Well, tot i'll drop the conventional way of blogging down my days where i could "breathe"... the fishy is losing her "jely"; so jus a summarizing post for the rest of the trip.... which is.... WOAH! a whopping 7 days!!!
Eeks! i din realize tat man!... Sounds long lah, but it felt like it was a moment ago...
Let's see wat i can use from my diary...
Sydney Vacation Day 03: 16th June 2008, Monday
MONDAY was COTTON ON day, my dear travelling mate finally got round to spending some Oz dollars.
Then next was to head 4 Chinatown, but decided to stop 4 late lunch @ Naughty Chef 4 my fav noodles called PHO...
Din really noe wher 2 go, so Darling Harbour we went. Walked really far, really really really far.... Then saw someone tat looked like May Phua in e visitors center.
After e short rest, finally saw e harbour & a one legged bird... Steady looking despite its handicap.
Alittle torn abt goin 2 e Wildlife "Park", really wanted 2 go in... But still cannot tahan those reppies!
Nothing much 2 do, fren was bored... Poor gal, i've gt no clue how 2 make her day... I'm simply 2 boring a person 4 her *sigh*
Hunter Valley here we come!
Tmw will be a BETTER DAY!
Sydney Vacation Day 04: 17th June 2008, Tuesday
Wakey wakey, rise & shine!
The bus waits 4 no man... Off we go 2 catch e 8.15am bus (may I remind u tat its 6.15am in Sg hrs)
2 grumpies boards e bus in e most grumpy manner possible... in silence. It lasted till arrival @ e HV day tour meeting pt. The bloody brilliant me 4got e vouchers, but they let us go along anyway... We had 2 fork out extra cash 4 lunch :( as I 4got our paperwork aka lunch vouchers.
A fab crowd of 7 was our day tour, with visitations to 4 wineries, and a cheese place. Tasting was catered by all e wineries we visited. My trusty travel mate & myself were intoxicated!!! And i do mean literately.
Loved e grp: Shelley was really nice, David was frenly, Bryan was REALLY entertaining (and boy did he really ENTERTAINED our dear teacher), Louise & Alex were calm & contained... Lastly, there was US! We had FUN :)
Alittle "argh" tat we din opt 2 stay one nite ther, but its still great fun. :)
Sydney Vacation Day 05: 18th June 2008, Wednesday
Finally e day... Our day one for Bienale Sydney 2008... Finally a day with OBJECTIVE! OH YEAH! Can't help but b excited ^_^
Armed with a heavy breakfast of fruit & walnut bread with sides of cheese fruit stew, big bowl of cereals, an tomato spinach & mint omelette and ending it all w a homebrewed latte... Compliments of e Number 71 B&B :)
Its off 2 MCA-Museum of Contemporary Arts! Some of e stuffs r quite interesting, but I only rem a few...
1. Argentina artist's work in 1962 or 1965; He "nailed" a christ like figure onto a US fighter plane... How sarcastic!
2. A photo was displayed w 2 glasses, both had same amount of water, interesting thing was e water lvl were slanting in opposite directions. He did it by spinning e table w glasses of water. Quite ingenious I must say.
3. ''I CAN'T WORK LIKE THIS!" An installation w dented nails on e wall, plenty of nails on e ND w an opened toolbox & hammer. Cool.
4. Foam pipes pumps out tubes, crafted in shape-like syringes. Artist wanted 2 show authorial pressured environment. Something tat's alive, e foam pumps works in cycles ... As would a water fountain. Can look @ tis 4 long time.
5. Film works; Started w themes on joyous celebrations of crowning royalty, w scenes from many diff movies, then assassination of e monarch figure. Then e word REVOLUTION is splated over e screen.Themes of shock, fear and panic... Ending w despair. Interesting & abit funny. But question remains, if revolution's ending is w despair, not as joyous in e monarchy beginning, wat gd is revolution?
6. Horse hung high... alot to say but now dunno how to put in words....
7. Shapes in contours cut out into 3d, hanging in e air... dunno how to effectively describe but it was the shadows of these installations that caught my eyes instead.
8. Installation w a long pole, one end hangs industrial spot light & e other w a fan. Its left 2 spin or move in any manner it wants... Exploration of air & light as an art medium; 2 ends in parallel, as moon would 2 a planet.
Etc... Etc... Etc...
Sydney Vacation Day 06: 19th June 2008, Thursday
No gd, no gd... E nitemare has barely gone by and morning came too quickly. The mention of wine not only irks me, but scares me... The episodes tat follows are e terrible smell and e worst gastric ever.
Cockatoo Island was the obvious choice when e Manly Ferry was not included in our 1 wk transport pass.
Saw some more art works, but did not catch all.
