like what Nic says:" eh u do set-design one leh....how can miss this kind of thing...." hahaha!!! so when in Vienna, apart from seeping coffee at a café, a visit to the Viena State Opera is a must i guess....Anyway, this neo-classical building is like a architecture-ism rojak. Supposedly, together with its Neo-classical concept, there is also, Romanesque, Baroque, and Renaissance influences. Apparently it was heavily criticized during its construction phase. So much so that one of its 2 original architects, Eduard van der Nüll committed suicide, and the other August Sicard von Sicardsburg died shortly later. None lived to see the opening of their creation. However, Gottfried Semper was responsible for its final look after its rebuilt after wwII.(RMB Gottfried Semper, most of us Archi. peops heard erwin sprouting his name on the first History & Theory of Modern Archi. lecture in year 1. we never heard of and could hardly spell it then)
Theater here is diff from in S'pore...theres actually such things as standing tickets for poor or cheapo peops. and minus the fact that you stand the entire show, its like S$7 and its just behind the stalls. and if like me(after intermission), you could get a space to stand at the very barrier between the stall seats and the stall standing area, the view is as good as sitting in a back row of the stall..hahaha!!!! Anyway, the opera was l'Elisir d'Amore in Italian(of course...). Didn't understand much but think it was something like:
girl like boy, boy like girl, girl somehow choses some other guy, boy does something enormously sacrificial, girl is touch, girl dumps other guy for boy, other guy got motherly screwed.
as for the set, extremely impressive and realistic surface renderings and details on stage elements, but same set through out entire play with only 2 changes in lighting. Maybe it didn't need a changing set or lighting...i wouldn't know.
All in all i would say it was a 2 hour well spent minus the fact that 1/3 of my vertical vision was obstructed by a balding Austrian head before intermission and that my back was scream "&@#^*#@$" after the show...hahah!!!
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Opera in Vienna
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
Giant Ice Sculptures
DSC04178, originally uploaded by cloudberrie.
Innsbruck, Austria.....The new Nordpark Cable Rail Stations by Zaha. Hadid. Consisting of the Congress Station, Loewenhaus Station, Alpenzoo Station and the Hungerberg Station, this cable rail line brings skiers from the center of Innsbruck to the mountains north of Innsbruck....aboves are the photos of the terminal station,Hungerberg Station. Like the usual works from Hadid, they scream for your attention with their highly sculptural and dynamic form. However, in this case, though they stand out distinctively, they still remain harmonious with their picturesque surroundings. Like giant ice sculptures amidst the Austrian mountain-scape.
Saturday, December 22, 2007
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Bye Lund
This is me, and this very moment checking out hand luggage limit and directions to hostels online...why do i have my christmas hat on?? long story, and its all thanks to my crazy corridor mates who have interestingly come to see me pack...hahahaha!!!
thanks guys for being such wonderful corridormates...though its only been 4 months and i haven't spent much time with you guys, but those time that we did, they were wonderful....so Ruth, thanks for being such a great big sis;
Antonis, you're the only greek i know and because of you i think all greeks are nice people now;
Xavier, will always remember us being pissed drunk and hung-over after all our parties and nights out, congrats for turning a asian into a alcoholic..hahaha!!!;
Lindsay, no more stoning OKAY??....;
Fatimah, keep smiling, keep laughing and stay high, and away for alcoholic Xavier of course;
Martin, stay consistent on your expresso intake yar...hahaha!!!....
and to the rest of of Vildanden 26A, keeping partying hard and take care. hope to see you guys in the near future and of course, know that if you're anywhere around Singapore or Malaysia, give me a buzz......HEJ DA!!!!
Monday, December 17, 2007
Bye fellow NUS-sians
fellow NUS Exchange Student....last few parties before heading back to sing-land
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Pre-Christmas
A Pre-Christmas party at my Corridor 2 weeks ago...over here, every slight excuse for a party is blown up to full scale...hahaha!!!
Sunday, December 02, 2007
Final stretch....
down to 2 weeks left in Sverige...and i've a feeling this 3 computer screens gonna be seeing a lot of me just like they have for the last one week...at less until my subimissions ove..heres a intro to my current 3 closest friend...Lapbie's my trusty itune playing, photoshoping Ibook is always there to keep me awake with random songs; Leftie's usually tuned onto 3D Studio Max which i've tried to learn, some what unsuccessfully last week, and Rightie's my Archicad/Internet/anything-and-everything-else companion...........Leftie and Rightie are 'conjointed' twins of the computer world....hahahahaha!!!
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Autumn
Autumn's almost at its end...today was the first morning that there was frost everywhere...still no sign of snow though it did rain ice on sat.....I WANT SNOW!!!!!!!!!!! sigh....
