No Point

FUH, damn emo now. Suddenly feel like I am all alone. The night is dark and the corridor is quiet. Moments ago I was quite excited about something but now it has all gone. I can choose to take the path but I am still hesitating. I dunno if it's right. Arrggh... I am tired stucked in this course. Seeing others so happy and I am dunno what I am doing. If I've given a choice I might wana stop now. But of course my family will be very dissapointed with me. I don't have to mood to do all these anymore. Design, crits, photoshop, sketchup etc. I wana go somewhere. I wana find something to laugh. I wana go see other things. I wana find someone to shared my thoughts. Sometimes, life is hard. It's all a mess right now. I wish I can just lie down and continue my dream, and I don't wana wake up forever ='(

Mister Tan Potato

ABOUT a month ago, I contested in the " How People 'Eat A Chip like Kenny Sia' ". I normally don't take part in any contests or lucky draws. That is mainly because I am not so lucky to win anything and I don’t have the effort to send so many entries and write interesting slogans etc. =p

The potatoes family

I remember the last time I took part in a contest was during primary school time. It was a quite an easy contest. Just answer two easy questions and complete a slogan. The winners will get to board the Superstar Vigro for X days X nights. That time I was very much into Star Cruises (and I am still right now hehe) so I tried to send in AN entry. Unfortunately luck wasn’t on my side then. Or maybe I didn’t send enough entries. Or maybe my primary school standard slogan wasn’t interesting enough. Maybe.. Haha..

So anyway, back to this Mister Potato contest, what we had to do was to take a photo of somebody/something eating the Mister Potato chips in an interesting and out of expected way. It has to be creative and funny. That's all.

Lame

The winner would get to travel to Bangkok with Kenny Sia and the trip is all paid by Mister Potato, worth up to RM5000!!! Who wouldn’t want that?!

And the rules of the contest were very simple:

1) No slogans. (I hate slogans).
2) Opened to Singaporeans and Malaysians (Yup I was born in here)
4) Just take photos (I have a camera and a tripod)
5) Get a Mister Potato (Not a problem)

And, I had the free time for it...

Me and potatoes

I’ve taken some photos, filtered and then selected some. Hmm, basically my message was to tell that the chips are so yummy and crunchy, I would like the potatoes to taste it themselves.

It was not until a few days ago kennysia.com has finally announce the winner. And compared to the rest of the entries, mine is like a cheapskate one. Totally not creative at all.

Some of the photos others had submitted:

Tortoise

The expression is very kennysia

I didn't know can use photoshop

Erm, where's the chip?

I wish I was at the bottom

Pity the boy

Nutcase!!

And my entry :

-_-'

Try again next time lah. Free Bangkok trip gone...

Old and New Penang

Day 3

Yesterday was our last day in Penang. We have taken enough photos of the day before and assumed that everything has been done for the site. It was time to go around the town for sight-seeing and visiting some art galleries.

First we went to Carnarvon street in the morning and came to a market street. Chin Keng, Choon Wah and I stopped for a tau foo far break. God! It was cheap. Only 60 cents!!

The market street

Then we continued to Armenien street and we bumped into a building that we were looking for two days earlier. It is the residential house of Dr Sun Yat Sen when he came to Penang for a revolution. Many tourists including the President of People's Republic of China, Hu Jintao had came to visit the house, which now owned by Madam Khoo.

There are many movies about Dr Sun but I don’t really know much about him. I’m bad in History. Was he the one who united the people of China, and also the Chinese in Malaysia and Singapore as well? Please correct me if I’m wrong.

Heritage trail

Inside Dr Sun's house

Next to Dr Sun's house is an art gallery. There are many showpieces of great artist in Malaysia. Most of the works are in oil paint and water colour. Visiting the gallery could be useful to our current design project.

Thankfully the owner of the gallery, My Koay Soo Kau was kind enough to show us around and spent time explaining us ART. Many of them are abstract drawings and since my colouring (especially water colour) sucks badly, I didn’t comment much on the drawings. Hehe.

