2010/07/31

Sundown over Berlin – View from the Daimler-Chrysler Building

Skyrocket to dizzying heights with Europe's fastest elevator. Soar up to the top of the Daimler-Chrysler building at Potsdamer Platz with a maximum speed of 8.4 meter per second to enjoy the really great view from the platform in 93 meters height. Concerning the fastest elevator ever ridden in Europe, there is a catch, though. Isn't there always a catch? ;)
Due to acceleration and deceleration, this fancy machine needs 20 seconds to reach the platform. Now, this is not as fast as the elevator in Berlin's TV tower "Alex" (needs 40 seconds for 203 meters!), but it is fun anyhow and the platform has no glass barrier, so you can breathe fresh air!




2010/07/10

Beautiful Chinese New Year's Lanterns

If you read my recent entries, you probably have already guessed where these photos were taken: In the Ethnological Museum – of course. I'm not through yet!

The little guys you see on the pics are in fact New Year's Lanterns! Who would've thought that?

2010/07/07

Berlin's Ethnological Museum exhibits: Cool Coffin from Ghana


If this doesn't make death look brighter for a model car fan, I don't know what will ...

Do not despair if you are a chef or something: You can order a chilli coffin or a gigantic chicken coffin, or if you are a pilot, get buried in a model plane.

Don't miss this video on youtube: Coffin maker in Ghana

Haitian Voodoo in Berlin


So, you can't stand the heat and are desperate for some place to cool down?

Visit the Haitian Vodou exhibition in the ethnological museum at Berlin-Dahlem! It's nice and cool, but you have to bring your own pins and needles.

















Apparently the whole sticking-needles-into-dolls-thingy to harm your enemies is nothing but a big fat myth initially told by an American fiction writer and later spread all over the world through Hollywood industry.
Isn't that a shame!












After the discovery of the island of Hispaniola by Columbus in 1492 (where nowadays the states Haiti and the Dominican Republic are situated)  and the subsequent annihilation of the natives within the very short period of 25 years, the western third of the island became a French colony in 1697.

To sustain the forestry and sugar-related industries, slaves were imported to Haiti from Western and Central Africa. They brought their deities with them, but were not allowed to practice their cult. Over time, this fact led to the blending of traditional beliefs with Roman Catholic liturgy.

One century later Haiti's nearly half million slaves revolted and independence was declared in 1804.

















Voodoo (also: Vaudou, Vodoun, Vodou etc.) designates the sacred, the power coming from the invisible world to influence the here and now. I found it translated as "spirit" or "god".


















The current exhibition in Berlin shows about 350 objects from a private collection.

List of Caribbean gods