First off, I want to say the THE VIDEOS ARE FIXED, GO BACK AND SEE THEM !!
I had just finish the longest singular route for my whole trip, flying halfway across Europe from Istanbul to Rome, then a ferry from Rome to Barcelona, a trip that took two days. My brain is tripping a little, which I really have to sort out because my Barcelona workshop begins tomorrow!!
Which brings me to how I will maintain the blog from now on. It’s pretty silly to update my studio stuff here, since this page is for “bringing Europe to you”. So I may post more culturally general stuff, like Tastebuds. Anyway, it also means less frequent updates in the coming days. I will resume my “backpacking” on the 28th of July by going to Helsinki in Finland, it will return to normal then.
This is also the only time I have to give the website a face-lift and possibly fill-in stuff like, a minimap of where I’ve been etc. We’ll see how we go, adios !!
July 11, 2005 at 5:39 pm · Filed under Culture, Turkey
Oh my gosh, my concept of FUN is really forever redefined. The Greeks I hung out were amazing. We attended the lectures at the conference during the day and then we were out almost the whole night, I was like only sleeping two hours each day. One minute we’ll be talking total nonsense, next minute we’ll be discussing philosophy. Incredible! I’ll introduce them to you …
From left to right, Dimitra “The Greek Goddess”, Stella “French Master”, Danai “The Blonde”, Alkis “The Stud”, Constantine “Cambridge Genius”, and Elena the hmmmm …. “The Weak” … hahahha just joking !!!! Okay, Elena “Of Troy” !!
Here you can see more, there’s George, Spiro and CONSTANTINE THE GREAT, my BROTHER !!!
And there’s more, like Gary “The Nargileh Master”, Jon “The *** Master”, Nikos, Mika, Christina, Vasilius “The Hagia Sophia Super Genius” (if I miss out someone, tell me!). All of which I did not take photos of. Please send them to me and I’ll put them up here !!!
Oh man, it was highlights all the way but I think there were three super ones. The first night out with them we went to Tophane where we smoked Nargileh which is like the LARGEST BONG MACHINE I’ve ever seen in my life. (HEY THESSALONIKI FRIENDS, if you have good photos of that night, please send it to me !!)
Later that night we decided to group up with a bunch of Turkish conference attendees. There was this guy who was like a total alternative rocker. We were speaking real bad english but ROCK transcended our barrier.
The final day has to be the funniest. We went for a “hamam” (Turkish bath) and unfortunately I can’t take my camera in. Anyway, we were fully getting slapped, bashed and wringed by big bellied moustache Turkish men. When we came out, one of the girls, Mika, just walked out of the women’s bath and explained that she fell unconscious !!! She stood up too fast in the sauna, knocked her forehead and was out cold for 2 minutes !!! And there were like bruises on some of the girls because of all that scrubbing and “massage”, how mad was that??
Constantine The Great definitely lived up to his name. He decided to collect (steal) the UIA World Congress of Architecture posters to take home. On our way to Taksim Square at probably like, 5am in the morning, he decided to try a really hard one. It was set back half a metre of a SPIKED FENCING, the spikes were like 20cm long. He went for it, got a puncture in his belly, and had to be taken to the hospital immediately. Found out next morning that his admission fee was TRL2000 (AUD2000, RM6000) and had to get stitches.
Crazy! I actually took a photo of that spike, I will upload it in the coming days!!
GIA SU TO MY GREEK FRIENDS, PLEASE SEND ME PHOTOS SO I CAN PUT THEM IN HERE !!! KEEP IN TOUCH, MAYBE I’LL RETIRE IN GREECE ONE DAY !!
Sorry for this super duper massive update. First of all, there’s no internet in Athens. Then we had to spend 24 hours (literally round the clock) to travel by train from Athens to Istanbul. And now that I’m here for the next 7 days at the UIA World Congress for Architecture in Istanbul, there’s just no time left in the day for blogging. So I figured I’ll put up as much reading material as possible until the conference is over by the next weekend. Also, I haven’t had tıme to read comments or reply, bear wıth me!
But I have to say I’m loving this crazy hectic schedule. Yesterday I went to lectures by Denise Scott Brown, Mario Botta, Glenn Murcutt and Zaha Hadid !!!! I just heard from Peter Eisenman, now going to Dominic Perrault and Hans Hollein. The coming days will include Tadao Ando, Robert Venturi, Shigeru Ban, Moshe Safdie, Ken Yeang (Malaysia Boleh!!) … MAN, the list goes on !!!! Truly a massive privilege to hear these people directly talking about their own work, all in one place.
Bad picture of Mario Botta.
Now’s a good time for those who just discovered my site, or those who skipped my videos to backtrack and vıew them. The latest videos are not up yet because last night Istanbul suffered a blackout, sigh. Anyway, you don’t have to register to leave comments!
