(Pre) Birthday Dinner with relatives

We had dinner with Stephen's family, my favorite (and only) relatives in Hong Kong on the day before my birthday. Stephen is two days older than I am. So we chose to celebrate our dinner together on the day in between our birthdays!! (I am sure it's Stephen's idea~ ^o^ )

We went to Peking Garden Restaurant in Central. They specialized in Peking Duck dishes. We ordered 3 duck dishes: Peking duck with buns, stir-fry duck meat in lettuce wrap and a yummy, luxurious duck soup. Besides the duck, we also had a so-so veggie dish, two orders of steamed "small dragon dumplings" (because it's Mike's favorite), and a banana-red bean pastry dessert (yea, dessert!! dessert!!!)

All the duck dishes were excellent. Even Mike, the (pretending) vegetarian ate lots of yummy duck that night~ =) I think that must have been the most meat I've seen him eaten besides burger!! ^_^ (Right, Mike?)

Stephen, Winnie (the happy couple) and me. =)

Winnie just came back from Mexico that morning. Poor Winnie - she must be very tired that night. She told us lots of exciting things she saw in Mexico though. The funniest thing was how she liked the Taco Bell's Mexican food more than the authentic Mexican food she tried in Mexico. hahaha.... Mike couldn't stop laughing....

It's always fun to see my favorite cousins' family!!!

T-shirt? Tea-shirt!!

One of Mike's best friends, Andy (or should I say "Dr. P"? haha... --> Sorry, insider-jokes) , submitted a T-shirt design to CafePress and it's open for sale now.


Black

Pink

Cap-sleeve!!


Get it?! T-Shirt --> TEA-Shirt!!!!
I thought it's really funny and clever!!
(^_~)/

Picture books for adult - Jimmy Liao's Gallery

When you hear about the word "picture books", what does it make you think of? Many people might immediately think of children stories, kid books, and the like. However, if you have seen Jimmy Liao's (幾米) books, I'm sure you will have another level of appreciation of picture books.

(Well... either that or if you have watched the Japanese anime "Monster", which will also make you interpret "picture books" at a different level... but not quite in the same way.... more like on the crappy side.... )

Jimmy Liao (幾米)

For those who don't know who Jimmy Liao is - he was from Taiwan and is probably one of the most famous Asian contemporary adult picture book artists who creates illustrated books with simple stories about people coping in the modern urban world. His books have become hot sellers in Taipei, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Seoul, Shanghai and Singapore.

His gallery "Never Ending Story" is being hosted at Times Square this month. As "curious" as I am (and also having the geographical advantage of living so close-by), of course I'll go check out the gallery immediately after I found out about it! =)

The gallery itself is being hosted at the 2nd floor open plaza area in Times Square.

I dragged Mike together with me to go. ;)

Cameras are not allowed in the actual gallery; however, we cheated - Mike took pictures of gallery from the floor above (upon my request, hehe...)

Though I am not super fan of Jimmy Liao, I generally like his stories and illustration.

His stories are simplistic but powerful and also leave a pleasant aftertaste.

To me, reading his stories and seeing his art is like drinking a cup of good hot tea, light and flavorful.

Statues of Characters

In addition to the picture gallery inside Times Square, there are also a bunch of stone statues of Jimmy's characters on display in the outdoor area.

Unlike the picture gallery, photography is very welcome for this part.

Lots of people are taking pictures of the various statues.

I of course will take full advantage of that !! \^o^/

The little boy holding the snake looks so sad.... I just want to tell him it's going to be alright....

Big hug from me too!!!

Apparently, in Jimmy Liao's world, people and animals are one big family, and he's also a strong advocate of loving hugs!!

I want a "hat" like this!! =p

This "hat" is not bad either!!! haha~

Me, communicating with the little piggy. (well... may be not THAT little....)

Aiya... got "found out" about my "special ability"!! haha~

Mike was playing with the camera focus and depth of field - this one turned out pretty nicely!! I like it!! ^_^

I got a lot of "camera time" today!! =D ~hohoho~

Refabricating City (Part II) - The Exhibits

Picking up from my previous post about the Hong Kong & Shenzen Biennale of Urbanism/Architecture Exhibition, we took a leisure stroll at the exhibition site, the former Central Police Station, that night and saw a lot of interesting display. Even though we stayed there until the last minute before the exhibition closed for the night, we still ran out of time to go through the entire thing =(

Anyways, let me show you some of the exhibits that I found interesting...

The Exhibits

Buildings and neighborhoods cut out of wood, cardboard and other materials; displays of model cities

Story of how an architecture is born...

Mike got lost among the photograph racks...

Dark room with hanging.... magazines?!

How architecture has evolved.... from this.....

to this......

From Rooms to Rooms...

Almost all of the rooms in the compounds were used for the exhibition. People toured from rooms to rooms.

