Hilarity in names #11

This is no. 11 in a series of posts that is about funny names or clever business signs. From time to time during our travels, we come across names in the English language that makes us smile.

You can find the other posts in this series by the tag “names”, see for example #1, and #10.

I tried to note down where we saw the shop or sign.

Rich & Royal, Kiev

Loved, Hong Kong

Hotel Million, Albertville

The Boil, New York

SHOP, can’t remember where we saw this

Madness, Beijing

Funk you, Berlin

Due to the lack of travel opportunities in 2020, the selection is limited and admittedly not as crazy as the earlier ones in this series. Check out Hilarity in names #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, and #6.

Page One Bookstore 叶一堂, Beijing

This is the second post on two very different bookstores in Beijing which I(Chris) visited before the pandemic.

Page One is a bookstore chain and publisher founded in Singapore in 1983 by Mark Tan (陈家强), with locations in Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Malaysia, and Thailand, and in China (early 2010’s).

This Page One bookstore in Beijing was located in the historically commercial area of Qianmen 前門 (Zhengyangmen (正阳门) and Dashilan 大栅栏, just south of Tiananmen Square.  It is now a very touristy area filled with people, souvenir stores and chain restaurants – all housed in faked old Chinese buildings.

The bookstore is situated on a side street, away from the horde. The interior cannot be more different from the chaos on the street. It is a quieter, dimly-lit, cavernous space filled with books wall to wall.

Unlike typical bookstores, it did not feel claustrophobic despite the number of volumes on display.  The minimalist approach to decoration helped to maintain a calm, almost contemplative ambiance.

The overall brightness in-store was dark but the merchandises were all adequately lit and highlighted, inviting one to browse.

Like all modern bookstores, they sell toys and dolls. I guess that is one way to lure kids into a bookstore.

On each floor, several architecturally-attractive substructures were erected to create a small area separate from the main floor.

.Some of the spaces are isolating and intimate, allowing the shopper some private time with their books.

Some are display platforms while another is for enjoying a coffee.

The cafe was operated by Kyoto Ogawa Coffee, names of the origins of the beans were in English.

The upper floors resemble a more traditional bookstore with a wood-color tone on one floor, except there were books displayed in the ceiling. Interesting but not practical for consumers.

The surprise for any first-time visitor is the dramatically-framed view of the south-facing facade of Archery Tower 箭楼, one of several buildings that constitute Qiamen 前門 or Zhengyangmen 正阳门 which once guarded the southern entry into the Imperial inner City

The Archery Tower is positioned on the central north-south axis of Beijing aligned with the Mausoleum of Mao Zedong and the Monument to the People’s Heroes in Tiananmen Square, the Tiananmen Gate itself, and the imperial throne in the Hall of Supreme Harmony in the Forbidden City, the city’s Drum and Bell Towers and the entrance to the Olympic Green in the far north.

Another floor of the bookstore concentrating on the arts and literature has a plain white theme.

Photography section

Page One began as a small shop stocking handpicked art and design books in Singapore, accumulated a loyal following over the years and evolved into a brand.  We believe there are other Page One bookstores in Beijing, in Guomao – the China World Trade Center 中国国际贸易中心 and in Sanlitun 三里屯. 

However, the shops outside China have been closed in Singapore in 2011, Taiwan in 2015 and Hong Kong in November 2016. We can imagine the competition Page One was facing with Taiwan’s Eslite Bookstore in the same markets. See our post on Eslite Spectrum in Hong Kong. 

We cannot see the Taiwanese Eslite opening a bookstore in China, let alone in Beijing. Page One is safe for now but it had to subject itself to self-censorship – books that criticize the Chinese communist party were not stocked.

This post is written in 2021, we are not sure if this bookstore in Beijing is still operating after the pandemic. I am quite sure the Wangfujing Bookstore (featured in an earlier post) is still around.

If you have not read our earlier post on the other Beijing bookstore, click here.  What a contrast !

Wangfujing Bookstore 王府井书店, Beijing

The following two posts are about two very different bookstores in Beijing, both visited before the pandemic.

The first is Wanfujing Bookstore, situated at the beginning of Wangfujing Dajie (王府井大街), in Dongcheng district 東城區 of central Beijing.

I (Chris) was on a business trip and I dragged a very patient colleague along to this bookstore.  I hope you also enjoy this indulgence of mine.

Let’s start with some music made by guzheng 古箏, an instrument sold in this store.

