Well..

...maybe I'm not ready for a comeback with this blog yet. Malas ler mau tulihhh..

23 days to go..

.......before I'm due to becoming a father.

GULP!

Paris field Trip and other updates

Yes, I am still alive and well. Been a while though since the last time that I even opened my own blog page. And since I am not doing anything this afternoon (I am in the studios at uni, supposed to have a tutorial but I dont really have anything to present so I'm just keeping quiet, like I normally do hehe) I felt like writing for a bit.

Just came back from Paris on Saturday night, after about a week there for my uni field trip. Quite nice though, although I have just been there in March with my parent, this one is different. I didn't even get neat to most of the main attractions, and I only catch one glimpse of the Eiffel Tower on the last day and didnt even get close to it. This time round I went to see the other parts of Paris, where people lived rather than where the tourists go.

We arrived on Monday, and stayed in the Montmartre area, just north of Gare Du Nord near to where Sacre Coeur is. It is probably easier to just say that its close to Moulin Rouge area.



So on the first night I went for a walk around the area, walked up to the top of the hill to the Sacre Coeur. Sketched for a bit, went to Moulin Rouge to find dinner (General rule to finding halal foods anywhere in Europe - find the dodgy area where the sex shops are, and you'll find the halal shops - quite a weird theory, but its works). And went back to the hotel to sleep after a long day of travelling.


Next day, the Lost project. We were supposed to walk the whole morning without the aide of a map, and are supposed to disorientate ourselves. Started walking at 9am, and record any decisions of why we turn right or left. At 1pm, locate where we are on the map and met up with the others at an architecture centre.


Ah, this is getting too long now for a comeback.


I went to the Villa Savoye by Le Corbusier in Poissy, just outside of Paris. Quite nice I think. Very interesting building to see for an architect, but not sure I would be worth the trip for the others though.




We also went to the La Villette Architecture School, the biggest in France I think. They have around 2000 architectural student, in comparison to about 350 that we have in UWE which makes us quite small to them. Seeing how they study architecture, it seem quite vague to me because they dont do much analysis to their site like we do in UK, and my lecturers share the same view when I spoke to them. We also went to an architects office called the Fischet Architectes, who do very interesting buildings and mostly are won though competitions. It is quite funny though, becauce while most of their buildings are really good and impressive architecturally, it doesnt really work. An example is the gymnasium they built in 2007, looks really impressive with the orange colour scheme, timber louvre and everything, but one of the student in our class who has actually played in it said I doesnt work because of the light and glare that comes through the slits on the wall. Imagine playing badminton, hitting the cock into the air, and suddenly lose sight of it mid-air due to the glare of the sun. Sucks, dont it?

The other place was the Catacombs. In the end of 18th Century, plagues and diseases were spreading from the cemeteries in Paris, especially the Saint Innocents Cemetery. So the decision was to move all the bodies from all the cemeteries in Paris underground, where the undergrond mining used to take place. About 6 million bodies were moved there, piled up together and made into a really interesting display. The length of the tunnels are about 1.7km long, and about 20 meters from the ground, which is lower than the Paris Metro system.





Well enough of the boring stuff. You might not be interested. Not even sure who opens this blog anymore anyway.




Some of the sketches I've done on the trip

For those of you who didnt know, I am expecting a baby in a month's time. Shu is due to give birth on the 13th of December, and her parents and siblings (6 of them!) is coming over to help out. It will be interesting times ahead of me.

Oh and I finally own a BMW, albeit an old one ('98 E36), but at least I will know the tricks before I buy a much later one before I go back to Malaysia when I'm done here.

Which could be a long time from now.

I can't wait to go back to Malaysia, where the friends and family are.