Edinburgh has a brand new landmark on its skyline,
in addition to the very familiar Balmoral Hotel, the Scott Monument, the castle and all those other
familiar landmarks, we now have this thing behind me, its official title is the Golden Ribbon,
well actually it's the new W Hotel, but I've heard people call it by much more derogatory titles,
the poo emoji for example, or even the golden turd, personally I think it looks like a walnut
whip, whatever you might say about it, it's here to stay and it certainly is striking,
so today I thought I'd take a closer look, fancy joining me welcome to RogVLOG
it's all part of the new St James Quarter which is a gigantic retail hospitality,
accommodation and entertainment complex that's taken them the last five years to build,
the St James Quarter replaces the St James shopping centre
which to be honest was one of those 1960s horrible concrete, blot on the landscape monstrosities
and they've done a really good job of making this new development fit in
with the local architecture, albeit with a modern slant,
the entrance to the St James Quarter certainly looks spectacular, we'll go in there in a moment,
but first of all, let's go and have a close look at that golden ribbon hotel,
I've heard it's a bit like marmite, people either love it or they hate it,
but you know what after thinking about it, I actually quite like it
so what do you think of the golden ribbon,
tell me in the comments below do you like it or do you loathe it,
so let's head inside and have a look at all that retail,
pretty big queues for the Lego Store,
as you can see it's a pretty impressive multi-level experience,
now the old St James shopping centre was just one level, this is four or five at least,
I found out later it's actually six levels,
and here's the famous John Lewis spread out over multiple levels,
it's a serious amount of retail space in here,
but not all of the units are full, in fact, I think the place is probably only about half full,
so many more shops to come, many more restaurants, many more places to eat and drink,
and that's before the hotels and the accommodation and the cinema open, once the St James Quarter is
totally finished it's gonna be world-beating, and I don't say world-beating very often,
well after all that walking around I thought I'd cop a squat here in St Andrew Square and enjoy a
well-deserved cup of black americano coffee, do you know what I think the new St James
Quarter is absolutely superb, it's certainly been worth the five years of building works,
all that dust and noise and those gigantic cranes, to see the amazing results that I've
just seen today, and when it's full, when all the shops are open, when all the hotels and
the eateries and the hospitality and the accommodation, it's really going to be a
draw from all over the world, people will flock to Edinburgh because of this St James Quarter,
but tell me what do you think about the golden ribbon, do you think it looks like a walnut whip,
do you think it looks like a golden turd, do you think it looks like the poo emoji,
let me know in the comments below, thank you so much for watching this episode of RogVLOG,
and if you enjoyed the episode please do subscribe to my YouTube channel or at least give me a thumbs
up, until the next video remember there's always something to see so get out there and find it!