Nikki and I went to Shanghai in China in May 2010 and we visited World Expo 2010, Jin Mao building, Shanghai World Financial Center, the aquarium, Oriental Pear Tower etc. Here is a trip report with photos, links and videos: http://gardkarlsen.com/Shanghai_China_trip_report.htm . I have also made this Shanghai Google map to give people an idea of where the various attractions are located. I hope that it can give people an idea of what to expect if you are heading to this metropolis. Get in touch if you have any questions or comments.

The official handover of the Airbus A380  to Lufthansa took place on May 19th and at the same time the interior was presented online on the web site. Most of us will be flying economy class of course and as we all know, flying long haul in economy can be a pretty miserable affair. I have used Lufthansa a few times on long haul and one of the issues that I have been very unhappy with is of course the lack of a personal TV screen. On the Lufthansa A380 each seat does have a personal TV screen of course and that will at least make the flight pass faster for me – and at least I don’t have to sit and watch the German bundesliga updates like I had to last year when I went to Dubai (see my trip report on my homepage)

If you are extremely lucky you will get to experience the business class. As you can expect the business class seats are wider, you have a bigger screen, probably better food and drink selection and so on. Most of the upper deck on the Lufthansa A380 is filled with the business class seats but I have to say that both the seat and the configuration is a bit of a disappointment at first glance at least. Both Singapore Airlines and Emirates have been able to make the business class into something special with huge seats – on the Lufthansa A380 you have a pretty standard business class seat that doesn’t recline to 180 degrees. There are seats that are comfortable for sleeping even if they don’t recline all the way but normally it is better to sleep if you have a flat bed. I’m also surprised over the configuration – many of the other airlines have tried to come up with solutions were all have direct access to the aisle but on the Lufthansa A380 you have a pretty standard configuration.

The very lucky and very few have the money to fly First class. On the Lufthansa A380 there are only 8 of these seats. The other airlines that have bought the A380 have used the opportunity to really show off in the First class setup with Singapore Airlines having small compartments and Emirates having showers available for the first class passengers. I did have a chance of flying Lufthansa First class last year in a 747 from Frankfurt to Hong Kong (see the trip report on http://gardkarlsen.com/blog/?p=470 ) and that was a wonderful experience. But actually the configuration and plane was quite old so the most amazing part of the experience was the First Class Terminal in Frankfurt and the service there (see http://gardkarlsen.com/blog/?p=457 ). But back to the new Lufthansa A380 First Class. From what I can see Lufthansa has taken a more moderate approach to the first class: the seat looks like a flat bed seat, the screen seems to be large and so on. But there is no WOW factor as you see on Singapore Airlines and Emirates. And it is also strange to see that there are only 8 seats compared to something like 14 on the 747. But I guess in these days with economic difficulties there is not a large market for first class seats. But all in all the Lufthansa A380 first class looks very comfortable but maybe a bit on the boring side. The bathroom seems large and that it is of course great as it can be tricky to slip into pajamas in a small toilet

Congratulations to Lufthansa with the new plane – I hope that it will provide a comfortable and safe ride for lots and lots of passengers and I hope to fly it myself one day soon The images above are taken for the Lufthansa web site. Check out the Lufthansa A380 site to get a virtual presentation of the various classes of the Lufthansa A380.

Air France has just announced that this summer they will fly from London to Paris and back again and you can get it for “just” £80 for a round trip on economy class (£280 for business class). But I think it is a bit sad using such a large plane and obviously made for long haul, for such a short flight. But I guess it will give you some sort of idea of how the plane will be on a long haul trip. I had the pleasure of flying Emirates A380 last year from London to Dubai (see http://gardkarlsen.com/blog/?p=31) and this year from Dubai to Sydney (and the 14 hour trip back gave me lots of time to experience the plane ). Anyway, you can read about the offer from Air France on their web site.

From time to time there are articles on various travel sites and discussions in various communities on how to blend in with the locals when you are traveling. I’m not sure I understand all the fuzz when it comes to this topic….most likely you are going to stick out like a sore thumb if you are traveling to an exotic destination no matter how you dress or if you try to hide your camera or not  I think you can come a long way just by being friendly, by smiling to the people you meet, have an open mind and be open to the fact that things can work differently than what you are used to back home. On the right is a photo of me trying to blend in with the locals in Berlin by drinking a large beer – I know, I sacrifice myself to fit in Anyway, here is the list from Independent Traveler.com on how to blend in with the locals.

