Поглед към сърцето на Вселената!

Gentrify it!

"The world in which rich rather throw away full plate than risk that poor one would take a bit from it is mad." (unknown leaflet writer at Rigaerstr, Berlin)

These words stroke me today during the demonstration against the next gentrification plan in my district - the new victim is Liebigstr. 14.

Berlin could show every other city in the world what is gentrification in action. The 90s will be remembered with techno, underground and squats (occupied houses). The empty houses were everywhere. They found soon their new tenants, who were not really willing to pay rent or at least not a high one. On the other side they were ready to contribute with their time, passion and vision, in order to create their common living space. The squats were followed by the small alternative bars and cafés, soon came the artists and then at once the districts, which were not at all desired places to live at the beginning of the 90s, became over the night IN and cool. In the first decade of 2000 came the investors and then of course the yuppies. And this was the day, when the squats and their tenants became unwellcome.
Actually this is just a classical description of gentrification.
The gentrification in Berlin is meanwhile one of the most popular reasons for demonstrations and petitions. „ Save Köpi“, „Rigaerstr. 94 bleibt“, „Liebigstr. 14 forever“ are just some examples for threatened by investors squats or houses, where the tenants pay very low rents. Thus the main objective of the investors is to kick out the tenants, to renovate the houses and then to rent them for the five times the current price – as simple as that. And I don´t even doubt that they will find immediately some enough people, who will be willing to pay 700 € for 2-rooms flat there.
The other day I saw a classified ad on our street saying that a young couple is willing to pay 900 € for 3-rooms flat in Fhain....I though to explain them that they are unfortunatelly mixing up Fhain with Schwabing...

Click a tree!

Just few trees left -
http://clickatree.europa.eu/
or Click a tree at My Space.

Bicycles, Bicycles

There are nine million bicycles in Beijing, I am wondering how many bicycles are crossing Amsterdam - for sure less. Even though the Dutch city bicycles have become the rolls roys of the bike´s world - noble, oldies look and quite expensive -...well and of course you would need quite good lock for it. Nice article about how much even the Amis appreciate the Dutch bicycles can be found on: http://www.slate.com/id/2225698/

Когато дори и иранците ни задминаха!

Мисля, че думите са излишни тук - Иран показа през последните няколко дни как се отстоява правото на свободен избор: http://www.zeit.de/online/2009/25/iran-wahl-feature
Само да припомня, че един от малкото коментари за Евроизборите в България в Zeit беше посветен на купуването на гласове. Какво повече да се каже - някои излизат на улицата, ако се подмени вота им, а други не мислят по-далече от поредното кебапче.

Tokyo´s dream

Since it will take a while, before I find time to describe in details every single day in Tokyo, I decided today to keep it short and just to mark the must-see places there...the rest is not that relevant for this blog and could stay in my paper diary(present from my beloved friend Saori).
Day 3:
Well, this was the day, when we dicided to walk to Asakusa, the neighbourhood that is told to keep something from the ancient Edo spirit. On our way there we walked down the street of the toys with its main sightseeing - the building of Bandai.
Asakusa itself is nowadays „conquered“ by the commercial spirit. There is a huge market place, where you could find all sorts of typical Japanese souvenirs. However it is quite hard to destinguish, which of them are produced in China and which indeedare made in Japan. Well, to be honest in spite of the commerce it is a really nice feeling to mix up with the crowd. The final touch of the market is the so called Asakusa koen - one of the best examples of the harmonic co-existance of the Shintu shrines and the Buddhist temples. The place is a bit touristic and the Buddhist temple was under renovation. However some other small Buddhist temples were opened and I got the chance to see my first Buddhist temple. The next stop for this day was Ginza. According to Lonely Planet the place is proudly reigning alongside 5th Avenue, Beverly Hills and the Champs-Elysées. Well I have never been in the first two, but Ginza seemed to me a bit more crowded and larger than Champs-Elysées. The weather was quite shity, so we just walked a bit in the huge department stores full with French éclairs.(I was really amazed by the French taste for food of the Japanese). It would not be exageration, if I write here that they have more French than Japanese food in the food corners of the department stores. Well appart from this Ginza has to offer a huge amount of luxury stores, one Sony Building (which is far from impressive - just a kind of ordinary showroom - without the famous SONY Aibo.
After Ginza we decided to conquer another neighbourhood - Shibuya. When you go out from the subway there, the first thing you will see will be the famous Shibuya Crossing - the intersection is famous above others with the scene, where Scarlet Johansson spent a while there in the movie Lost in Translation. We were quite hungry so we immediately approached one noodle bar, where I got the choice between three sorts of Ramen - big portion noodles with pork, medium portion noodles with pork and small portion noodles with pork - nice ;-). Well, the brew was not bad, the staff was nice and the prices really reasonable - so, if you are in the pork stuff the place is called Ogawa Bashi and is in one addorable small street just nearby the Shibuya station. The next stop after the noodle bar was one Game Arcade, where we spent a couple of minutes lost in translation trying to figure out, where is the game consile - Street Fighter 4. The highlight of the Game Arcade was one game with Japanese drums, where you were able to play forward only by druming. I really regret I haven´t tryed this one, but at least I played my first Street Fighter 4…Well, this was the end of the night, after the game arcade we took the Yamanote circle Line and moved one day further...

