SHM Meetup @ ArtScience Museum

SHM had a delightful outing at the newly opened ArtScience Museum at Marina Bay Sand on 30-July-2011. 9 people showed up for this event, with the sole reason was to visit the Van Gogh Alive Exhibition, the bonus being the Salvador Dalí which was recently launched at the museum, as well as the Shipwrecked Tang Dynasty Treasure exhibition.

 

The outing started around 10:30am when most of the turnout have collected their tickets, and started to make their way into the museum. First stop, Shipwrecked exhibit. As we were the first few that entered the exhibit on that day, we got a chance to get a guided tour from Joanna Chen, a staff of the museum. She walked us through and explained the treasures found from the wreck. Next we headed for the guided tour of the Van Gogh Exhibition conducted by Alice at 11:30am. Alice also explained to us the origin and reason behind the ArtScience Museum architecture. After that there was a short break for lunch, and the team broke off to explore the museum on their own. After lunch, some of them gathered again to explore the Dalí: Enter the Mind of a Genius exhibition. Some stayed behind to watched a documentary of the Dalí titled "The Dalí Dimention - A Genius' Lifelong Obsession with Science. The outing ended at 5pm, with a slow walk to Marina South MRT while absorbing the National Day festive celebration along the Marina Bay area.

Before ending this entry with some words from Van Gogh, the organizer would like to thank the following people for coming to experience great art and science together: Susan, Eric and wife, Fong Lai, Steven and friend, and SW.

For Midnight blog reader, here are some additional blog entry on some of the exhibitions :)

Van Gogh Alive Exhibition @ ArtScience Museum Singapore 2011
Dalí: Enter the Mind of a Genius Exhibition @ ArtScience Museum Singapore 2011

Ref:
Singapore ArtScience Museum
Vincent Van Gogh
Salvador Dalí
The Dalí Dimention - A Genius' Lifelong Obsession with Science

Paris Lodging Information - Residence du Palais

Some lodging information to share. You know how it is, you're a backpacker, and every lodging can be quite a horror trip or a paradise. My stay in Paris, was just lovely! We stayed in a place Residence du Palais, central of Paris, with the Jardin du Luxembourg right in front! The entrance it's just across the road from where we stayed! (a-but back entrance :P )

I booked online via their website below for a private room for 2 person. But somehow, we ended up with a while apartment to ourselves, a usual room for 3 person! See! I told you it pays to travel during low peak period! Normally it cost 100Euro for the apartment (as shown above)! But we booked for 1 week stay, and it only cost us 70Euro for the whole place! We have a double bed, and one single bed, with our own little bathroom with a glass ceiling that looks out into the sky (I totally love that!). It comes with 2 heater, 1 TV, 2 lamps, 1 closet, and even a study table and chair. It is just charming! Here are some shots of the inside of the room. And look! Another sneaky photo of mua!

But there is a catch. It's on the top floor, which means it's 7 floor of stairs up! Pretty breathless the first few days! But after a few days, there were days we went up and down 3 times! Very good exercise! Here a picture of the stairs! And the view from the courtyard below. It really feels homely. And we don't even have to see the landlady or the reception as we have our own entrance and pin code and key.

And the morning view and air is just lovely. At around 4 degrees, the sky looks lovely when we're having breakfast in our room :) Only bad point of the whole place is, no hot water for drinking as it doesn't come with a kettle. Would I go back? Without a doubt! It's practically near everywhere! And right just below, there is a Pâtisserie where we get our daily supply of French pastries! Notably the chocolate Meringue, and Chocolate Soufflé and really, just anything chocolate :P  Tell you more about the Pâtisserie on my French Food blog entry later on :)


Ref:
Residence du Palais
Pâtisserie
Meringue
Soufflé

Jardin du Luxembourg

15-Nov-2010 (Monday). Today is the last day for me in Paris.We'll be going back to London the next day. I wanted it to be a relaxing day, so we decided to spend the morning feeding the ducks in the garden in front of our apartment. It so happens, that the garden was Jardin du Luxembourg :)

We kinda walked through the garden, and all around it as we travel out each day, but today we were really going to spend some time there. It was Autumn, and slightly wet. But the weather slowly started to clear up. I feel like I'm the luckiest person traveling sometimes, cause I always pick the worst season to visit a place as it's a lot cheaper, and somehow, the weather are usually good! I mean, come on, how often does it rain everyday??? But I bet it must be really lovely in spring and summer here :) Hopefully one day, I'll get to come back here in those wonderful season.

Here is my favorite place of the whole garden, the duck pond. I took about a quarter loaf of bread there, and me and my husband spend the whole morning feeding the ducks. Perhaps I've stayed in Singapore for too long, cause I was feeling cautious, as if at any time a police would come up and arrest me for feeding the ducks! But after while, I started to relax, and kinda wish this was something I could do every weekend. It is really really relaxing to be there and then! Heck I have such wonderful memories of it that I'm including here a rare picture of me on my own blog :)


Ref:
Jardin du Luxembourg

Paris Icons - Eiffel Tower & Arc de Triomphe

14-Nov-2010 (Sunday). After visiting the Catacombes, the weather was looking up, so we decided to walk across Paris (from South East to North West) to see the famous sights of Paris, mainly the Eiffel Tower, & Arc de Triomphe. I don't know what is it with me and famous sights that almost every backpacking I do, it is always one of the last few days that I actually drag myself to these sights. To be totally honest, while in London, we totally missed out Big Ben and the Parliament House.

Anyway, walking across town was just lovely. I love walking around. You get to feel more of the heart beat of the city. You get to smell it, touch the rain water, and see the sights that most tourist never do. By the time we reached the Arc de Triomphe, it was already evening. And there was a memorial services being held there for in conjunction with Remembrance Day.

Here are some photo's taken by my hubby on the event. We got a pretty clear view of it. 

Ref:
Remembrance Day
Eiffel Tower
Arc de Triomphe

My First Patch Pencil Case

 

My actual first patch project. Was suppose to make an item a month, but I kinda slack off after this.... But still, this memento keeps me motivated to make more little patch stuff for the future! This here is a pencil case I made to house my colored pen for my language study. I couldn't decide whether to go with red/pink or blue, so I made one side blue, and one side red! Smart eh? :p  The zipper is light green in color, and I love all my patch work to go with white cotton lace :) The zipper didn't actually fit the whole length, so I guess I'll have to alter it a bit to hide that Frankenstein imperfection. For pencil case, it's pretty good to use :)

Hope there's more project to share soon!

Wabi-sabi - 侘寂

Just wanted to take a moment here to share with you something I've just discovered called Wabi Sabi (侘寂), which is based on Zen Buddhism. I find that it's just really me, and how I've lived my life so far :) Gonna go read up more on Zen Buddhism and the art of Teaism soon!

The following are taken from a book I borrowed title "Practical Wabi Sabi" by Simon G Brown.


Principles of Wabi Sabi

• Living in the moment
• Simplicity
• Emptiness
• Intuition
• Transient Beauty
• Incompleteness
• Acceptance of Imperfection
• Asymmetry
• Appreciation
• Tranquility
• Naturalness
• Non-Attachment
• Humbleness, Modesty and Austerity
• Everything Changes
  

Ref:
Practical Wabi Sabi by Simon G Brown
Wabi-Sabi Wiki
Teaism or Wabi-Cha