Okay, hope you’ll be back to check out the vıdeos, and more frequent updates in a week’s time.
July 5, 2005 at 1:30 am · Filed under Food, Greece
We sort of got lost trying to find our way to the Acropolis. But we bumped into this amazing place where they sell traditional Greek “family” dishes for like €3 euros each. It’s like Greek yum-cha (dim sum).
Sorry, can’t remember their names. I can tell you that all of them taste very good. They have very distinct flavours which are new to me, can’t describe it.
The city dates back to the Neolithic (almost stone age) times, that’s how old it is. But I find despite their super rich history of excellence in architecture and culture, where have the Greeks’ drive for perfection gone?
The Parthenon.
The Acropolis. They are literally replacing the original with marble replicas, so come here before it’s fully replaced.
Ancient Agora. Not much, except for one reconstructed building, how much fun can looking at ancient strip footings be?
The Hephaitos temple. Have a funny impression of that guy after watching Alexander the movie, but amazing Greek temple nevertheless.
My dad always claim that everything was invented by the chinese. It’s true sometimes, like the compass, paper, and silk. Some rather outrageous ones include pasta and pizza.
I believe it was the American Italians who invented it. Regardless, this one’s crispy crust is paper thin with a very juicy topping. No regrets!
This is really cool for me because just ten months ago I had a tour of the “Silk Road” in China. Now I’m standing on the other end, it’s magical !
Gondolas
And their owners, business doesn’t seem to be too good …
The city is at least ten times more confusing, but it was actually fun getting lost! After an hour I got tired of it and decided to pull out the map, only to find that it was completely useless. And we’re not alone, every two or three corners we turn, there’s a bunch of people there trying to figure their maps out. Venice’s a tourist trap? Hell yeah.
After some Venetian Pac-Man, we miraculously found San Marco’s square.
Back in France, we bought a 40 ounce jar of Nutella thinking it was a good idea. You know, easy to use, high in energy and long shelf life. But after two weeks, it’s proven a drag carrying it around. So on the train from Rome to Venice, I had a Nutella binge.
There are street names but no street signs, the bus maps are close to useless and the tourist information is no help at all. We had to ask for directions along the WHOLE way. Eventually for the last few stops we resorted to taxis to get from landmark to landmark. Just can’t be bothered saving anymore, we only have one day to see everything.
Colosseum. Many “gladiators” outside provoking us for photos.
Some people could not get in because they were “dressed inappropriately”. The smarter ones brought scarfs and sarungs.
Pantheon. The span is at least 20 metres, built 380 A.D. I think. Civil and Structural engineers, there’s no keystone in the middle. Architects, there’s no glazing for the 2 metres gap, what about the rain? Now Go Figure!!
Fontana di Trevi. I saw some people fully dipping their heads in, and others drinking from it. Ewww…
Spanish Steps. At night lots of people just hang out here, other than that, nothing special.
Oh yea, I also managed to bump into the Italian stage for Live 8 at the Ancient Auditorium.
July 4, 2005 at 12:02 pm · Filed under Food, Italy
Why the first meal in Italy has to be pasta. Florence is the next closest town I could get to Bologna, so the spaghetti bolognese has to be authentic. Finished it in 3 minutes!
I could not locate the famous “Baby Yoghurt” until the next morning. And it’s closed in the mornings because it’s a Sunday … and my train is scheduled to leave at 10:00am. Such is life!
When we finally got there (after harassing 10 other people to join us along the way), I made friends with tons of cool people. A Texan mother who looks waaay younger, a couple of ladies from Chicago, a Japanese-French Aussie dude from Melbourne and two friendly Californian girls.
Later that night, we walked around the streets of Florence waking people up with Irish songs and Waltzing Matilda. One of the lads practically harassed every passer-by with “Legato e MIERTE!!” (trans: My cat has DIED!).
I was convinced we’re going to get arrested by the Italian police at some point. Took us a good hour to finally locate the kebab shop to shove our mouths shut.
Later that night one of us tried to grab David’s butt! Now I know why they switch the original with this replica!
Michaelangelo, Leonardo, Donatello … and rest of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, all come from this place.
David’s butt, a less famous view but just as finely sculpted by Michaelangelo.
The famous Ponte Vecchio, rows of shops on a bridge. What’s with the squatting motif beside a river?
The Duomo, impossible to grab a snapshot of the entire building.
By the weirdest coincedence, we met someone from UNSW! She was standing two persons behind us while queuing for David. Junyi and Jeff were stunned staring at each other for 5 seconds.
Funny bit is she decided to tour Italy only a few days ago, but to meet of all cities in Italy, in such a big place as Florence, to be in the same queue, two people apart, at the same time, is just …
