Saturday, August 04, 2012
My Thursday this week felt like Friday. I had much nerves about this Thursday ever since I could see it coming but I have to say that it ended pretty well. There was more emotion than I would have expected when I left and they lingered uneasily but a good night sleep and a day away kinda wiped most that remained. It's weird how it ended, I really didn't see it coming. I often teased Gascoigne about the fact that when he left us, he gave us nothing and yet when he left people whom he spent less time with, he gave them something. One would think that it would be harder and there would be more emotion when you leave a place where you spent more time in it, a place where you have built many relationships with many people as compared to a place where you spent less time and in which you do not actually make friends for life. One would think that way, but in reality the ending was totally different for me that if you look at the ending you would have thought that I love my 2-year experience more than my 6. It's not really so. Especially in this place where I was enlighten that hate grows faster than love.My 6-year stint was life changing for me. It formed me. It was not always easy but it gave me courage and independence. However when I left, it's just like I'm done. I was so done that all I wanted was to just walk out of the door and I kinda did that. If I can justify my lack of emotion (perhaps) to the people there, well I would say it's because the people who mattered more had left me, they were gone before me. By the end of it, I would say that I was bruised and my confidence was kinda gone. Being told you're not good enough and feeling you're not appreciated can really damage you. So my 2-year experience after that is really something that I'm truly grateful for. Yes, it also had its moment when I want to throw things at some people but in the end I didn't leave feeling like I was battered. So I guess that's why I felt obliged to give the peeps something and wrote a beautiful email (if I can say so myself). So in a way, I think I perhaps kinda can understand how it was too for Gascoigne. It's just different. I am truly thankful for having experienced this 2-year stint because this experience showed that I don't suck, really! What made it even nicer even after I already felt like I was at peace with everything, was that someone actually replied my beautiful email, saying thank you and sorry that he didn't do more to make things work and if he had done so perhaps things would have been different for me. I never think of anything wrong to be attributed to this person and so for him to say those nice words made me feel that again I don't suck and no matter how people misunderstand me or do not want to even begin to understand me, I am ensured that I can actually make a connection with some people and we know that we're cool. Well, I am never one who think you can be friends with everyone, so I guess what I want to say is, for a person that I kinda feel that he's pretty cool to be saying such nice things to me, that is pretty awesome :)
So that's that. Yesterday was my break day and I really had plans to make use that day as much as I can. I really have to say that the tourist side of me really moves in a gung-ho and efficient manner. The plan was to go to the Harry Potter exhibition and visit Gardens by the Bay but it turned out into much more than that. I started the day watching Moonrise Kingdom, a movie by Wes Anderson. Now, Wes Anderson is one of those directors with a very distinct style and quirks in his stories. This movie is about 2 kids who fell in love and decided to run away together and caused all the adults in their lives to run after them. I thought it was good and funny. Quirky. Some may love it, some may not, but overall I think it was sweet. In that almost empty cinema, I actually saw a certain Dr from my past. It was such a surprise. Unfortunately I chickened out when the movie ended and I kinda ran away instead of saying "hi", even though my first instinct when I saw him was to say "hey!". It was really unexpected that I really wanted to sms some people, but I guess the point of yesterday was to get away from people that I didn't. Anyways, after the movie, I went to pray. I'm starting a new chapter in life, so I felt I need all the universe's help.