Day 4:
I think we spend at least a quarter of this day in the subway;-).

We went to Ghibli museum, which is in one of the suburbs of Tokyo - Mitaka. The museum is pretty much made for children and was full of them, but even we as 26 years old children had also a lot of fun there. There were a lot of small instalation from different Ghibli movies such as "My neighbour Totoro"or "Spirited Away", reconstruction of Miyazaki working room (again huge French and Industrialization era influence) and the huge doll cat bus full with children. The best part of the museum was a short Ghibli movie - unfortunatelly in Japanese, but even though very beatiful one.
After Ghibli we made a short walk in Ueno, where according to our travell guide, we were supposed to find another piece of the old Tokyo - Ameya Yokochó- indeed it was not that spectacular - just an average market - or maybe it was the rain that created a wrong impression of this place, but I still believe that the place was very overrated.
Anyway the next stop for the day was Takadanobaba. Saori told me that this is the only one line on the Yamanote Line,where you could listen to different music - the one from the movie Atom Boy. The explanation is quite trivial - this was the neighbourhood of the Atom Boy creator.
Actually we went to Takadanobaba, in order to have a look at Saori´s university - Waseda - quite impressive campus. We had a dinner in one Izaqiya afterwards and I tryed the most disgusting thing ever - fish guts.

Day 5:

This was our Tsukiji market day - we did our best to get up early. I was told that we have to be there at 08:00 am, in order to catch the fish auctions. Well, we missed it, but we were just in time for the big Suchi eating.
Tsukiji Fish Market is known as one of the biggest Fish markets in the world. The place is really huge. Some months ago it was closed for tourists, because some English guys were making some dirty jokes with the raw fish there. Now it is open again and you could have a walk there. However, you really have to watch out , no wonder that all people there wear rubber boots.
Just a few meters from the market hall, you could experience the taste of the famous Tsukiji fish. Well, you have to be a bit patient. Usually the sushi places are very small and you have to que one hour or even longer. The sushiplace keepers usually let about 10-15 people in, serve them the ordered food and kick them out after 20 or 30 minutes. Only then the next group could get in. You usually order your food, when waiting in the line, so the sushi cook already knows what to prepare for you. They do it simply in front of you with such a skilled move that you are sometimes wondering,if this guy there is a human or a sushicooking humanoid. The sushi is really frish and tasty. So I can only recommend it, though a bit expensive.
The next must see place in Tsukiji is the Hama-rikyu Garden. Lovely place just next to the fish market. The garden is typical example of the Edo period - the family garden of the Tokugawa Shogun. However the best part of the garden is the amazing mixture of harmonic tea houses and lakes and the towering skyscrapers as a coulisse of the modernity. The garden was full with old guys with professional digital cameras trying to catch up some micropics of one yellow flower. Somewhere on the entrance it was said that the plants in this garden are chosen so that at least one of them blooms every season.
The next stop was far away from the old Edo time. With other words we rush in the modernity of Shiodome - skyscrapers, luxury shops and French restaurants and somewhere in the mid of modernity we found another hint that took us back in the time to the steaming plans of Manchester - one post industrial clock designed by the Ghibli guru Miyazaki.
Then we rushed to the imperial Palace. Well, actually rush to the Palace is a kind of exageration, because the Palace is completely closed and surrounded by a moat, but at least we met there one of the most cheerful Japanese people I have ever seen. An old guy, who has never been abroad, but nevertheless he was speaking an amazingly fluent English. He told us that he has started learning Chinese and English with some audio books and now he is coming everyday to the Imperial Palace and talking to the tourists, in order to practice. All old guys seem to be similar everywhere in the world. He was complaining that Tokyo is getting every day dirtyer and the young people are very impolite. Well, we tried to becalm him by saying that Paris or Berlin are even worse, but he was not really willing to believe us. In his imagination Europe was the Paradise.
In the night we went to have dinner with Motoko - Yuki´s and Shin´s friend she took us to one Izakiya and showed me the second best thing in the Japanese kitchen (after the sushi) - the Edamame - boiled and salty soya beans - mmmmm. Now when I go to eat Japanese food in Berlin, I always order them – my personal Tokyo connection.

Day 6

Saori told us that if we want to see the city of the future – Odaiba is the place. Well, to be honest the future there begins from the subway – the line the Odaiba is without a driver and the rails are in the air and go over the Tokyo bay. I felt for the first time in my life like in a character of a science-fiction movie. Odaiba is a manmade island, cobbled together from the dreams of the bubble economy. Nowadays you go there either to visit the national museum of emerging science & innovation – Miraikan Museum or to climb on the Fuji TV tower, which looks also like a setting from the science fiction movie. I have heart that one of the main reasons for the candidacy of Tokyo for the Olympic Games 2016 is exactly this island. They want to build the Olympic village there and to use somehow this heritage for the bubble economy.