The bookstore is one of the city’s biggest and most comprehensive bookstores, occupying an entire building.

Five above-ground floors are dedicated to books and cultural products. The entrance featured a counter for stamp collectors and a table of books on Xi Jinping thoughts and communist party teachings.

Floor 1 sells books on social science and philosophy; politics, law, and history; business and management; finance and securities; travel and geography –  “一层经营：社科哲学、政法历史、经济管理、财政金融、旅游地理”.

A more literal translation of the sign below says “test preparation books for lawyers”.

A selection of biographies of famous world leaders -e.g.,  Obama, Hilary, Macron, Angela, Thatcher, Justin, Lee Kuan Yew 李光耀, Moon Jae-In 文在寅 and Gandhi.

Floor 2: foreign languages, primary and secondary education text books – “二层经营：外语、初等教育、中等教育、汉语、教理科普”  Floor 3:  children’s books – “三层经营：少儿读物”

Chinese classics (e.g., 吶喊) and translated classics (e.g., Little Prince, Vingt mille lieues sous les mers (20,000 leagues under the seas).

My favorite is Floor 4: chinese and foreign literature, arts and pictorials, music and theatre; imported originals –  “四层经营：中国文学、外国文学、美术画册、音乐戏剧、进口原版”

I cannot resist snapping a picture of this section on floor 4 with books on aesthetics – “assthetic”.

According to the bookstore’s web page, the bookstore played a big role in educating Beijing’s citizens about the spirit of Olympics movement, in preparation for the 2008 Summer Games.  Many hilarious or embarrassing translation gaffes and mistakes were corrected or removed during this time.  This is a new one but a lot less obvious.

Calligraphy brushes, and volumes of famous calligraphic works and stone inscription rubbings.

The floors of the bookstore that stocked cultural products other than books reminded me of a Chinese government-owned department store (Yue Wah 裕華國貨) near where I lived in Hong Kong.

Western art supplies

There is a separate gallery for scrolls and paintings.  This floor also sells small electronics and music.

First time I saw so many guzheng on sale. Hope you tried the Spotify link above.

Floor 5:  medical and biology; living and health- “五层经营：医学生物、生活保健”

Drinking tea is good for your health.

There are several shelves full of books on Kungfu (or more literally Wuxia) – this section focusing on Wing Chun style. The selection here must be the richest and unique in the world.

The top floor provides a multi-functional space cultural exchange activities, such as lectures. The bookstore was founded on the same year that Peoples’ Republic of China was established – February 10, 1949. I think it is owned or at least supported by the government.

I do not remember what this model was for.

Superior fine books are displayed behind glass (English translation says “recommended books” which is not accurate).

It moved to the current address in 1950, expanded and renovated in 1970 and 2000. In 1994, Wangfujin Dajie was designated as a commercial street and the whole area was rebuilt with modern shops while many streets are pedestrianized.

The basement floor has a food court that was closed.

I bought several books on art and travel within China. Really wished I had more time.

 

Mariage Frères, London

This visit to London was made in December 2018. The post has been sitting around for a while. We hope the store survives the pandemic with enough local customers while the tourists who frequent Covent Garden are gone.

It was a long weekend. On our last day in London, we booked a place for brunch near Covent Garden. We were early and wandered around the area to discover a Mariage Frères shop.

The shop is very comfortably decorated with a cake counter upon entry, followed by a gallery which leads into a very airy salesroom.

This branch looks like the other shops in France, except it has a skylight which brings sunlight into the dark wood tea counter and wall of tea containers.

The shop has a tea house on the second floor but it was closed at that time. The tables at the tea house are lined up along the balcony which offer a view of the sales floor below.

According to Wikipedia, around 1660, Nicolas and Pierre Mariage began voyaging to the East on behalf of the French royal court. Successive generations of the Mariage family were in the tea trade and la maison was founded on 1 June 1854 by brothers Henri and Edouard Mariage.

It is France’s oldest importer of tea and in 1983 the company transformed itself from a wholesale import firm into a retail company.

The last owner descended from the founding family was Marthe Cottin. Born in 1901, she headed Mariage Frères until 1983. The year before, she found a Dutchman Richard Bueno and a Thai man Kitti Cha Sangmanee to carry on the legacy of Mariage Frères.

Competition in a tea-drinking country like the UK must be fierce. We saw but did not visit the huge TWG store near Leicester Square. TWG is established in Singapore just 10 years ago and has 70 branches, mostly in Asia.