Monday, November 05, 2007
Halloween
As of yesterday, i'm no longer a Halloween-virgin...hahaha!!! Halloween over here is just another excuse for the Swedes to PAAAAAARTY, and as if they ever needed any reason at all to party. but it was cool. Being a newbie to Halloween, and on a shoestring budget, the best costume i could come up with was BANDAGES...courtesy of the Architecture Department of LTH(ie freeload from firstaid kids)...totally and absolutely free...haha!! initial i was gonna to mummify myself, but i sort of underestimated my body size and kinda ran out of bandages, plus it wasn't easy bandaging yourself with only one arm(the other being totally bandaged and stiff) so in a moment of desperation and being totally tangles in bandages, a light buld when on somewhere....A CAR CRASH VICTIM...just a little wrapping here, and a little there, together with some graphite smears here and fake blood there and WHOOOAAALAAAAA!!!! my first ever halloween costume...hahaha!!!! and i was all set for booze trick-a-treat...hahahaha!!
DSC01942, originally uploaded by cloudberrie.
the closest we got to celebrating halloween back home=] a bunch of grump sch kid...HAHAHA!!! i miss those days....
Sunday, November 04, 2007
Dear Architects, I am sick of your shit.
An article taken from a random blog i stumbled upon...entitled (dito) interesting and true to a certain extent, and it does results in a substantial amount of self-reflections. so enjoy or not-enjoy this article...
Dear Architects,
I am sick of your shit.
Once, a long time ago in the days of yore, I had a friend who was studying architecture to become, presumably, an architect.
This friend introduced me to other friends, who were also studying architecture. Then these friends had other friends who were architects - real architects doing real architecture like designing luxury condos that look a lot like glass dildos. And these real architects knew other real architects and now the only people I know are architects. And they all design glass dildos that I will never work or live in and serve only to obstruct my view of New Jersey.
Do not get me wrong, architects. I like you as a person. I think you are nice, smell good most of the time, and I like your glasses. You have crazy hair, and if you are lucky, most of it is on your head. But I do not care about architecture. It is true. This is what I do care about:
* burritos
* hedgehogs
* coffee
As you can see, architecture is not on the list. I believe that architecture falls somewhere between toenail fungus and invasive colonoscopy in the list of things that interest me.
Perhaps if you didn’t talk about it so much, I would be more interested. When you point to a glass cylinder and say proudly, hey my office designed that, I giggle and say it looks like a bong. You turn your head in disgust and shame. You think, obviously she does not understand. What does she know? She is just a writer. She is no architect. She respects vowels, not glass cocks. And then you say now I am designing a lifestyle center, and I ask what is that, and you say it is a place that offers goods and services and retail opportunities and I say you mean like a mall and you say no. It is a lifestyle center. I say it sounds like a mall. I am from the Valley, bitch. I know malls.
Architects, I will not lie, you confuse me. You work sixty, eighty hours a week and yet you are always poor. Why aren’t you buying me a drink? Where is your bounty of riches? Maybe you spent it on merlot. Maybe you spent it on hookers and blow. I cannot be sure. It is a mystery. I will leave that to the scientists to figure out.
Architects love to discuss how much sleep they have gotten. One will say how he was at the studio until five in the morning, only to return again two hours later. Then another will say, oh that is nothing. I haven’t slept in a week. And then another will say, guess what, I have never slept ever. My dear architects, the measure of how hard you’ve worked and how much you’ve accomplished is not related to the number of hours you have not slept. Have you heard of Rem Koolhaas? He is a famous architect. I know this because you tell me he is a famous architect. I hear that Rem Koolhaas is always sleeping. He is, I presume, sleeping right now. And I hear he gets shit done. And I also hear that in a stunning move, he is making a building that looks not like a glass cock, but like a concrete vagina. When you sleep more, you get vagina. You can all take a lesson from Rem Koolhaas.
Life is hard for me, please understand. Architects are an important part of my existence. They call me at eleven at night and say they just got off work, am I hungry? Listen, it is practically midnight. I ate hours ago. So long ago that, in fact, I am hungry again. So yes, I will go. Then I will go and there will be other architects talking about AutoCAD shortcuts and something about electric panels and can you believe that is all I did today, what a drag. I look around the table at the poor, tired, and hungry, and think to myself, I have but only one bullet left in the gun. Who will I choose?
I have a friend who is a doctor. He gives me drugs. I enjoy them. I have a friend who is a lawyer. He helped me sue my landlord. My architect friends have given me nothing. No drugs, no medical advice, and they don’t know how to spell subpoena. One architect friend figured out that my apartment was one hundred and eighty seven square feet. That was nice. Thanks for that.
I suppose one could ask what someone like me brings to architects like yourselves. I bring cheer. I yell at architects when they start talking about architecture. I force them to discuss far more interesting topics, like turkey eggs. Why do we eat chicken eggs, but not turkey eggs? They are bigger. And people really like turkey. See? I am not afraid to ask the tough questions.
So, dear architects, I will stick around, for only a little while. I hope that one day some of you will become doctors and lawyers or will figure out my taxes. And we will laugh at the days when you spent the entire evening talking about some European you’ve never met who designed a building you will never see because you are too busy working on something that will never get built. But even if that day doesn’t arrive, give me a call anyway, I am free.
