The Shard = Nothing Special

    

    When looking over the Calendar I saw that we were going to see, The Shard. I was excited to see the tallest skyscraper in Europe. Especially since it doesn't look like any other skyscraper I have ever seen. It was also exciting because we had to actually dress up for this cineTREK. Learning that there are restaurants, offices and a hotel in this one skyscraper, it sounded unbelievable but it ended up not being as amazing as I thought.

    Right when we walked in a worker approached our group wondering what we were doing there and if we needed help. It's obvious that they are used to a certain type of people that usually come in. They were still friendly but it still seemed as if we were the outsiders. There was also a very strong scent in the Shangri-La. I first thought it was someone with a strong perfume on but as Yuriko pointed out, that smell is their own scent they created just for the hotel. It just smelled rich and classy. I read some reviews online and many feel that its un needed and ruins the hotel. I completely agree. The way Yuriko was talking about it, made it sound like every hotel should have their own scent. The entire time I was walking around I was thinking, how can you breathe or work with this smell around you 24/7. It reminded me of Abercrombie and Fitch, trying to use 'scent branding'.

    The elevator ride was quite nice. We went up 35 floors in like 20 something seconds, it was the smoothest elevator I've ever been in. When we walked into the hotel room, I could have sworn we could be in any other hotel room. Nothing caught my eye. Of course, the view was nice but that view isn't worth 500 pounds a night. Who is just going to sit in their hotel rooms and stare at the view? People want to sight see not be cooped up in a tiny room. I think most of us agree, the view from St. Pauls Cathedral was better than this view and we didn't have to pay 500 pounds to see it. The only thing that was striking to me was the television in the mirror in the bathroom. But who really needs that when there's a television in the room right next to you? The wall paper in the room was stunning but still not worth 500 pounds. Everything just sounded so ridiculous to me. How could the cheapest room be 500 pounds. I still can't wrap my head around that. It's obvious they have a certain clientele and only care about money. It makes me sick thinking that people could actually blow that much money on a room like that.

 

The wall paper in the room. 

    Even the restaurants we saw had ridiculous prices. I thought the furniture they had was interesting. They had pillows on the chairs, I've never seen that kind of 'living room' atmosphere in a restaurant. I think the best part of The Shard was the interior of the restaurants. I thought one of the fixtures they had in the tea room downstairs was exceptional. It had individual tea cups and plates attached to a long metal strand. It was a piece of art, it should be in a museum not just hanging from the ceiling of a restaurant.

     The Shard let me down. I was expecting this to be the most amazing skyscrapers I had ever seen but it was just bland and boring. It's tall so it could look down on all the little people. Will I go back? I don't think so.