Old-fashioned but effective. We did not see anyone using the scale but we suspect it is used for loose tea leaves.

The company has developed some 250+ tea blends based on tea from around the globe.

With so many varieties to try, it was hard to resist .. we managed by reminding ourselves that we have not finished some of their teas back home.

There is no Mariage Frères shop in Lausanne where we live, but we have a Kusmi store, a rival Parisian tea seller originally from Russia.

The tea house offerings look attractive but we already made plans for brunch. Well, next time.

Maison Assouline, London

Another post on bookstores.

Assouline is a publisher of books that serve as luxury lifestyle accessories. They are based in New York but the flagship store is in London, opened in 2014.  We were in London during Christmas 2018.

The store is situated between two other book-lovers destinations – Hatchards and Waterstones – mainstream bookstores. I made a post on Waterstones before – click here.  The Maison announces its presence on Piccadily in a large sans serif font. While the signage is modern, the interiors of the store is not.

The Maison Assouline did not feel like a bookstore at all with its high ceilings and wood-paneled walls. I do not remember seeing any window that looks out to Piccadilly. A passerby will have no idea what is behind the door.

The heavy walls and doors effectively blocked out the traffic noise, transporting the shop to a seemingly less busy locale.

The store felt like a library at first until one sees the nice bar (Swans Bar) which also serves coffee.

The subject matters of the books are fairly homogeneous – images of luxurious travels, designer clothes, jewelry, and various kinds of objects of desire. They created this company to be the first luxury brand on culture. They wanted to supply everything for a contemporary library for the well-healed.

The publisher has a rather small catalog. I see multiple books about Dior and Chanel.  Yawn … .

They don’t waste shelf space to sell books by other publishers – so it seems.

Opened for browsing are copies of “The Impossible Collection of Design” and “The Impossible Collection of Art”.  It is certainly impossibly heavy and beautifully presented. Quintessential coffee table tome.

I wonder what is the average word count per page of the books published by Assouline.

Assouline claims that their boutiques are “where one can discover a world of good taste, excitement and intellect, a place where “culture can be acquired” within a luxurious environment.” They are pretentious and honest about their intention.

We have observed a growing trend in many bookstores around the world – many other lifestyle items are often sold next to books. In Maison Assouline, I think the ratio of books to other items is skewed more towards the soaps, scented candles, furniture, etc.

Given the small number of books and their prices, one has to wonder which is the profit driver – the accoutrements of a good life or the books (they are not mutually exclusive as some books can fill that role).

We did not see the rest of the shop but there are two more floors of luxuries, including not only rare books, but also service –  library interior design with bespoke furniture.

Contrast this store’s concept of exclusivity against the commonality of Amazon Books in Walnut Creek – click here to see that post.

 

 

 

 

Amazon Books, Walnut Creek

We have posted on this blog many pictures of bookstores, and lamented the fact that brick-and-mortar bookstores are becoming rare and possibly extinct in certain cities. In the US, this trend is driven largely by the advent of e-books sold online. Amazon started their global online business with this retail concept.

By chance, we came across an Amazon bookstore in California, in Walnut Creek, a suburb of San Francisco. It has a store front and live employees inside.

It looks like a normal bookstore but with far fewer books on display. They display multiple copiess of a select few books on the shelf. The front covers are displayed rather than the spine.

Let’s take a look around. The books are displayed according to the subject and its popularity by some measure.

There were 3 full shelves of cookbooks compared to one shelf of Art & Design or Computers & Coding.

Surprisingly, they have a small section for Dungeon and Dragon tabletop games as well as graphic novels.

We suspect what was on display was determined by analytics of the local customers. Just showing what your neighbors are reading. This is Amazon where data drives everything. By the way, we visited the store in 2019, so the best sellers shown here are out of date.

The review written by Amazon customers are reproduced along with star ratings and the number of reviews to convince you to buy – similar to the online experience.

Did you know that even the highlights you made in a Kindle could be used by Amazon to sell books ? They are monetizing your attention and recollection. Instead of having a knowledgeable employee in store, they are leveraging Kindle readers. Amazon is the only company that have access to such unique data.

The store also sells their Amazon-branded products, particularly electronic goods, like tablets and smart home gadgets.

The store also sell other products that are popular on Amazon, e.g., travel essentials.

Yes, they have a coffee shop inside as well.

The store has a cashier, presumably accepting cash for payment.