TripAdvisor has released their Travelers’ choice award 2010 and you can see all the lists on their web site. The top 10 lists are split into categories like top 10 for beach & sun, for culture & sightseeing, for food & wine, for romance and so on. I’m not sure I trust these lists completely but at least they can give you some ideas if you have no idea where to travel Have you looked at the list and do you agree with the awards?

So far Emirates, Singapore Airlines, Qantas and Air France have received their A380′s. Now it is time for Lufthansa to receive their first plane and they plan to use this on the route from Frankfurt to Tokyo in Japan. Later on this fall they will receive more planes and these will be used on the routes Frankfurt – Beijing and Frankfurt – Johannesburg in South Africa. Here is the seat map of the Lufthansa A380 and it looks like the lower floor will be all economy while the upper floor is mainly business class with a few first class seats. You can read more about the Lufthansa A380 on their website.

I had the pleasure of testing the new Dubai Metro recently and I took it from the airport to Dubai Mall and it was only like 4,5 AED (about 1 USD). The station at the airport was modern and clean and with guards walking around and a large photo of Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum – the ruler of Dubai. But what I thought was quite funny was the little booklet that can be found on the station explaining all the different things that will result in a fine.  How about “Carrying of alcoholic drinks” that will result in a 200 AED fine. Does this mean that you can’t bring your duty free goods in your suitcase when taking the metro or do they mean that you are not allowed to drink on the metro? How about “Using the lifts or escalators in an inappropriate manner” – how do you use an escalator in an inappropriate manner? So naturally, when I took the metro I was a bit nervous – maybe I was breaking some of the rules. All of a sudden a woman in an Abaya (the traditional Islamic dress) walked over to me and I thought “Oh no, maybe I’m sitting on a seat designated for women”. So I jumped up and offered her my seat – she just looked at me and said “Your ticket please”. Turns out that she was a part of a team checking that the people on the metro had valid tickets. I was able to show my ticket and hence I avoided getting a fine You can find a list of all the fines on this page.

Nikki and I went to Berlin in Germany during Easter 2010 and I have posted a trip report with photos, links and a Google map on http://gardkarlsen.com/Berlin_Germany_trip_report.htm . Berlin is a beautiful city and unfortunately we didn’t get to see enough of the city – but I guess that means that we have an excuse to re-visit Berlin in the  In Berlin we checked out sights such as Pergamonmuseum, Brandenburger Tor, Third Reich walking tour, museum island, shopping at KaDeWe, the holocaust memorial and we even got to drive an old Trabant on a Trabi-Safari through the traffic of Berlin.Check out the trip report and get in touch if you have questions or comments.

I just had the pleasure of visiting the world’s tallest building: Burj Khalifa in Dubai. I walked over to this amazing tower from the Dubai Mall metro station and it is impossible to not be impressed by the enormous 800 meter tall building. I had gotten a hold of a ticket to the observation deck “At the top” in advance and the ticket price was 100 Dirham (27 USD) but you can also pay to cut in line but then the price is 400 Dirham (110 USD!!!). The entrance to the At the top experience starts within Dubai Mall (which they claim is the biggest mall in the world) and after I passed through security I followed the path to get to the elevator. Along the path you get information about the building process, the design etc. and to start with there is also a couple of models of the building. The elevator itself was quite small but at least it is fast I honestly didn’t feel the elevator starting but it didn’t take long before I felt the change in pressure in my ears and then I knew we were moving. The lift travels at 10 m/s so it only takes a minute to reach the observation deck – so when the doors opened I was looking out from 124th floor! The observation deck has both an indoor and an outdoor section and it gives you a 360  degree view of the Dubai area. I started by going outdoor and the view from about 450 meters above the ground is amazing. You know that you are high up when you can look down on the 60+ floors hotel The Address The sun was blazing outside and even I was quite high up, there was no cooling effect in the breeze. The outdoor section gives you a view from The Address hotel and the musical fountain, the Dubai Mall, Sheikh Zayed road and towards the ocean where it was possible to see the islands of the World project. When going inside again I got a view of Jumeirah (including Burj Al Arab and the Palm in the distance) and all around back to the Address hotel. Even if this is the tallest building in the world, this observation deck is actually not the tallest in the world. That record belongs to Shanghai World Financial Centre You can read more about the “At the top” observation deck on the Burj Khalifa homepage. Nikki and I went to Dubai last year and you can check out my Dubai trip report on this page.

