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Upper Level Deck at Berlin Haupbahnhof - © Bernard Loke
Berlin Haupbahnhof, or Berlin Central Station is the largest station in Europe. It was opened on 26 May 2009, just weeks before the World Cup Finals were held in Germany. Currently, it serves the InterCityExpress, InterCity, RegionalExpress, RegionalBahn and S-Bahn trains (almost all types of train you can find in Germany).
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When I first researched on where to go and what to see in Berlin, the place East Side Gallery popped up every now and then. Because of the the name gallery, my initial thoughts are that it’s a proper gallery with paintings and artworks all housed inside a building; like what you usually find throughout Europe.
Artworks and paintings are definitely not my cup of tea. Even seeing the famed Mona Lisa painting in the Louvre did not excite me.
So I decided to give it a miss as there are other attractions in Berlin that I have to fit into my short 3 days trip there.
But the more I Googled, the more interesting the East Side Gallery seems to be.
In fact, it’s actually an open air gallery, with around 100 paintings by artists all over the world on the 1.3km stretch on the Berlin Wall.
Now, that’s something really, really interesting – Open air gallery and the Berlin Wall.
Along the 1.3km stretch of paintings on the wall, about 80% of them are badly damaged by erosion, graffiti, and vandalism.
The remaining 20% was recently restored since year 2000. And I got to know that there will be full restoration of almost all the paintings from 2008 onwards when enough funds are raised.
The First of Many Paintings - © Bernard Loke
One of My Fav Paintings - © Bernard Loke
My God Help Me, This Deadly Love to Survive - © Bernard Loke
Charlie Checkpoint - © Bernard Loke
Welcome to Berlin - © Bernard Loke
Proof That I Was Here! - © Bernard Loke
The Holocaust - © Bernard Loke
CV of The Berlin Wall - © Bernard Loke
As you can see from the above photos, most of the paintings are no long in their original state. Some of the graffiti even looked better than the original painting itself. However, I just found out that most of the paintings are restored by November 2009 and they looked really great now.
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When I was a kid, I didn’t know what was DST.
I always see the word daylight saving time printed on my old Casio digital watch. But I have no idea what it was. All I knew was that there would be time differences during the summer and such. Still I didn’t get it.
Then there was Champions League football. I would wake up in the middle of the night just to watch Man United play. I noticed how the kickoff times started to change from 2.45am to 3.45am towards the end of October. Not forgetting also the usual EPL kickoffs time from 7.45pm to 8.45pm.
I started to get a grasp of what DST is all about.
So, one day I looked up the Internet, asked Google and it replied with a simple phrase about DST.
Spring forward, fall back.
In simple terms, countries that observe DST will shift their clocks 1 hour forward during the spring so the sun appears to rise 1 hour later and sets 1 hour later thus making the day longer. And vice versa during the fall.
Therefore, I’m now 7 hours behind Malaysia.
Most of central Europe countries turned their clocks 1 hour backwards after daylight saving time has ended. I remember that DST will end sometime towards the end of October but I didn’t know it was on October. As far as my memory can recall, it’s on this coming weekend.
And when I checked again on Saturday night only did I realize that I had to turn my clock 1 hour backwards on Sunday 3.00 am to 2.00 am.
It suddenly appeared to me that winter is really coming. The sun used to set about 630pm last week. This week it’s 530pm.
The cloudy and rainy weather didn’t help either.
When I was here in December last year, the sun rose at 8.30am and set at 4.30pm.
Now, I really feel winter is coming real soon…
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