This is clearly an experiment on the future of retailing: how to extract synergy from a brick-and-mortar store format when it owns the biggest online store in the world. Amazon is not hesitating to disrupt itself for the future.

Morabit Marbre Fossils, Erfoud

Our first detour after we left our Merzouga desert camp on our cross-country drive was a fossil factory or rock shop – Morabit Marbre Fossils, at Erfoud – the fossil capital of Morocco.

During the Devonian period, the Paleozoic Era, from about 450 million years ago, this area of the Sahara was the floor of a large prehistoric ocean. It is now prime digging grounds for fossil hunters. We stopped by a fossil field the day before when were exploring the area. See earlier post here.

The most common fossils here are trilobites. Trilobite fossils are found worldwide, with many thousands of known species.

Shown above are ammonites which were molluscs (like squid, octopus) but they had a hard coiled tubular shell as well as a soft body. In its shell, there was a series of progressively larger chambers that are divided by thin walls. Apparently, only the last and largest chamber, the body chamber, was occupied by the living animal at any given moment. As it grew, it added newer and larger chambers to the open end of the coil. The ammonites first appeared in the Devonian period (circa 409 million years ago) and became virtually extinct at the close of the Cretaceous period (circa 66 million years ago) along with the dinosaurs.

We bought one which had been sliced open into two halves and were polished.

I found a rock with numerous ammonites on a digging site from a day earlier. See earlier post here.

This workshop/shop has a courtyard full of large sheets of rocks in which are embedded the fossilized organisms.

Photographs show workers breaking up huge pieces of marble/rocks by pneumatic drilling, and hauling the big pieces back to the workshop where sheets of rocks were carefully sliced off like white bread.  Some of the sheets are about about 10 cm thick.

They are made into ornamental displays, or practical things like tabletops, fountain and bathroom pieces.

In addition to the regular patterns of marble, the slabs of marble on offer here contain fragments of fossils scattered in it.

Apparently, it is rare to find fossils in perfect condition so the miners take their finds to fossil “factory” to have them restored. The composition and placement of the fossils on these slabs (see photo below) looked a bit too perfect to me. Perhaps the fossil themselves are genuine but they were assembled and fixed in a new background.

It must be worrisome for shoppers to hear that fossil replicas can be made from plaster, plastic or even auto-body putty. Not knowing what the real deal looks like, it can be hard to distinguish them.

The shop also offers a huge selection of rocks and minerals. Some are in their natural form.

We were the only customers in this showroom. But during peak season, there must be busload of tourists descending on this emporium.

 

 

 

Songyan cultural and creative park 松山文創園區, Taipei

We spent a few hours before sundown in the Songyan cultural and creative park 松山文創園區 in Taipei. A and F joined us.

Starting our walk from the brand new Eslite Hotel right next to the Park, there was such a contrast of the new and old. Loved the hotel lobby which is designed to resemble a spacious modern library with books lining the walls and high ceiling.

The Park was based on the “Taiwan Sōtokufu Tobacco Monopoly Bureau” created during the Japanese colonial period. It was the first modernized tobacco factory in Taiwan.

After some restoration, it was taken over by the Taiwan Monopoly Bureau and renamed the “Taiwanese Provincial Tobacco and Alcohol Monopoly Bureau Songshan Plant”.

In 2001, it was appointed by the Taipei City Government as the No. 99 cultural heritage site of the city and renamed the “Songshan Cultural and Creative Park”. In 2011, it is officially opened to the public and has been transformed into a creative hub of Taiwan.

According to its website, the architectural style of the buildings belongs to the genre of “Japanese Early Modernism”, with emphasis placed on horizontal lines, simple classic shapes, and refined workmanship. The boiler room, mechanical maintenance factory, and tobacco Factory were completed in 1939, and began producing rolled tobaccos with 1200 workers.

Apparently, the Park was not designed with a commercial focus, but rather, its mission is to kindle creativity and innovation, and to be in synch with interdisciplinary development. 

We wandered into the complex and entered a number of shops that sells crafts and designed items.

Johannes Vermeer’s masterpiece reproduced by swatch tapes

Cafe and exhibition areas

Artifacts from the past. Cigarette packs and container wrappers.

Bright colored office equipment of yesteryears.

The concept of an “industrial village” was employed. Besides the production line, the benefits and needs of the plant’s employees were also taken into consideration.

With its large open spaces and courtyards, the site was a pioneering design for industrial plants at that time.

There are a number of statues in this courtyard. We are not keen on the rather tortured pose of this statue.

