One of the more popular tourist photos of Tokyo is the Shibuya intersection which is beside the busy Shibuya Railway station which sees 2.4 million Tokyoites use it ever day. The intersection is known as Center Gal and has is used regally in films and advertisements. The surrounding shops are covered in huge video walls and neon and is quiet spectacular day or night. Four roads intercept into a huge zebra crossing. Cars at all sides of the intersection stop when the lights go red to allow thousand of people to cross the road in every direction at once. It’s quite an adventure for those new to Tokyo. Hawkers and promotion staff offer free advertising merchandise like tissues or paper fans, the video screens pump out throbbing J-Pop and high pitched girls screech and spruke products. The experience is electrifying but attacks all your senses at once and first visit is sure to disorientate. Read the rest of this entry »

Electronics town or Akihabara in Tokyo is absolute overload for every gizmo and gadget known to man. The whole suburb is jam packed with the latest phones, mp3 players, cameras laptops and gaming device. There is shop after shop of everything electrical. Mixed in with a magna comic precinct Akihabara is a buzz with youth especially on Sundays when they close many of the streets off to traffic to make way for the tens of thousands who flock to the stores in search of the latest must have device. The range is staggering and the prices good too- most prices are labeled with the real price so there’s no painstaking bargaining required- just look at the product and decide if you want it or not. Recently huge mega marts like Yodobashi Camera Co have opened up in Akihabara offering six and seven floors of shopping for electronics some of the stores boast nearly half a million items on sale- its staggering and with so much choice soon numbs the senses and confuses you even more.

No one does the sausage better than the Germans and to celebrate their skill in making these tasty cylindrical morsels the Deutsches Currywurst Museum has been set up in the Deutsch capital Berlin.  Berlin is proud of the sausage and claims to be the place where the Germany’s favourite sausage the Currywurst was invented. The brand new museum traces the history and legend of the sausage, its effects on culture, the ingredients (those that are mentionable) and offers all the smells and sights you would expect to experience in a sausage museum, and like any good museum they have a gift shop at the end of the museum where you can pick up some sausage treats and plenty of novelty items. The Currywurst museum is a fun and interactive look at the sausage and has some pretty fun displays including huge sauce drops and giant sausage and fries props, it is fun for young and old. The cinema is sure to be one of the museums highlights showing some great moments in sausage history with adverts, and a funny documentary called “Best of the Wurst”. The museum is self paced but does offer interactive tours which take about 45 minutes, currently they are only held in German but there are plans for English tours in the new year. Located on Schutzenstrabe the museum is very handy for the Berlin visitor being only 100 metres away from Checkpoint Charlie. Read the rest of this entry »

For luxury shopping New York has its 5th Avenue, London has Oxford Street, Paris has Champs Elysees and Tokyo has Ginza. Ginza is a glitzy shopping precinct is full of some of the most up market department stores, boutiques and restaurants in Japan. There are all the big brands Gucci, Apple, Sony, Swarovski, Armani, Vuitton, you name it even Nissan has a boutique selling cars. The intersection of Chuo Dori and Harumi Dori is the place to be, it is the prime of the Ginza real estate. The corner is houses some of the world’s biggest LED video screens advertising the big brands from beer, electronics, cars, fashion and cosmetics. The intersection is also home to the Sanai Building which has floor anon floor of glitzy shopping all behind a huge glass cylinder. Over the road the Wako Department Store is well renowned for its luxury goods including jewelry and porcelain. While Mikimoto Ginza 2 is world famous for its century of pearl trading. For food lovers, a visit to the huge food basement at the Mitsukoshi Department Store is a must with hundreds of stalls selling the most delicious and decorative Japanese snacks and foods. Read the rest of this entry »

One of the most dominant land marks on the Munich skyline is the two towered Cathedral Church of Our Blessed Lady which is home to the Archbishop of Munich and home to over 500 years of precious artifacts. Located in the heart of the city at the Frauenplatz the church is a very popular tourist attraction in this Bavarian city with many people taking in the spectacular views of the Alps from the 109 metre high towers.  The Cathedral can accommodate around 20,000 people under its massive roof and was built in a time when Munich was home to only about 13,000 residents.  The Cathedral suffered huge damage during the World War II but 50 years of renovation have brought the building back to its former splendor. Read the rest of this entry »

