and no, mom, i won't have access to a phone either. sorry. lovies.
after the rain cleared up at a whopping 1pm, we went downstairs to lay by the pool. and by the pool i mean the mini paradise that i stare at from the apartment window all day. check it out.
pool on steroids from my loungechair.
pool on steroids from the apartment window.
good morning, singapore. you spoil me.
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around five we meandered our way back up to the apartment, rinsed ourselves off and headed out to the art museum to meet up with alex's cousin. the art museum is actually in an old boy's school building, but it's absolutely gorgeous. the school is a mix of art from the locals and from a bit more historically famous artists in the region-- we've got no pollocks or kandinskys here, but holy crap lauren, there's some ridiculously similar stuff.
the first exhibit when you walk in was genius. it was by a girl who graduated last year. the artistic part of it / the medium (jargon based on my readers) was glass blowing. there were probably twenty to twenty-five perfume bottles on stands with wooden labels in front of each of them-- anything from emotions to objects, such as "wind gusts," "desire," "childhood," and "government."
this girl bottled the smell of each of these ideas.
let me explain. government was perfume of a rotten egg. wind gusts smelled light and refreshing. desire resembled coco chanel's no. 5. there was war, death, happiness, ocean, and many others. the bottles were beautiful and the colors of the scent inside the bottles reflected the psychology of the scent. the concept was that art triggers memory, but you don't have to visually see art or the memory-- it can be done through other senses, such as smell. the piece was visually gorgeous as well, as she blew each perfume bottle herself. she also created each scent herself.
i think she could land a job with the yankee candle company if she wanted. as far as i know, they haven't figured out how to bottle the government yet.
ok now that i'm done writing my reflection paper on this piece for nan's class, i'll continue.
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the first gallery we walked into was modern art. it was the only modern art pieces the museum had. i spent more time in the first floor's single gallery than i did in the ten galleries on the second floor. at first glance, i was so excited, seeing the pieces on the wall i thought i was going to look at some well-known abstract expressionists.
perhaps an early hans hofmann, this piece looks like it studies plasticity with a bit of pollock's drip painting idea at the bottom. nope, neither. it was by a regionalist, but a gorgeous piece.
kandinsky? without a question i thought, but no. just another "famous" regionialist i don't even know, but he worked around the same time as kandinsky did. this just shows that artists around the world really were doing similar ideas. i wonder if these artists would consider themselves part of the AbEx movement or not?
k. i'm doing being nerdy.
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after the art museum, we headed over to the asian civilization museum. insert tons of frustration to the maps of singapore here again, and eventually we got there. we only had about forty-five minutes so we did some quick scanning. i have almost no pictures from here as most of this stuff dated back thousands of years and the lighting was horrible. it was eight-fifteen when we got there, so i don't really have any building pictures either. we got to see some interesting jewelry and textiles from the area though.
after that, we headed back to the apartment for homemade pizza. delicious.
but not before taking beautiful pictures of boat quay at night.
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inappropriate dinner conversation a:
we got to talking about tibet, the ninety-nine year lease on hong kong and the opium wars (of course) and chris mentioned the terrorist scare in singapore. wait, calm down. it's nothing, especially compared to the terrorist threts in the US. i feel way safer here than i do in the US, and there are no threts right now. but singapore did once belong to malaysia, and because it is such a small country, they are still worried about being taken over. so, with terrorism comes terrorists. we think we have racist and terrorist jokes?
the kids here play a game called "what color is the turban." if they're walking along the street, or hanging out and they see a sikh wearing a turban, they call out "what color is the turban!" and they all frantically look around to see who can call out the right color fastest.
how awful, but i'm sorry, i laughed.
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by the end of dinner, i was practically falling asleep. we didn't even do a whole lot today, but i'm probably still a bit jet lagged. we've got a lot of shopping and pool lounging scheduled tomorrow, and i'm not sure if i'll make it through.
who am i kidding?
Y rae. racho. d.
