24 hours in Berlin (2)

Part 2 - Near Berlin

Actually, the main purpose of our Berlin trip was to attend S' friends' wedding. So the next day at noon, a coach was sent to pick the guests up from Berlin city to the Castle Hubertushöhe at Storkow. Bus journey took about 1+ hour. The wedding ceremony was held at 3pm, after which a cocktail party followed. Small & intimate gathering of about 60 people. Extremely different from our traditional Chinese banquet! But I love it. Romantic private setting tucked away in some faraway land...  Aww. *dreamy*

Sean anticipating Nadine's arrival..

in the castle garden by Lake Storkow. R-o-m-a-n-t-i-c....

Cocktails and a little dance put up by the newly-weds. Sweet.

After that, we returned to our rooms and rested for a couple of hours before getting up again for dinner. Superb 3-course meal with excellent wine-pairing carefully chosen by Sean. It was then followed by cake-cutting, which we all ate! (Was a little surprised as I've never eaten a wedding cake before.)

And here comes the highlight:

Their very own fireworks display!! Right in the center of the helicopter landing area. How cool is that. Lovesss. The beautiful night ended with some music and dance... :)

24 hours in Berlin (1)

Part 1 - 24 hours in Berlin

What's germany without some sausages and pork knuckle and beer? ;) Murked around at one of the two city centers - Alexanderplatz. Found the TV Tower but didn't go up the observation deck. Apparently the view is nice but the windows are dusty. Hmm...

Bought some made-in-germany stuff like Birkenstock and WMF kitchen accessories. Nice. Walked down a bit more and reached the Radisson Blu Hotel, at which time we decided to take a break & rest our feet. As we entered the hotel, we were surprisingly greeted by this huge...

aquarium, yes! Atop a bar in the middle of the hotel and surrounded by rooms on all 4 sides. Impressive! Ok it's called the AquaDom which is part (or rather the finale) of the 'SEA LIFE Berlin' exhibition. [Info at http://www.sealifeeurope.com/local/index.php?loc=berlin] You gotta queue up at a booth next to the hotel and get tix to enter the AquaDom. Obviously we were too tired..so we just admired it from below while having some wine & cakes :) Really cool to stumble upon something like this - the world's largest cylindrical aquarium.

After the recharge session, we continued our quest down Karl-Liebknecht-StraBe and towards Unter den Linden, a super long road that leads to the Brandenburg Gate. Passed by the Berlin Cathedral and Altes Museum.

Then we got distracted and turned right into a small street market at Hinter dem GieBhaus. From there, we wandered forward and unexpectedly found ourselves on Museum Island! Spoilt for choice. But we decided on the more popular one called 'Pergamon Museum'.

JIT to do a 1h tour before they closed at 6. We really loved how original-sized fragments were pieced together to form reconstructed monumental buildings like the Pergamon Altar and the Market Gate of Miletus. The free audio guide was a great help. Highly recommended!

We also had the chance to take a stroll along the main shopping street called Kurfurstendamm in the other city center. Stumbled upon (again) the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church. As you can see, the original spire of the old church (damaged in an bombing raid during WWII) was retained.

And that's the end of our Berlin discovery. A pity we couldn't get to see the other recommended attractions like the Brandenburg Gate, Parliament house etc. Nonetheless, think we did pretty well for a day!