Next week there will be plenty of fun to be had in Suhl, Germany, as the 15th annual European Furry Convention takes place at the Ringburg hotel from Aug 26th to 30th.  Known as Eurofurence the event takes its name from the US event known as ConFurence, a event that spun off from sci-fi conventions in the late 1980s, but was dedicated to furry anthropomorphic creatures from a guy in a team mascot suit to cartoons of Buggs Bunny or similar. According to their website Eurofurence is the biggest annual European furry convention, an international gathering of people who share an extraordinary appreciation for anthropomorphic animal characters, so it sounds like plenty of fun. Check out their site below. Read the rest of this entry »

Opening in 1959 the Solomon R Guggenheim Museum is regarded as one of New York’s City’s most impressive architectural landmarks and is home to some of the most renowned works of art found anywhere in the world. Designed by Frank Lloyd Wright the white concrete building is a amazing piece of artwork in itself. The artworks are displayed along a helical spiral ramp which stretches the entire building. The centre of the building is lit with an incredible skylight which shines sun on the forecourt and ticketing area. The Guggenheim has become such a success in New York other Guggenheims’ have been built around the world, including Venice, Bilbao, Berlin, and Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates. The museum has an ever changing collection of art with Impressionist, Post Impressionist, early modern and contemporary making up most of the collection. The Guggenheim can be found on the Upper East Side overlooking the beautiful Central Park.

Standing on the intersection of Fifth Avenue and West 34th Street the 102 Story Empire State Building is the tallest building in New York which it has held the title of for more than 50 years, (from its opening in 1931 to 1972 and then again from 2001 to present after the destruction of the World Trade Centre twin towers in lower Manhattan). Only the Chicago Wills or Sears Tower is higher in the USA and has only just fallen outside the top 10 tallest buildings in the world. The Art Deco structure has been named as one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World by the American Society of Civil Engineers and any visitor to the magnificent building will have no doubt why it is an amazing and beautiful engineering feat. The Empire State offers a magnificent observation deck with 360 degree views from the 86th floor and for a few dollars extra you can visit the 102nd floor, but from the Empire State Building you see all of Manhattan except the beautiful Empire State itself- so here at Tripandom we have a tip for you- try the Rockefeller Tower instead- It has a great observation area on the 70th floor offering an amazing look at the Empire State Building- this is where we took today’s photo.

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Times Square is known as the Crossroads to the World and is one of New York’s most exciting intersections. The square is really just a huge junction of Broadway and Seventh Avenue and stretches about three blocks from West 42nd Street to West 47th Streets. The intersection is a dazzling display of huge video screens displaying all the must have products being advertized by whoever is the celebrity face of the minute. Once a bit of a sceeedy area the area is now family friendly and home to many iconic restaurants, bars, cafes and specialty stores, including New York’s Hard Rock Café, the M&Ms store, Toys R Us, Virgin Megastore and Bubba Gump’s Shrimp Co. Then there are theatres including the New Amsterdam Theatre home to Mary Poppins and the rest of Broadway is only steps away. Currently Times Square has been closed to cars, as a trial to turn the area into a pedestrian only zone, trials have been good and have hopefully after some studies of traffic flow and the surrounding area the area may become permanently car free. New Years Eve is the biggest celebration of the year at Times Square, hundreds of thousands gather in the often freezing temperatures to watch the crystal ball drop at the count of midnight.

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Linking Manhattan Island with Brooklyn the 1825 metre long Brooklyn Bridge has spanned the East River for over 125 years. Opening in 1883 the bridge was designed by John Augustas Roebling and like the Empire State Building and Statue of Liberty is one of the most iconic structures in New York City. Upon opening the bride was the longest suspension bridge in the world, infact it was nearly twice as big as anything previously built, but it soon lost its title in 1903 to the Williamsburg Bridge which also crosses the East River to Brooklyn. The bridge has a clearance of about 41 metres at mid span and the huge brick Gothic towers rise 273 feet. For visitors the Brooklyn Bridge has a wide walkway open to both pedestrians and cyclists and offers some spectacular vistas of the Manhattan Skyline from a different perspective.

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