Nice fountain with more statues

A penguin amongst tropical flora ?

We were too late for the Taiwan Design Museum. The tropical vegetation is a nice contrast to the cool modern designs housed in the old building.

Tobacco storage barn now used as massive exhibition spaces.

Overlooking the park is the new 16-storey Eslite Hotel where we started, it looked stunning at dusk. The lights on the facade form several horizontal lines that appear to converge on the top left corner of the building. Sparkling, dynamic architecture.

Need more time here.

Hilarity in names #10

This is no. 10 in a series of posts that is about funny business names or signs that we captured on film. From time to time during our travels, we come across English name or signage that makes us smile.

Check out Hilarity in names #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7, #8, and #9.

Like Shoes in Amman, Jordan

Mall in Beijing

Uniqlo on Ginza, Tokyo, 4F – Womens Clean ?

And on 5F – Womens Bottoms

On the same street in Kiev, Ukraine – two eateries named after famous people …

Quentin’s

Haruki’s

“,” in ladies fashion

“super superficial” – we saw this in London, no idea what they do

Hope you smiled too, more to come …

Hilarity in names #9

We have not posted on this theme for quite a while.

Well, here is no. 9 in a series of posts that is about funny business names or signs that we saw. From time to time during our travels, we came across English names that makes us laugh. This post will focus on English language signs we saw in the United Kingdom that are cute or humorous.

Check out Hilarity in names #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7 and #8.

Fatface

King of Bling

Relatively Painless (sorry, it is a bit out of focus)

art pistol

Seriously Fishy

Procaffeination

Murphy’s Law

AI Pets –  you mean smart robots ?

Pastel restaurant

Criminal – Made with Conviction

Fleshmarket Close – an alley in Edinburgh’s old town, not a shop

There are more to come …

Amman, Jordan

I(Chris) had a business meeting at the Dead Sea Resorts area of Jordan. See previous posts.

Amman is the capital of Jordan and is considered to be among the most liberal and westernized Arab cities. It has one of the tallest flag pole in the world. Jordan is a monarchy, having gained its independence in 1946.

Amman is among the most popular locations in the Arab world for multinational corporations to set up their regional offices, alongside Doha and only behind Dubai. When the location of our business meeting was first announced, many of my colleagues were worried about safety. At this time and for quite a long while, there was nothing to worry about really.

Areas of Amman have gained their names from either the hills (Jabal) or the valleys (Wadi).There are approx. 4 million people and it is located in north-central part of the country. Residential buildings are limited to four stories above street level and if possible another four stories below. The buildings are covered with thick white limestone or sandstone.

We spent most of our time at the Amman citadel – Jabal al-Qal’a, (جبل القلعة) – located in the center.

It is probably one of the world’s oldest continuously inhabited places, having been occupied by many great civilizations. Most of the buildings still visible at the site are from the Roman, Byzantine, and Umayyad periods.

From the top, a Roman Theatre built around 100 AD is visible, nested among residential buildings.

Parts of the Temple of Hercules are still standing.

Hand of Hercules. The full status must have been enormous.

While walking about in the citadel, a giant military propeller cargo plane (C-130?) flew above us – reminding us that Jordan is in the middle east.

After the citadel, we had a chance to stroll in the old city, checked out the market and bought some spices.

We walked through a mostly fruits-and-vegetables section of the market.

Fresh almonds, never seen them before until then, they tasted nothing like the dried almonds we eat.

Spice shops. An amazing range of products.

I am so curious as to how they all taste.

And these products are all so inexpensive, except we do not know what they are …  too bad we did not have more time to investigate.

25 Bookstores and counting …

We love bookstores and Chris has been posting our visits on the blog. So far we have 25 bookstores from around the world from Moscow to Tokyo. Click the link to see the posts.

Moscow, House of Books

Tokyo, T-site

As much as Amazon is a threat especially to many small bookstores in the US, the bookstores (at least the major ones) have not disappeared outside the US. Thank God.

From the oldest in the world in Lisbon to a super modern store in Sao Paulo – both selling mostly portugese books …

Lisbon, Livraria Bertrand

Sao Paulo, Livraria Cultura at Iguatemi mall

From MIT which publishes academic books on advanced technologies to the Parisian publisher who puts out reprints of early 20th century original (translated) work by Einstein and many other physicists and mathematicians …

Boston, MIT Press

Paris, Edition Jacques Gabay

We will keep this series up.