Stepping outside from the rooms, you can easily see the open area outside and the giant LCD screen right next to the stage at the front.

Special lighting effect, in preparation for the party held on the closing night!

Tools used to create the magical light effect!! Pretty "heavy-duty-looking", ain't them?

Behind the stage.

Walking through the hallway, going to the next room....

Vertical Park

Novel idea of a "Vertical Park"

Main idea is to fully utilize the distinct characteristics of a High zone, Mid zone and Low zone in a mountain area and turns it into a park that spans vertically.

Very cool and ingenious idea!!

More Urban Architecture...

Whoo... the "mirror" room!!

The reflection from the mirror created such an interesting perspective.

Oh, Hi There!! ^o^

Oh my gosh~ Mike's larger-than-normal eyes looked exactly like the alien's eyes on his shirt!!!

The Tree City

Recycling Art

Pullable rack containing various recyclable materials

Plastic bottles...

Paper, paper bags....

Sea of green labels...

The Balloon Tent

An elongated tent built with balloon materials....

What's there?!

This is what I would call a "Photographer's stance" (hohohoho.... )

Another mirror?!!

Next building....

There are many buildings in the compounds. After seeing stuff at the first building, we moved on to the next one.

Corridor to the next building

A very old, rusty metal door...

Apparently the male changing room used to locate on this building!

And the female changing room too!! Wait a second... why doesn't it have a proper sign like the guy's one?!?!

Old style of fan switches!! So... historic!!

Old style clothes rack, and also, the "Save electricity" label on the wall.

Warnings left from the former police station.

Central Divisional Common Room. Wondering what facilities used to be in this room?

The Airport Exhibit

This exhibit was all about the history, info and future plans of the Hong Kong airport.

Look at all the paper planes hang from the ceiling!!

Gigantic model in the middle of the room, showing the area around the old airport.

Mike stole the DSLR from me and was busy taking pictures of the model.

Even the little kid was attracted by the huge city model.

I was busy reading the background info of the airport.

Since Mike "borrowed" the DSLR, I was stuck with the point-and-shoot for awhile.

Hehe... finally swapped the DSLR back and returned the little point-and-shoot to him!

The paper planes were so pretty!!

Black and White Poster Section

This room was filled with tons of black and white designed posters. Most of them had a satire theme.

I like the way they arranged the poster boards.

DisneyLand? or DizzyLand?

A map of overly-overlapping metro routes and the poor, confused guy in the middle.

Kowloon King's graffiti, the artistic version?!

The happy panda!!!

Chinese chess board, divided by Vic Kong (Victoria Harbor's Chinese short name), Hong Kong

"Hong Kong Mountain, Hong Kong Sea" - built (or destroyed?) by the cranks...

Mike said he really liked the last one!

Exhibit from Brussels

Besides local and mainland-China designers/architects, the exhibition also featured a bunch of international artist's works, including this one, from Brussels.

The goal is to relieve the heavy traffic in Brussels city center. The idea is to create this kind of small, golf-car like vehicles and only allows traveling by this kind of vehicles in the city center, i.e. no normal cars allowed!

The idea sounds crazy but I thought it is interesting.

Though I bet it's close to impossible to actually implement it.

This one design was from a Japanese architect. (sorry, didn't read the details for this one)

Broken Keyboards

Going up the stair, we surfed around the third floor as well...

And we found in this room .....

Sea of old keyboards!!!

A very shocking scene (to me at least...)

Could help but crouch down to take close-up pictures of the old, broken keyboards...

I guess something does have to be sacrifice when we go "urban"....

Another "demolition" art!!

Accidental Urbanism

How modern architecture is shaped by urban forces instead of just purely stylistic approach.

Models created based on refabrication through strategy and urbanism.

Looks pretty "urban" to me.

Jumping to Modern Abstract Art

Walls of bags, handbags, purses..... Made me think of "The Evil who Wears Prada".... haha...

Walls of T-Shirts.

"To be Confirmed" Exhibit

The title of the exhibit was really cool...

Graveyard of the "unconfirmation"?!

More Abstract Art

Contemporary Chinese Architecture

I really enjoyed this part too. They showed many cool-looking contemporary Chinese architecture on the interwoven photography strips.

Mike reading closely the poster board on the floor with embedded LCD TV!

Shortly after he lost interest in reading, he found another "him"!! =)

And don't ask me what was I doing at that time!!!

You could see/smell/feel the "historical values" of the police station compound... I was very glad that I got to see the exhibition and the building itself!!

Time to Leave

We spent lots of time looking at each individual exhibit, so we ended up running out of time and didn't even get to see the closed Victoria prison =( That's my biggest regret!! Oh well....

Glimpse of outside from inside.

What a peaceful night and pretty sight!!

Reflection of the buddies returning home...