier, and temperature was definitely dropping. Luckily for us, we have brought enough winter clothing, but it still didn't stop us shivering once in a while after breathing in the cool, dry air.

When viewed from far, the temple was dwarfed by the massive broadcasting structure located nearby, but upon arriving at the front of the construction, one's attention was immediately drawn to the meticulously detailed front walls.

Standing on the porch, facing south, I could already see in the distance that darkness was slowly dropping its veil on the land below. As we were told by our friend that we could gain access to the top of the temple to catch the view of the city of Barcelona, we hurried in, and finding our way to the tower which led to the roof.

As expected, the interior of the temple was finely decorated. Dimly lit, and thus highlighting the stained glass decoration located along the masonry walls. Perhaps due to its location, or perhaps it's almost the end of the day, the place was sparsely populated. A few candles were flickering momentarily amongst low murmuring sounds in a language I could not comprehend.

To the left of the hall was an opening which gave way to another narrow corridor, which at its end, was the entrance to a lift which travelled to the roof.

I was still deep in thought on my previous deja vu experience, and suddenly, the name of the place flashed through my mind - Tibidabo...what an interesting name, I wondered what it meant...

there's a strange sensation within me which I couldn't quite place...but I could suddenly feel my heart was beating increasingly faster, a sign that my adrenalin was pumping...

...but why?

a map? who needs a map?

when we were walking inside the Gothic Quarter, despite having a map bought from the tourist information, we managed to quickly disorient myself. if it wasn't for our Spanish friends to show us around, we could have lost inside the maze of streets.

strangely, once we put away our maps, and start to look at the buildings and its immediate surroundings, it becomes much easier to identify the streets and location as the area was well defined by various landmarks, open squares, nodes, intersection of streets. Relying on our primal sense rather than overflowing information makes more sense.

these days, aren't we presented with a little bit too much information for comfort? where's our instinct gone?

a dreamlike stroll...Gaudi's works

yes, it was like in a dream...the buildings were in an out of this world form, the sky was so blue that it was almost as if it were painted on, and the row of trees lining up either side of the road also have a distintive dreamlike quality, bare from the trunk and expanding into an intricate network of dry branches, like the claws of an ent from the fairy tales, reaching up from the earth below.

on Passeig de Gracia, Eixample's main avenue, filled with brandname stores like Loewe, Camper, Zara, one of Gaudi's important work, the Casa Batllo, tucked in rather conspicuously among others in the group of Modernista buildings in Illa de la Discordia.

this building is situated right next to the Passeig de Gracia Metro station.

it's view at night was even more captivating...

Modernisme

no, modernisme IS NOT modernism. it's a movement began in Catalan, particularly the city of Barcelona. Ruta Del Modernisme, or translated as "Route of Modernisme" is indeed true to its name and is flanked on both sides with buildings and architecture which are representative of the movement. On Passeig de Gràciaeven, even the floor tiles, hexagonal in shape, forms a beautiful pattern that puts most cosmopolitan city in shame.

one of the important belief of such movement was that a society could be changed by art.

a very noble ideal....

questions: do people still have ideals in the time we are in?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/adlab/420068943/

Hola! Me encata esto.

been planning for this trip for quite a while, and the fact that having some friends to visit in Barcelona further reinforced our decision making Spain our choice for our trip.

The idea was to spend two weeks in Spain, flying out from Hong Kong to Bacelona, making our way through Spain by trains or by flights, and eventually reaching Madrid as our final destination in our trip.

though we have spent some years in Europe in our previous years, we have never travelled to Spain before, despite having done some research on the country from guidebooks like the Lonely Planet, Eyewitness Travel, Spain has remained a country not so familiar, tapas, football, bullfighting, Gaudi, Dali, Piccasso...but what is it really like, the country and its people?

it's about time to find out.

upon arrival, one most striking difference was that I NEED to wear my sunglasses during most of the day becaue of the low winter sun, which reminds me of why my city of birth has denied us of the much needed sunshine!

you can visit our flickr page for more photos on the country: http://www.flickr.com/photos/adlab/

museum on the street.

another scene at Lee Tung Street, Wanchai, Hong Kong

if you want to study the history of a city, the best to do, other than spending days and nights at the library to read thru books is to visit it, walk the streets, taste the local food, study the buildings in the vicinity. well...this is how you would do when you visit any European cities. The buildings define the character and stand as a silent witness to the history of a city.

on the other hand, to catch up with time, it is also inevitable to redevelop the city especially when the pace of the economy is moving so fast...

hang on, is that really the case?

can the preservation of the city fabric coexists with the new developments?