Hope you find these posts interesting. To find our other posts on bookstores,  just click on books in the Categories on the sidebar of any one of these posts.

Breakthrough Book Gallery 突破書廊, Hong Kong

When I(Chris) was in Hong Kong during Easter, I came across this bookstore.

Breakthrough (突破) was a magazine that was published between 1973 and 1999. When I was in secondary school in Hong Kong, I was a school librarian and flipped through it. The history of the magazine, the social movement and its activities are described here.

Breakthrough is a non-profit, non-governmental organization dedicated to the education and development of youth culture with a christian viewpoint.

As you enter, you are greeted by this sign which says “re-experiencing the temperature of paper books”.

The organization’s mission is to develop, via media and interpersonal relationship, the city’s youth so that they become leaders of the 21st century.

They are a publisher of chinese language books.

The Book Gallery located near Jordan is one of three bookstores run by the organization.

These are key rings made with resin which resembles the signs used by old Hong Kong taxi and minibus (I think), particularly the font and colors.

Can be custom made with your phrase.

There is a coffee bar with barista service.

They also stocked a small collection of card games and board games, some of them translated from English or German.

The gallery like most shops in Hong Kong is small but it felt open and comfortable. A nice place to rest your feet and browse.

It is rare in Hong Kong to find an establishment like Breakthrough that is doing something meaningful and not entirely commercial.

Eldorado Bokhandel, Oslo

Before we leave Oslo, we have an addition to our bookstore of the world series …

Eldorado Bokhandel is the largest independent bookstore in Scandinavia offering 4,000 square metres of books, culture and music. It is located at Torggata 9A.

The bookstore opened in 2013. The facade is fairly non-descript, narrow and does not reveal much about the store. We almost walked past it.

Eldorado has Norway’s largest departments for children’s books, audio books and classical music, as well as a coffee shop, a back yard restaurant (we did not see as it was winter) and four levels (we did not count).

It had a large collection of classical music by Naxos.

In fact, the layout is a bit confusing as it has several levels and the rooms are not rectangular.

A ramp with ducks in the background.

The atrium space with armchairs were very welcoming.

They have a fair number of English books and it was a very up-to-date selection.

and it included Norwegian literature

In English, a reason to buy books !

… a small theatre with comfy chairs

Drawings of people from around the world on the walls above bookshelves of travel books

.

… a throne from fantasy books ?

Evolution of the Penguin books logo  … cannot remember the context of this poster, maybe it is just a poster for sale.

They were closing at 6 … never figured out what the tall man is about.

Quite a bookstore befitting the name Eldorado.

Cube Houses and Markthal, Rotterdam

Cube Houses (Kubuswoningen) are a set of residential houses designed by architect Piet Blom and based on the concept of “living as an urban roof”, i.e., high density housing with sufficient space on the ground level. It is built in the late 70’s over Overblaak Street between Blaak and Oude Haven.

Blom tilted the cube of a conventional house 45 degrees, and rested it upon a hexagon-shaped pylon. The walls and windows are angled at 54.7 degrees. The total area of the apartment is around 100 square metres (1,100 sq ft), but around a quarter of the space is unusable because of the walls that are under the angled ceilings.

His design represents a village within a city, where each house represents a tree.

The cubes share a common area with no traffic which presents a nice atmosphere of a community. They reminded me of the heads of giant anime robots – mecha – think Gundam, for example.

There are 38 cubes and two large cubes, all attached to each other. There is a museum of chess pieces in one of the 38 cubes and a hostel in one of the larger cubes.

An apartment is opened as a museum –  Kijk-Kubus  – but it was too crowded and I did not bother to get inside.

Just across the square from the Cube Houses is Marthal. On 19 November 2009 work began on Marthal – the first covered market in the Netherlands. It was officially opened in 2014.

Its design is unique in that apartments are draped over the daily market in a horseshoe shape. It is spectacular given the scale of the whole structure.

The main hall houses the market itself, shops and restaurants, a supermarket and a 4-storey car park underground. It was a very popular location for locals and tourists alike.

There is a Chinese grocery store – Wah Nam Hong – which has a “restaurant”. The store is well stocked but the menu is however very limited. I tried but would not recommend it. If you want Asian food, the all-you-can-eat sushi chain restaurant is much more attractive and extremely popular.

The artist Arno Coenen created the Horn of Plenty, the biggest work of art in the world. Its bright colours cover an area of ​​11,000 m2.

