Copenhagen: Vibrant and Eco-friendly with a twist

I had promised to write about Copenhagen months ago since our visit took place in November 2009.

The city is a worthwhile for visit though I would not recommend winter if one is in need of sunshine. The city was very much awake during the weekend we visited as it would host the Climate Change Conference in a couple of days.

Copenhagen is a vibrant, family and eco-friendly place that has a twist of design, ecology and an element of Nordic coarseness.



Here’s a round-up of the city in 48 hours:

What to do?
• Design walk: (Inspired by Lonely Planet Guide) Dansk Design Centre, Radisson SAS- for the famous Egg Chair, Georg Jensen Store, Royal Copenhagen Porcelain, Illum.

• Walks by the canal

• Little Mermaid

• The Latin quarter

• Pre-Christmas Fun: Tivoli Fair. Rollercoasters, Reindeers, Gluhwein, Sweets and Choclates. Lots of them...

Hotel: Hotel Gulsmeden/ Carlton @ 66 Vesterbrogade

Hotel Gulsmaden are chains there are about 4 hotels in Denmark and one in Bali, Indonesia too.Alot of the furniture and the inspiration for the designs are obviously taken from this region. The website is very good and picturesque however the hotel is not exactly what the pictures cut it out too be. Very good try though.

http://www.hotelguldsmeden.com/home/

Eat eat eat:

• Teatime: Conditori La Glace

http://www.laglace.dk/

• Cafe: Cafe Retro a non-profit bohemian cafe close to the canals where you go and pick up your own tea and coffee and share tables/couches with the locals. The profit is donated to projects in India and Africa.

http://www.cafe-retro.dk/index.php?id=304

• For dinner: Spiesellaupen in Christiana. This is a very arty restaurant - literally its like you're having dinner in the middle of a gallery located in an unexpected factory building. Recommended to us by the strangers we met at Cafe Retro above!

http://www.spiseloppen.dk/

• Late night snacks: Vagabondo’s – open till early hours of the morning! Located at Vesterbrogade Copenhagen’s answer to Soho, this bustling area is pretty much the only quarter where there is action 24 hrs of the day.

• For Lunch: CapHorn just Nyhavn docks for some traditional delicacies and seafood.

http://www.caphorn.dk/

Vogue Turkey

I try not to write about work on a personal blog. Nonetheless yesterday was a special day and hence this writing is an exception.

Today, Vogue Turkey is launched.

Yesterday the first 1000 prints were sold for collection. It was a very proud event for all of us at Dogus Media...A wholehearted round of congratulations to the Vogue team.

Picture attributes to ntvmsnbc.com by Simla Yerlikaya.

Vogue Turkey website: http://www.voguemag.com.tr/

More about the launch: http://www.ntvmsnbc.com/id/25060709/

Calypso- Missoni Rugs

I was refraining from putting objects of desire on the blog, but these cannot be avoided ...Like brushstokes of colour splashing to your living rooms, bedrooms, dining rooms... enjoy!

Desert Storm – Dubai

Well, its stranded in the middle of the desert, literally.


I read comments about Dubai being called a “ mirage” apparently it kinda is one.

My Dubai consisted of  business, a Hummer through the sand and a snapsot of the highlights, oh and a mini desert storm.

Dubai in a whirlwind of 48 hours:

1. Burj el Arab and the Jumeirah region:

This is the area where the Emirates-locals and the Royal family lives. Regarding the Burj, conspiracy theory says that the architecture is shaped like a sail if you approach it from the front, and like a cross if you approach it from the sea.

2. Burj Khalifa:

Ok, this building tops any of the skyscrapers I have ever seen. Its menkind at its limits. 824 metres and an observatory at 124th floor... But just one question, who cleans the windows?

3. Hotels and Dining:

One and only Royal Mirage hotel could be interesting for an evening dinner. Its just off the beach and serene setting. But you’re spoilt for choices for hotels in this city anyhow (Sheraton, Radisson, Westin, The Palm, Atlantis etc etc...). Ours was the Media One Hotel- just in the heart of the Media City quarter.Reasonable for a business trip.

The Meat Co at the Dubai Mall is a great for dining as well. They even to personalized knives for the regulars !

4. Shopping:

a. The Dubai Mall and the Mall of the Emirates: With over 470+shops in Mall of the Emirates and a huge diversity including Dean&Deluca to Chanel, choices for shopping are endless.

b. Then there is the Global Village, the JBR and the Dubai Marina as well.



Here’s a quotation from the Guardian, thanks to a recommendation by my friend Geoff,enjoy!

“When I first read about all this stuff, I felt a bit uneasy. None of it sounded real or even vaguely sustainable. I'd been to Las Vegas a few times and seen crazy developments come and go. The first time I visited, the hot new attractions were the Luxor, an immense onyx pyramid, and Treasure Island, a pirate fantasy world replete with lifesize galleons bobbing outside it. Roughly halfway between the pair of them, a replica New York was under construction. By my next visit, the novelty value of both the Luxor and Treasure Island had long since palled, and they now seemed less exotic than Chessington World of Adventures. Meanwhile, unreal New York had been joined by unreal Paris and unreal Venice.

But even at their most huge and demented, none of these insane monuments looked as huge and demented as the projects being announced in Dubai. Yet the novelties, while larger, were wearing thin even more quickly. Dubai's The World archipelago hadn't even opened when the same developers announced The Universe, thereby making The World sound like a rather diminished prototype before anyone had moved in.

In the cold light of 2009, Dubai resembles a mystical Oz that was somehow accidentally wished into existence during an insane decade-long drugs bender. Those psychedelic structures, pictured in a fever by the mad and privileged, physically constructed by the poor and exploited, now look downright embarrassing, like a Facebook photo of a drunken mistake, as though someone somewhere is going to wake up and groan, "Oh my head . . . what did I do last night? Huh? I bankrolled a $200bn hotel in the shape of a croissant? I shipped the workers in from India and paid them how little? Oh man! The shame. What was I thinking?"

For more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/nov/30/charlie-brooker-dubai-dream-crashes

Why does Davos matter?

So what if a consensus hasn't been reached? One cannot possibly expect to put 2500+ people in a small Swiss town and make them agree on global issues that decipher our next decade.
An average person has a stake on all issues ranging from  poverty, global economic crisis, Haiti,Middle East,China...the only difference with the Davos man is that he/she tends to have decision making authority to shape these issues. Hence, any itiration will shape the fate of that issue.

The fact is that the Davos agenda isn't built for consensus, but rather to spark discussion. And the discussion doesnt end in Davos, it continues throughout the Forums' regional meetings, online discussions of the Global Agenda Councils, Summer Davos at China etc... In Davos also, there are the endless bilateral meetings, private events, countless cups of coffee that do not hit the headlines and contribute to the making of the agenda.

The dynamics of the Forum are built for networking, collaboration, talking & rethinking issues, raising awareness  and trying to find solutions.

On my way back from Dubai, I read a quotation from Newsweek by Rana Foroohar which sums it all up:
"Davos is a place you go to put a finger in the wind. Last year the wind blew chaos."
This year the wind was calmer with an accent on China, a reflection of our everyday agenda.