But a certain stranger did caught our attention, and many others too. She was alone and alittle too friendly, but not to us. Her behaviour led my mind to many thoughts... i'm a meow, of cos i'm curious why she like tat and wat made her ticked the way she did and etc.... not much conclusion though, but the impression of her stayed with me... i'll blog on if i arrive at any conclusion @ all in the near future of 5-10yrs.... *grin*
Then its finally the last performance @ SOH 2 view was titled " Just becos everything is different doesn't mean everything has changed " It was really one of e highlights of tis trip. We approach e performance w no clue, except w e writeup from website. We were glad 2 find tat it was a standup comedy act by a man claiming tat he is Bruce Lenny, which we find it suspicious as he look alittle too young 2 be the man he claimed 2b.
It was a well spent evening!
Sydney Vacation Day 07: 20th June 2008, Friday
Something wrong with my travelling fren tdy, dunno why she say she dun wan breakfast... maybe tired, but it disturbed me.
When dwn for breakfast, asked for scrambled eggs under ystd recommendations... quite shiok! Bacon & scrambled eggs is a heavenly combination, esp when the bacon is SO BIG & CRISPY... and i appreciate it when our nice breakfast lady boss does nice presentation for the foodie.
We went to UNSW to make enquiries on admission and pre-requisition for their course, and etc etc etc... grab some brochures and head for Gallery of NSW for more Bienale viewing!
The place is huge, as before, interesting stuffs came up and very soon there was ART OVERLOAD! The light and interesting start point were the chalk drawings on the gallery walls and as i went in, there were marker drawings on glass windows at a corner. These drawings were abt current affairs, on how the artist see things on various topics. Simple and humorous, very easy to understand... as if u were reading a comic stripe.
Another work that came across with a deep impression is a super dark room, where a short film was showed with super woofer sound accompaniment. When we entered, was pitch dark, and i cant even see the five fingers of my hand when i had it stretched before me. It was scary, ppl bumping into ppl and everyone stepping on each other. We decided to sit down and stay put, jus to see wat is up... finally it all came to light... It was a video showing someone diving into water... all the mysterious and curious tots dropped to "WOW LAU!" for me... kekekeke i no arty mah... cannot make simpler and less scary meh....
Then it was the ZOHAN nite, a comedy we been eyeing to watch, hoping to experience the Sydney cinema viewing. The place is ok, but my travelling mate says we complained alot, the moment we enter we complain le... gt alot meh? hmm.....
Anyway, she found the movie ok only... i guess disappointed was more the word for her? I found the movie to be very "qin qie", and i did enjoyed it thoroughly. My guess is probably i can identify with the movie.... maybe bah...
Sydney Vacation Day 08: 21st June 2008, Saturday
Lady Boss was not kidding man! She say change bed, i tot she wanna change bedsheet again or she forget she also had it change the day before... But she really wanna CHANGE BED for us. *faint*
Time for lunchie with teacher, this time is 2 TNS teacher and a ex TNS student luncheon. The last time round the poor teacher was famished while waiting for us, this time we resolute not to let her go hungry. Nice hot Chinese lunch of Porridge, tempura styled calamari, claypot beancurd and dough fritters! Hot meals are my fav in winter times!
Then we parted with her to go Newtown! Its a place strongly recommended by Lady Boss. It was an area with shophouses rather than shopping centers, many shops to buy from and many cafes & eateries. Spotted a small place gathered with ppl, found a bunch of young ppl making artworks out of cardboards with signs asking for donations. How appropriate it was to have this scene under a full wall painting with words "I HAVE A DREAM". This scene invoked flood gates of tots for both of us i guess...
Paddington's Max Brenner was a disappointment, wat i had seen previously was alot more awwwwwwwwwwwww-ing; sorry to see my fren go "huh ah...ok lor"
Sydney Vacation Day 09: 22nd June 2008, Sunday aka LAST DAY
Day started with shopping @ shop nearby while waiting for teacher, then continued with shopping @ Bondi Market @ Bondi Beach. Saw a stall selling his art pieces, they are really very nice to putting up in homes. But he declined my request to take pics of it for nicole to see... She did ask me 2 buy such paintings for her hse if i saw any. Darn! i shld have asked hw much, if affordable i shld have bought for her! ARGH!
In celebration or rather making ourselves feel better that we were due to leave in hours, we treated ourselves to a bottle of nice champagne and a full rack pork ribs. Yummy... Our table is 3 Asians share a full rack, the other table is each non-Asian a serving of half rack ribs!
Finally, our last stop for shopping... MAMBO! My dear fren gone crazy when she saw the sale price tags... all the AUD$5 and AUD$10 made her lose her mind... it unleashed the green hulk monster in her... no she does not need anger mgmt like the movie, she is jus too repressed from her shopping. And it can no longer be contained on the last day. *GRIN*
Then we went back late, and the called cab went away. Thank God for a prayer answering God, else dunno where to find cab man!
We're all sad to leave for airport and board the plane home. This was, for me, just a trip to get away and breathe... but some more happened...... and it stirred the waters for re-structuring.
