Empire Apartments

Empire is only an empire because it’s rather large. And it’s rather large because they can fit 2 – 3 people in their multiple tiny, tiny apartments. The place I visited was fully furnished with crappy little sofas, a peeling table and worn floors. It’s a shame because the reception looks totally incredible with it’s polished shiny floors, classy (looking) lifts and chandelier. It has all the pretentious airs of a swanky apartment building without actually being a swanky apartment building.
Then we visited the lounge where you can plug in your laptop to a projector and watch movies. It’s more suitable to transport your old furniture from your apartment, dump it and then buy something that’s actually comfy.

The lifts in this building are a complete pain in the ass. I had a completely embarrassing experience here, and I’m not sure if it was due to my incompetence or the stupid lifts. Basically you had to swipe your room key in the lift to get it working. I did that and pressed my floor button, but it went to a completely different floor. Then it went down instead of up, while other people got on, swiped their keys and went to their floor flawlessly. I ended up trying to take the stairs in frustration, but the door from the staircase to my floor was locked! Ugh!
I ended up going right back down all the way to the bottom level and by the time the reception guy got the lift working for me I was almost in tears, from sheer embarrassment and frustration.
The place itself is okay. Not too special. Not a bad price. Mainly full of students who stay there due to it’s proximity to the universities.
One other bad point — no parking. Sucks.