Yours truly,
Annie Choi
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
'Airport-Sleeping'
1 night bedroom, originally uploaded by cloudberrie.
Shamelessly marking my sleeping territory for the night...hahaha!!!! this is what i call, true BUDGET ACCOMMODATION.
Bergen airport Comfort Lounge, originally uploaded by cloudberrie.
Its there for a purpose, so i might as well use it...my bed room for the night. though shared with 3 other budget travellers
fellow airport-sleepers, originally uploaded by cloudberrie.
Other fellow airport-sleepers who either didn't bother exploring the airport for a better place to spend the night, or just simple love the feel of uneven sleeping surfaces.
All the walking, originally uploaded by cloudberrie.
The result of 4 days in Norway filled with walking, walking and more walking.
Packed and ready, originally uploaded by cloudberrie.
Avril's Borrowed Deuter, Uncle Tony's worn out jacket and My trusty shoe-bag and scarf....things that really got me through Norge
Airport-sleeping, originally uploaded by cloudberrie.
Good Night
Bergen
Train ride, originally uploaded by cloudberrie.
The train ride from Voss to Bergen...its like the train track literally runs on the fjord surface.
Bryggen, originally uploaded by cloudberrie.
Bryggen, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.....medieval style
DSC02480, originally uploaded by cloudberrie.
Here...its as narrow as it gets...haha!!
DSC02502, originally uploaded by cloudberrie.
IT!!
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Fjords
plus....I SAW SNOW!!!! AHHHHH!!!.....hahaha!! well sort of...kind of...maybe...it was just snow-peaked ranges on the train ride up, frost as we stopped at Flåm and thin ice cracking as out ferry carried us into the fjord.
Snowy peaks, originally uploaded by cloudberrie.
Waterfall, originally uploaded by cloudberrie.
Finse, originally uploaded by cloudberrie.
Me at the Fjords, originally uploaded by cloudberrie.
Houses, originally uploaded by cloudberrie.
Ripple, originally uploaded by cloudberrie.
DSC02379, originally uploaded by cloudberrie.
Waterfall house, originally uploaded by cloudberrie.
Oslo
Oslo is a claustrophobic city in its center, but once i get out of center Oslo, towards the outskirts, boy was the view fabulous=] Spent most of my day museum visiting but since public place closes at around 4pm here, and the sky starts turning dark at 5pm...i could still managed to walk miles for a good sunset shots and cheap meals...hahaha!!!
Kayakers, originally uploaded by cloudberrie.
Wish i could just join in...
Evening bay, originally uploaded by cloudberrie.
just happy to be where i am...opposite a private dock amongst the fjords that surrounds Oslo
Vigeland Park, originally uploaded by cloudberrie.
By Gustav Vigeland, a whole freaking park of topless/buttless human status in various poses....artisitic=]
Ski Jump to nowhere, originally uploaded by cloudberrie.
holmenkollen ski-jump tower...sucky weather with all the fog... was supposed to get the best view of oslo here....BAH!!
Student protest!, originally uploaded by cloudberrie.
Someones not happy with the pay cut...hahaha!!! student protest against education budget reduction...something you never see in Singapore...
Where new meets new..., originally uploaded by cloudberrie.
the new defense headquaters designed by Jarmund/Vigsnaes a norwegien firm
Street art in Oslo, originally uploaded by cloudberrie.
City fringe between the developing town city and the outskirts
Sunset in Oslo, originally uploaded by cloudberrie.
Sunset over the Flam Museum...BEEEEEEAAAUUUTIFFFFUUULLLL!!!!
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Packing
Clockwise:
-1 Tupperware for as much pancakes as i can stuff
-1 Pack of cheap bread with 3 snickers
-1 Borrowed Deuter(Thanks Avril)
-1 Towel
-1 Phone charger and 1 camera charger
-1 Camera with pouch
-1 Polo tee
-3 Long sleeves with 3 linen tee
-1 Jeans
-1 Ski hat
-1 Old sleeping bag
-1 Set of toiletries
-1 scarf
-1 Trackpants with ACJC Orientation 2003 Tee
to be include:
-as much pancake as the tupperware can carry
-left over honey
-lapbie with charger and mouse
-passport
-tickets
-vacuum bags(so that everything fits into 1 Deuter bag)
Woohoooooo...........Oslo here i come=]
Friday, October 19, 2007
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Camaraderie
'alrite!!!', originally uploaded by cloudberrie.
Here's a post out of boredom and frustration...something that always brings up fond memories...
let me introduce you to Mis Jasmine Loke aka My Daughter and Miss Winny Kang aka TaTou
now as most can probably deduce from the photo, Miss Loke and Miss Kang were ex-partners during our Canoeing days in JC, and they were a formidable pair i must say, trashing almost every opponents in their event during their senior year.