While I was there, the weather was quite miserable – wet and cold. This marketplace is the perfect antidote to the grayness outside and to fill up with foods from the world.

One stop shopping for all of one’s culinary needs.

Wish there is one in Switzerland.

Rotterdam is a fun city.

Margreeth Olsthoorn on Schiedamsedijk, Rotterdam

Witte de Withstraat (click here and here to see earlier posts) – probably the coolest street in Rotterdam, starts actually as Schiedamsedijk from the east near the Maritime Museum.

Margreeth Olsthoorn – a designer fashion store has a prime location here. I have never heard of this name before.

It is located on the corner of Schiedamsedijk and Westersingel.

This store likes to spread its fashion beliefs and philosophies on its awnings. It also like to put the designers’ names on its windows in “The Matrix”‘s style and on the pavement in front. These statements in English probably sound less pretentious to local Dutch ears.

“Fashion is a language”

“The difference between style and fashion is quality” …

… Maison Margiela

“Elegance doesn’t mean being noticed, it means being remembered”

“Fashion is architecture: It is a matter of proportions”

“Style is primarily a matter of instinct”

“I wear lots and lots of sunscreen”- I doubt if this piece about wearing something is made by the store but it stands right next to the store. See the tiny plaque at the bottom ? Behind this piece is a gallery NL=USart. Parody ?

I noticed that in Rotterdam, English quotes are very popular so much so that many of them, literally writings on the wall, are used as decoration on buildings.

Here is an example: ” in the future everyone will be famous for 15 minutes” by Andy Warhol on Witte de Withstraat.  May be it is a Dutch thing which could also explain the “fashion statements” I showed above.

At the other end of Witte de Withstraat just before the road continues into Museumpark stood this artwork on top of a building of the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen.

“Breathe Walk Die” by Ugo Rondinone

As it has been said in earlier posts including this one here, the whole area is worth a lot of exploring.

Witte de Withstraat and Museumpark, Rotterdam – part 1

I(Chris) spent a day in Rotterdam after a meeting in The Hague, which is only a short train ride away.

Rotterdam is actively marketing itself as a popular destination for international visitors, an alternative to Amsterdam. It was built around the river Rotte in 1270 and grew rapidly over the centuries but in 1940, during World War II, the entire city center was destroyed by bombs.

The city was rebuilt, opting to break from the past, and commits itself to contemporary architecture.

Witte de Withstraat is a street which connects the Maritime Museum (just visible in the photo below) with the Museumpark.

It is the cultural center of the city which is full of restaurants, bars, museums and interesting shops.

“Work hard, play here” at the Metropole Cafe

I was there in the afternoon so that the seating areas of the bars and restaurants were somewhat empty.

But one can imagine that the place must be really fun at night.

The street is the scene.

Somebody proposed to Sam with this graphics ? Cool.

And there is of course a Dutch “coffeeshop” nearby, this one with subway-style turnstiles ! (not clearly visible in the photo) and a sauna/massage salon next door.

These establishments are facing an open park, so it is not at all sleazy as it may sound.

This sculpture of Sylvette by Picasso marks the beginning of the Museumpark.

See part 2 for the next segment of this thoroughfare.

 

 

 

 

Donner Books, Rotterdam

Another bookstore … this time in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. This one barely survived.

Donner is located on Coolsingel, in a former bank building, all public areas on one floor. This bookstore and the pride of Rotterdam was swallowed up by a big chain store that unfortunately went bankrupt in 2014.

The Top 10 fictions and non-fictions.

Owing to a successful crowdfunding campaign that raised 250.000 euros, Donner was able to relocate to its current location.  It’s again a proudly independent and well stocked bookshop.

The number one fiction – “The Best Thing We Have” by Griet Op de Beeck.

A nice collection of Lovecraft stories.

Cookbook section

Calendars for 2018.

Like most bookstores these days, they sell a whole lot of other non-printed merchandise, such as collectible objects.

There was an event which just finished. A line of people was waiting for refreshments and perhaps a selfie with the speaker or an autographed book.

 

Old books – several aisles of them.

High-end lifestyle magazines. They look like coffee table photo books without a real topic (except Nez which is a serious perfume magazine), and costs the same or more.

There is something about this bookstore, possibly its slight messiness in full view which made me felt like I was in a public library.

Hope this one survives.

Oldest bookstore in the World – Livraria Bertrand, Lisbon

Continuing with my tour of the world’s bookstores … Livraria Bertrand at Rua Garrett 73 in Lisbon is the oldest and largest bookstore chain in Portugal.

