Chambre De Commerce
“The Chamber de Commerce alias Cdc is an absolutely fabulous Stock Exchange location, located in a busy city and surrounded by ugly concrete buildings. Only the four relative narrow passages are giving a small glimpse of what the inside of this beautiful queen has to shown. The current building is a reconstruction from 1872. The original building dates from 1531, this late Gothic styled stock market has been burned twice [1583 and 1858]. The CdC is built on top of an existing street intersection with originally no roof, only four covered streets, the still existing and impressive galleries. Around 1853 the square and galleries where covered with a dome modeled on the Crystal Palace in London." Jan Stel
Tag: internet guide book
Chefchaouen, a small town in northern Morocco, has a rich history, beautiful natural surroundings and wonderful architecture, but what it’s most famous for are the striking and vivid blue walls of many of the buildings in its “old town” sector, or medina.
The maze-like medina sector, like those of most of the other towns in the area, features white-washed buildings with a fusion of Spanish and Moorish architecture. The brilliantly blue walls, however, seem to be unique to Chefchaouen. They are said to have been introduced to the town by Jewish refugees in 1930, who considered blue to symbolize the sky and heaven. The color caught on, and now many also believe that the blue walls serve to repel mosquitoes as well (mosquitoes dislike clear and moving water).
Whatever the reason, the town’s blue walls attract visitors who love to wander the town’s narrow streets and snap some beautiful photos.
This is from tonight’s WWOHP webcast but I like to imagine it’s actually a bunch of witches and wizards strolling about Diagon Alley during its grand reopening after the war. Everyone’s chatting happily and snacking on sweets from Sugarplum’s or ice cream from Florean Fortescue’s, business is booming at Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes, and the air is completely free of pretense and anxiety; everyone can finally just breathe and enjoy the atmosphere, because Voldemort is a distant memory and the pieces left to pick up are few and far between.
The stunning Nasir al-mulk Mosque hides a gorgeous secret between the walls of its fairly traditional exterior: stepping inside is like walking into a kaleidoscope of colors. Every day, the rays of the early morning sun shine through colorful stained-glass windows, transforming the halls into a dazzling wonderland of rich hues, patterns, and light that play on the floor of the mosque.
I can never get over that this is a real place.
Colmar, France.
Cyber-Dys-Punk-Topia
“There was a place near an airport, Kowloon, when Hong Kong wasn’t China, but there had been a mistake, a long time ago, and that place, very small, many people, it still belonged to China. So there was no law there. An outlaw place. And more and more people crowded in; they built it up, higher. No rules, just building, just people living. Police wouldn’t go there. Drugs and whores and gambling. But people living, too. Factories, restaurants. A city. No laws.”
—William Gibson, Idoru
It was the most densely populated place on Earth for most of the 20th century, where a room cost the equivalent of US$6 per month in high rise buildings that belonged to no country. In this urban enclave, “a historical accident”, law had no place. Drug dealers, pimps and prostitutes lived and worked alongside kindergartens, and residents walked the narrow alleys with umbrellas to shield themselves from the endless, constant dripping of makeshift water pipes above….
Kowloon ‘Walled’ City lost its wall during the Second World War when Japan invaded and razed the walls for materials to expand the nearby airport. When Japan surrendered, claims of sovereignty over Kowloon finally came to a head between the Chinese and the British. Perhaps to avoid triggering yet another conflict in the wake of a world war, both countries wiped their hands of the burgeoning territory.
And then came the refugees, the squatters, the outlaws. The uncontrolled building of 300 interconnected towers crammed into a seven-acre plot of land had begun and by 1990, Kowloon was home to more than 50,000 inhabitants….
Despite earning its Cantonese nickname, “City of Darkness”, amazingly, many of Kowloon’s residents liked living there. And even with its lack of basic amenities such as sanitation, safety and even sunlight, it’s reported that many have fond memories of the friendly tight-knit community that was “poor but happy”.
“People who lived there were always loyal to each other. In the Walled City, the sunshine always followed the rain,” a former resident told the South China Morning Post….
Today all that remains of Kowloon is a bronze small-scale model of the labyrinth in the middle a public park where it once stood.
This isn’t to say places like Kowloon Walled City no longer exist in Hong Kong….
Surreal Photos of A Frozen Venice
Art director Robert Jahns has created a series of surrealistic photos of Venice by combining photos of Italy by Luis Manuel Osorio Fernando with photos of frozen lakes in Russia by Daniel Kordan. Robert Jahns wanted to show how the Venice Canal would look like if it was frozen by the winter.
The Cherry Blossom Girl visits the Mermaid Lagoon at Tokyo Disney
The most beautiful cat cafe I have been to. It’s called Temari no Ouchi (Temari’s house) in Tokyo, Japan. The soft music and ambience feels like you are in a Studio Ghibli film. Had to take the Japan Railway there, but was totally worth the extra trip, & unlike the central Tokyo cat cafes, this one has no time limit, so feels totally relaxed. Several girls were even sleeping there amongst the cats.
Plateau | by “Jackie Rueda”
lanablack 