If somebody asks me, which is the best place in Odaiba, I will not hesitate to say the Miraikan Museum. The museum is one of those places that could inspire every child to study science. We saw there among others a short show with the Honda´s humanoid Asimo, earthquake simulator and a gorgeous manga movie about the space elevator.

After the museum we climbed to the Fuji TV tower, which was a big trap for tourists especially considering the storm outside this day.

In the night we visited the next lovely neighbourhood (again with huge French influence – Harajuku&Aoyama). Besides the luxury designer shops, which were not less than those in Ginza, this neighbourhood is famous with the cutie shops, where you could find all sorts of infantile outfits.

The final touch of this night was one running sushi in Shibuya – just in front of the noodle place - Ogawa Bashi. We just took our places there starving and ready to eat the whole sushi in the world, when the number of the plates on the running band just started to decrease. The cook told us something and we just nodded expecting the plates to start running around again, so our disappointment was really great when he just put all boxes with fish in the fridge and closed the running band…lost in translation we went back to the hostel.

Day 7

Our last day in Japan was devoted to the lovely town of Kamakura. We were told from a friend of mine that going there would be a total waste of time, since the only one thing worth seeing there is the statue of the sitting Buddha. Luckily everybody is writing his own story and we decided to go there and give Kamakura a chance and Kamakura did not let us down ;-)

Kamakura is the ancient capital of Tokyo. The town is famous with its unagi and the temples, which have grown as mushrooms through out the whole city. We visited three temples and my favourite one became the Hokokuji Temple in the outskirts of Kamakura with a lovely bamboo forest, where we drunk a poison green matcha. An old lady mixed the matcha powder with a big brush and passed it in a bowl to us. Maybe it was the sun or the magic bamboo forest or it was the mysticism of the Buddhist temple, but this was the tastiest matcha I have ever drunk and the most harmonious moment in Japan.

After the Hokokuji Temple we visited the sitting Buddha, which was obviously the tourist highlight in Kamakura. Shortly before taking the train back we went to the ocean….my second one. Unfortunately the weather was quite foggy and we were not able to see Mount Fuji…next time ;-) The ocean was full with surfers and eagles...ma magnificent feeling, magnificent country, magnificent Kamakura...

We spent our last hours in Tokyo trying to catch out the last places we haven´t got the chance to see in this one week. We went to the Tokyo´s sincity - Roppongi. However the only two things we had the chance to see there were two huge shopping centeres full with luxury store...the next Dior, Escada and the other usual suspects.

One of the best parts of Poppongi is the spider statue just in front of the Roppongi Tower and the marvelous view from there to the Tokyo Tower - really beautiful in the night.

We said CIAO to Tokyo eating sushi in one of those sushi running places - mmmm. The last touch was the visit to our last Game Arcade, where we made a couple of those funny teeny sticker...was a m agnificent day and evening...Thank you Saori.

It was time to say goodbye...to Saori, to Tokyo, to the sushi places, the order and the Khaosan Ninja hostel...well, every end is the beginning of something else..and even sounding pathetic, this is the beginning of my next plan to go to Japan.

Tokyo, Day 2

Well, as I´ve already mentioned Akihabara was a big disappontment. So I cannot really explain why we came back there on our 2nd day in Tokyo...but anyway, we had the chance to enjoy Akihabara by day;-) and to surf a bit through the electric city, where we met our friend Pleo - the baby dinozaur. Well, besides Pleo, Ahihabara can offer more or less the same by day time - gaming arcades, manga cafes etc.
After Akihabara we approached another part of the city - the lung of Tokyo - Meiji-jingu. There we had an appointment with Katja´s sister, who has spent tha last 2 years working at the shrine. We ate quite good sashimi and she told us really enthusiastic a couple of things about Japan. It seemed she really enjoyed it. Afterwards she gave us a tour in the shrine and told us some of the legends of the shrine. We. washed our hands as the shintu followers, took lucky charms, versed by the Emperor Meiji and Empress Shoken and finally visited a gorgeous exhibition about lacquered objects of art. The highlight of the exhibition was a lacquering workshop, where me myself drown the three monkeys from Nikko.
The next stop for this day was Shinjuku, where I met my beloved Erasmus friend Saori....it has been really a long time, but I think it is always like that with the soulmates, you always feel like you have met them just the other day for a cup of tea - as you have never been some ten thousands kms apart. The evening was really gorgeous - we ate in one running sushi, where a Japanese chef took a bit wasabi with his thumb and put it carelessly on our plates. The running sushi has its quite weird pricing system. Different sorts of bits are put in different small plates. On the wall you have a kind or price list for what price does every type of plate stays for. So finally the waitress would come to you and would count the types of plates and will tell you the bill. Genius in its simplicity. After the running sushi Saori took us to one of her favourite student bars, where almost all tables, where occupied by students in suites. Saori told us that they were at a kind of hiring casting. The bar was only with floor tables - quite authentic. There I had for the first time of my life green tea icecream (not bad at all) ;-) We wre still pretty jetlaged, so shortly after the first the beer we were ready to go to the hostel.