We arrived in Berlin in the afternoon and the Tegel airport is only located about 15-20 minutes from the city center and the taxi ride was 20€. There is also a bus option that can take you to some of the larger train stations in Berlin.
I booked the room at the Westin on the Starwood Preferred Guest site and the rooms started at 99€ which is not bad for a 5 star hotel in a large European city – only a few years ago I had to pay about 90€ for a 2 star hotel in Paris. As we were a bit late at booking the room went up to 111€ including taxes but without breakfast.

Check in at the hotel was fast and we got room 454. The lobby of the hotel is dominated by a huge and lavish staircase leading to the first floor where the breakfast is served and where they have conference rooms and you also have an open atrium up to the various floors. Our room was a standard size room but it seemed to be newly refurbished. The floor was covered in a brownish carpet while the walls were painted in a light color. Instead of a king size bed we had gotten two single beds standing next to each other but we knew about this in advance. Westin (and Sheraton) keeps advertising about their heavenly bed and some of them are great. The beds at the Westin in Berlin were not that great in our opinion. First of all they were quite soft, the pillows were very thin and there seemed to be something in the mattress cover that made us sweat a lot at night.

There were lots of lights in the room which I think is great and the windows faced Friedrichstrasse and the Bugatti showroom. We did hear a bit of the traffic noise but it was not a huge problem at night. Apart from that we had one big chair in the room with a small table, a desk with a chair and a 32” flat screen TV. The TV had lots and lots of channels in German (and note that even English speaking movies are dubbed into German) so the only thing that was in English was channels like BBC News, CNN etc. But then again – you are not in Berlin to watch TV.

There was also a small fridge with items for sale – a Coke was 4.5 €, a Heineken 6 € and a small red wine was 10 € just to give you an idea of the prices. There were space for both our suitcases which was excellent as some hotel rooms seems to be designed for just one suitcase even if there is a king size bed meant for two people. The wardrobe contained quite a few hangers and there was a small safe – there was even a power outlet in the safe which means that you can charge your cell phone when it is locked up.

The bathroom was tiled with white and black tiles and contained a shower in the bathtub. There was a glass wall that prevented water from splashing everywhere when taking a shower and this combined with a shower curtain worked pretty good. It was fun to see that the standard amenities (like shampoo, shower gel etc) is the same that you get at the Westin in e.g. Bangkok.

The location of the hotel is great – located on the corner of Friedrichstrasse and Unter den Linden you are basically in the middle of town and you can easily walk over to museum island or Brandenburger Tor. Right outside the door you will find the U-bahn station Französische Straße and you can also walk to the larger Friedrichstraße station to catch both U-bahn and S-bahn. There are lots of high-end shops in the area (we are talking Bugatti, Ferrari, Hugo Boss, Wempe watch store) together with department stores (like Galeries Lafayette Berlin) and lots of restaurants. One tip if you don’t have breakfast included at the hotel is to grab a bit at Einstein Coffee near the hotel.

Let’s talk about some of the issues that were not that great with the hotel. First of all – no free internet! I’m not sure how others plan their trip these days but we are very much online planners and we make a Google map before we travel and we normally need to get online to check details. The internet was 7.5 € for 1 hour at the hotel – I would rather recommend that you go to Einstein coffee nearby to get free Wi-Fi and enjoy some coffee for the 7.5 € instead.
The breakfast at the hotel was 29 € per person for the buffet which is way too expensive. Yes, you can order a la carte at the hotel but still. I’m sure it is a wonderful breakfast but for a person that normally just eats a small sandwich or some muesli it is not necessary to go for breakfast at the hotel – but luckily there are many small coffee shops and bakeries nearby.

I have already mentioned that we were not that impressed with the beds. I also found it a bit strange that we only got one bathrobe and one pair of slippers when they knew that we would be two people staying in the room. It was not a big issue and I assume that we could have asked for another. We also had to request an iron and ironing board – the iron was good but the board needs to be replaced soon.

One afternoon when we came back to the hotel we found a used cleaning cloth left by housekeeping on the desk – I have stayed at quite a few hotels but I don’t think I have seen that before.

But all in all – the Westin Grand Berlin this is a very nice hotel with a great location and compared to other major European capitals you seem to get the hotel at an affordable rate.  I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend friends or family to stay there. You can read more about the hotel on http://aktuelles.westin.de/berlin/