Milan, Italy 12th April 2010

My second trip to Europe this year was a mix of excitement and chaos. The destination this time round was Milan, Italy. My company was taking part in the Salone Internazionale del Mobile. The fashion capital of the world truly lives up to its name. The trip started of with a gruelling 18 hour flight via Singapore-Colombo-Dubai-Milan. It was really taxing mentally as well as comfort wise. I really hate these long flights to Europe, luckily the food served on Emirates was pretty good and they had big touch screens with great movie selections.

Milan weather was pretty good with occasional showers. Unfortunately, the day after we landed, Iceland had an enormous volcanic eruption, which screwed up everybodies flight itinerary going back and to other countries. I was lucky, I had to go Croatia to meet a customer and that flight was not affected. So by the time I left Croatia, all my flight schedules had resumed. Some of my colleagues were not so fortunate, they had to stay an extra 3-4 days in Milan.

I did'nt get much time to shop this trip nor get to see a lot of sights. The exhibition consumed most of our time and we did'nt even get to enjoy much Italian gourmet either. I did get to go to Duomo, the famous shopping district for a while though. The Louis Vuitton shops were filled with cash rich Chinese buying lots of bags!! Typical!!

I have to say, Milan is a very expensive city to live in. It was about 15-20% more expensive compared to Cologne which I went in January. Everything that I wanted to buy was expensive, even in the supermarket where the normal folks shop, cost quite a bit.

Due to the fair, almost  every part of the city was alive with product launches and open house. The whole city was vibrant and the design culture there was fantastic! Designers will show their work in department stores and shop windows and graphics was prominent on street walls, lamp posts, cars....etc. The whole city was ALIVE!!

The Metro for Milan was easy to navigate compared to Paris, most of the travelling was done on that and they had a fixed price ticket of EUR$1 for any length of trip. I also managed to visit a model kit shop but unfortunately was disappointed as it was very small and lacked range.

The service you get at the retail stores is really horrible. They don't like serving Asian customers and I lost count the number of times I got snubbed when asking for stock availability. In general, I find that Milan is filled with racist Italians, from the fast food joints to retail shops to even the garbage man!! And I thought Paris was bad!!! No wonder the Italians lost the war and changed sides, they are fucked up people!!

If not for the Fair, I don't think I will ever return for another visit.