Disappearing City

always wonder why do we need to tear down so much of our old district. from the economic perspective, this might be the easiest way of getting revenues for the government. the people were furious with the tax increase, value added tax...and the politicians went hysterical when the slight mention of the cutting of social benefits was heard...now there is a limitation as to how the government can generate revenues for all the social expenses, and one such way is to sell off land to the developers, thereby receiving land premium in return, creating more jobs by demolishing what is there, and building something entirely new through the employment of different trades of the construction industry. Of course, even if the selling off of the land is inevitable, the government can still organise architectural competitions in order to find the best solution based on a design perspective rather than purely from the financial point of view.

on the other hand, when we are complaining why the government has to tear down one after another old city fabric, we also have to ask ourselves, are we prepared to do more?

you can not create something out of nothing, it is about how much you are willing to trade.

***fictional writing below***

another sleepless night...

for weeks, the city has been under a blanket of haze, whether these were the result of consecutive days of high humidity or an omen of things to come, i did not know.

days ago, found this letter inside the mailbox addressed to a former occupant of the apartment i stayed. yes, a real letter! these days, what one would normally find in the mailbox were only bills that you ought to pay months ago, promotion leaflets telling you how slim you ought to, or from apparent charitable organization demanding you to pay up in order to save lives from the third world (only that if they didn't print the leaflets in colour, God knows how much they would have saved!). so to find a letter in the post box with handwritten writings came as a surprise.

there were a few things peculiar with this letter. First of all, the letter was addressed to, as mentioned, a former occupant of the apartment, which to my knowledge, was a loner for most of his life, and most important of all, was assumed dead years ago. I had limited deatils of the story, but rumours has it that during a trip to the mountains, he fell off the cliff, and nobody heard from him since...and that was twenty years ago. the other intersting aspect of this letter was that it did not have the sender's name but only an address. the address was in an old part of the city, deserted many months ago, and waiting to be taken down. yet, the postmark was recent, and more importantly, i have not seen handwriting of such calligraphic quality for a long time. if you held the envelope close enough, you could almost smell the distinctive character of the ink. and while doing so, there was the presence of a slight hint of light, ever so faint, but sweet perfume.

with the envelope in hand, i pondered on what to do with this. to send it back to the post office would only mean throwing it into the incinerator as it was a known fact that those building were to be torn down soon.

i decided to pay a visit to this place.

grabbed my torch and overcoat, i left my apartment in the middle of the night...

mitte, Berlin

in what was the former East Germany, Mitte has come a long way since the unification of the 2 countries.
lined with designer shops, cafes, bars and interesting inner courtyards, this area worth at least a few days of exploration, and definitely not during a Worldcup when one's mind was still pondering on who entered the last 16!

managed to find some interesting links to this area:

http://uinic.de/berlin-mitte/en/index.html

as it was effectively the last full day of our trip in Germany, we only managed to spend a short few hours in the district which did not do the place justice, before rushing off to Postdamer Platz again for the live coverage of the final group game of France.

give us another reason for revisiting Berlin in the future...

deutsches historisches museum - I.M.Pei

The museum is housed in the Berlin "Zeughaus", or the arsenal, the oldest building on Unter den Linden. Not only has it an extensive assortments of artefacts detailing the German History, it also has a vast collection of weaponeries, from the early ages through to the 2nd Worldwar. Through the courtyard in centre leads to the new extension, completed in 2004, designed by chinese born, american architect I.M.Pei.

Nice use of materials and manipulation of space.

but, somehow found the public space inside this extension, largely for circulation and waiting, was more impressive than the actual exhibition space inside. which brought the question of which is serving and which is served...

the winding staircase, with its transparent enclosure, was a nice touch to the exterior elevation, but to me, its purpose remains a mystery...

United Buddy Bears in Berlin

on unter den Linden, not only were there the Deutsche Guggenheim Gallery, Staatsbibliothek, the Neue Wache, the Zeughaus, but also tons of Buddy Bears at the Bebelplatz.

there were altogether 142 of them, from different country, painted differently, and have travelled as far as Hong Kong and Tokyo back in 2004 and 2005.

more info on www.buddy-bear.com

quoting from the inside cover page of the special publication for this event:

"Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding." - Albert Einstein

sunset in Berlin

at the time of writing, the trip to Berlin was already five months ago, but the images i saw, the taste of the food, and the smell of the air, still hangs vividly at the back of my head. seems so near, yet so far.

any experience is memorable because there comes a time when the trip ends, the break overs, and it's time to return to the more routine daily life. but it is exactly because of its limited duration that we would treasure it. when you can have everything you want, there is nothing more you want...

the dinner at the Tele-Cafe was at a surprisingly reasonable price, quite a contrary to what i would expect from a tourist destination. the view was stunning, as the cafe provides a panoramic view in a revolving movement.

only another full day left in Germany before bidding farewell!

Fernsehturm revisited.

very much the one and only landmark you can not miss in Berlin. after leaving the museum island, it was getting late, and although the sun was still not set, after a day's walk of some of the greatest museum, it's time to sit down and have a proper dinner. better still if we could catch the setting sun at Berlin.
the metal sphere was only like this during the WorldCup, at other times, it's simply a sphere with steel cladding.
took us about another half an hour or so on foot to reach here while passing the Alexanderplatz on the way.