Since it was launched in 1732, the Bertrand Bookstore stayed open, and has thus entered the Guinness Book of World Records as the oldest bookstore in the world still in operation. The business survived earthquakes, revolutions and the recent economic crisis.

The bookstore was founded by a Frenchman in the area of the current store – Baixa. Pierre Bertrand joined the store in 1744.

The earthquake of 1755 destroyed the original store but it returned in 1773 to Rua Garreta where it still operates today.

Later in the twentieth century, the company evolved, changed owners several times. In 1912, ownership of the “Livraria Bertrand” was with the firm ‘Aillaud Bastos & Alves’ editors in Paris, Lisbon and Rio de Janeiro. In 1938, it opened the first bookstore in Porto and, from 1939, Livraria Bertrand had its own printing press.

When I arrived, it was still opened. The closing time is 10:00pm – rare for a bookstore in Europe.

The top 10 fictions and non-fictions – the No. 1 fiction is Dan Brown’s Origin – sans surprise. Very few English books.

Nobel laureate José Saramago’s books are prominently featured (inside and in the window display) as were those by the poet Fernando Pessoa.

The bookstore is all on one floor.

The Bertrand Group owns 53 bookstores in Portugal, a book club, and eight smaller publishers. The company was a subsidiary of giant German media corporation Bertelsmann until 2010, when Bertelsmann sold Bertrand to Porto Editora, Portugal’s biggest publishing house. “Bookstore Bertrand” is thus the name of a network of bookstores across the country.

Law Books

Although the brick-and-mortar bookstore is under threat, Bertrand has managed so far and built an online presence. I read that many Portuguese language books that publishers send overseas are delivered to Africa and nearly half are ordered by customers in Angola.

We saw some big beautiful bookstores in Sao Paulo, Brazil, click here, here and here. You would have thought that they do well in South America, but Bertrand is not there. Apparently, Portugal and its former colonies do not have a standardized literary language (although they speak the same language) which could be used simultaneously in Europe, Africa, and South America. As a result, the works of Portuguese novelists must be “translated” into the Brazilian version of literary Portuguese before they can be marketed in Brazil.

The bookstore has a cafe – Cafe Bertrand with the catchphrase “Taste our books”. It also has its own entrance.

The room is named after the poet Fernando Pessoa who frequented this place with many Portuguese literary luminaries over the years. Notice the typewriter sitting above the wine refrigerator? Just in case if someone is in a creative mood ?

It also has a cute character-based logo in the shape of a cup and saucer.

Keeping the good bookstore tradition alive.

LX Factory, Lisbon, Portugal

Just before catching my mid-afternoon flight home from Lisbon, I (Chris) had a walk through this place and a quick bite with a bunch of new friends (J, K, L, R & S). It was a really fun two hours.

I took most of the text posted here from its web site, click here to visit.

“It’s in the year 1846 that a threads and fabrics Company called “Companhia de Fiação e Tecidos Lisbonense”, one of the most important manufacturing complex in Lisbon’s history, sets in Alcântara. This 23.000 m2 industrial site was, subsequently, occupied by a set of industrial use related companies.”

It was Sunday and the place was packed with rural farmers selling fruits and vegetables.

Artists and craftsman selling their work.

A giant fly on the wall of a hostel within the grounds.

Not Rio, it’s Lisbon.

Plenty of street art.

A mural that stretches across one side of a large warehouse.

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“An urban fragment, kept hidden for years, is now returned to the city in the form of LXFactory. A creative island occupied by corporations and professionals of the industry serves also has stage for a diverse set of happenings related to fashion, publicity, communication, fine arts, architecture, music, etc., attracting numerous visitors to rediscover Alcântara through an engaged dynamics.”

Among the shops, eateries and offices, a company installed two escape rooms – “LX Escape – Burlesque Edition” – click to see the backstory of the escape rooms here. We wanted to do it but decided to have lunch first. But then I had to leave … and later my friends decided to see Fado with dinner instead. Well, it means the escape rooms are waiting for me to return.

There are quite a few buildings on the site and I did not have the time to walk through them.

I wonder what’s the story behind these images …

It must remind people of Covent Garden or Camden Lock in London. See also our posts on similar ideas of retail/art projects: Common Ground in Seoul and PMQ in Hong Kong.

Great project. It works. Every city needs at least one of these.