Then it was to the Harry Potter exhibition in the ArtScience Museum in Marina Bay Sands. There was also an Andy Warhol's exhibition in the same place. Considering that I got a resident's discount, I decied to just buy both tickets. It's like I pay the price for Harry Potter exhibition to get entry to both exhibitions, so why the hell not, right? The Harry Potter exhibition featured things from the movies. You go in in groups. When we started, we went into a room with the sorting hat. We had 3 kids trying out the hat and the first kid was such a gem. He's from Hong Kong and he was not shy and was awfully cute in his responses. I actually really really wanted to try the hat too but then I was too shy to ask, considering I'm an adult :( Next was the room where there were footages from all of the movies which made me feel pretty emotional. Harry Potter was really something for me. The books and the movies have transported me to a different world which I really like. After that, we were let to roam around by ourselves. Being a Harry Potter fan, being able to see all of these things up close was something. I tried to see every details and the details were amazing and it made me think that being in a movie production must be something too. Who would have thought that after the scene was shot, someone would actually keep things like the parchment where the kids signed up for Dumbledore Army safe and sound. Seriously, if you are a fan, to see everything in details is amazing, things like how the skeleton of a dementor looks like, how a snitch really looks like, how big Hagrid really is, I was a bit confused if Robbie Coltrane had to wear a fat suit to play him, I thought it was just some special effect thingy, also Hagrid's sofa is really big that if you sit on it, your feet wouldn't touch the ground. I had a really good time there. I wanted to get the wand but at S$75 a stick, I just couldn't. I was rather envious that there was an Indonesian mom who was getting it for her daughter on top of other goodies that the girl got. Indonesians are really rich *sigh*. As for the wands, Bellatrix's wand is the most unique one of all. The elder wand was beautiful. Out of the main characters, perhaps Hermione's wand was the nicest, it was the longest of the 3 if I'm not mistaken. I would most probably have chosen Snape's. It was black and cool and Snape is one of my favourite characters.
After that I went to Andy Warhol's exhibition which was of course colourful. My impression of Andy Warhol is that he's pretty hardworking and pretty contemplative and reflective in his works. It's like he saw more things than what's in front of him and he's always brought those things that he saw out, how else can you explain making things like a time capsule project. Alright, obviously I have very little knowledge about arts to make comments about it. I thought it was an interesting exhibition but I can't say I am a fan of his. His works made me feel uneasy, maybe it's the colours, maybe it's the composition but whatever it is, the more I see them the more they make me feel like I'm gonna get a nightmare. I guess, what I want to say is that we don't match :P I truly enjoyed the animal prints though, those were nice, I love those, really :) As always that happens when I get to experience things like this, I am thankful for the experience, to have had seen works of Andy Warhol :)
After which I went to Gardens by the Bay. By this time, I was already pretty tired. The whole compound is huge and in the heat of the daytime in Singapore when I was already tired, I wasn't interested to walk every mile of it. I think the weather will be the turn off for anyone to explore every part of the compound, it makes walking more tiring. So I kinda headed straight to the 2 conservatories or domes. Again, I have a resident discount for this one. Yesterday I really felt, that finally there's some benefit for being a resident of Singapore. I paid S$20 for the 2 conservatories. I didn't try the skyway because I believe I would be coming to this place more so I wasn't in a rush to try it. Now I saw that there's an individual annual pass for S$68, that is kinda really worth it! So anyway there are 2 domes, the cloud forest and flower dome. I started with the cloud forest and I was totally blown away when I got in. We were greeted with a waterfall! I remember thinking that Singapore did really good with this. It was really totally cool. To explore the cloud forest, you take the lift up and then make your way down on the path way that encirles the hill. I can imagine that my mom is gonna love it here. It was really totally cool. Afterwhich I went to the flower dome. I think the flower dome is bigger than the cloud forest. Here you are straight away greeted by the colourful landscape. I also think it's cool. By the way, both of the conservatories are literally cool so it's totally nice to be inside and get away from the humid hot outside weather. There were trees in the flower dome including the baobab trees which were rather small actually. The flowers were pretty. If I have any criticism is that there weren't much variety in the flowers. Well there were a lot but not like super a lot. In fact if you have gone to Singapore Garden Festivals, there weren't many things in the dome which are super unique. I do not know if this flower dome will have different flowers according to the seasons or such. It's just, don't count on finding tulips there or even sunflowers. There were roses but not numerously many. I don't think I see any lily. It was nice and pretty. I was blown away because such things exist in Singapore, the engineering of this project is truly quite a feat, and the concept of all of this is really unique but I don't think it beats places like the Keukenhof garden for example. The 2 places are different and it's not like one is better than the others though I will understand if someone like Keukenhof garden more. Overall, I think I was surprisingly more captivated by the cloud forest than the flower dome. To see the pictures, you can go here.
:) eKa @ 10:14:00 PM •
photos.
archives.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
• back to home