This is the gallery house

Gallery Seri Mutiara

Group photo with My Koay

The Islamic musem beside

Playing with the stone path

Passed by a chinese temple

Next we walked around the area and went to the famous Khoo Kongsi place at Lorong Cannon. It was my first time visiting such place and it is somewhere hidden in the houses along the street. Once we were inside, there was a big courtyard, a temple and a performing stage. This was where all the Khoo families gathered and stayed together at one time ago.

Other than Khoo family, there are also other kongsi such as the Yap and Lim around the area.

Walking

Entering the Khoo Kongsi

The are houses behind the row of houses

The temple

Inside

Drawings on the wall

The opera theatre stage opposite

Happy me with sad monk

Sad me with happy monk

After wondering around the historical area of Penang, it was time for a little shopping. Hehe. We headed to the RapidPenang terminal at the jetty and boarded bus 307 straight to Queensbay Mall.

Bus terminal

My first impression of the mall was, "OMG! It looks so much like MidValley."

Queensbay Mall

Suddenly I felt like I was back in KL. As it was Saturday, the mall was FULL of people; students, families, couples. A total different world from where we went for the past two days. And as for lunch we tried something ‘present’ - the Nando’s.

Macam MidValley Center Court

A car fair going on

Asrof and Veelai

Nothing special to buy and see there. Just like a typical mall in KL. Oh, the only thing I’ve never seen before is the inline skating at the top of the mall.

CW and CK in Nando's

The inline skating ring

When we were about to leave the mall back to town, RapidPenang really gave us a hard time. First, the bus frequency was so damn long! And not many buses go back to town. We had to wait for like an hour to get to a bus which goes to KOMTAR. And when the bus arrived, the people just rushed forward and cramped like sardine fishes. Till when la, only we can be civilized?!

Inside Rapid

Saw this in Burma road. The same thing in Bukit Bintang

Back to the guest house, we all bathed (separately) and prepared for dinner. As it was quite late already, I don’t think we would ever make it to Bon Odori at the Esplanade. Plus everyone was so tired already. Chin Keng, Choon Wah and I went to the street stalls nearby and the rest of them went to eat pizza at other place.

We checked out the Banana Guest House at 10pm and it was time to depart. Gonna miss all the food here. Sad...

My Penang Site

Pulau Pinang

TODAY we went to our site for the first studio project. It is located opposite the Northam Hotel somewhere nearby Gurney. Before that Chin Keng, Choon Wah and I went to the Jabatan Ukur dan Pemetaan Malaysia in KOMTAR tower to get te Certified Plan (CP) of our site. This will make things easier for our site analysis and we don't have to take the trouble measuring the whole site.

Coincidencely, we met with one of our ex-senior, Sam in the office. He is currently working in a firm in Penang with a salary range from RM1000+ to RM2000. He didn't want to specify the exact figure.

Taking pics around

The landmark of Penang

Jalan Penang

At the front of our guest house we managed to get a mini-RapidPenang bus to KOMTAR and it was so cute. I normally see this kind of bus only in the Hong Kong dramas.

Cute Rapid

Inside it

KOMTAR is looks like an abandoned shopping mall to me. Something just not right there. I think a makeover is very much needed for the mall. I came here during my standard six school trip. And it still look the same, with only lesser people now.

We wanted go up to the scenic floor where we can view the whole Penang Island from the top of the tower but they are charging for RM15 per person. So no thanks! I will just see from the Google Earth and that will be enough already. =)

The mall in KOMTAR

Emptiness

Also, today we went to visit the Thai Buddhist Temple in Lorong Burna where there lies a huge Sleeping Buddha.

Before reaching the temple

Look, the temple is now behind me!

I have memories taking photos here when I was young

The Burmese temple at just the opposite

Finally, after miles of walking, and stopping by for breaks and meal, we've reached our site. It is basically an empty lot stragically located at the corner to the road. And one great thing about our site is that it is facing the sea.

For this project, we are required to design an international arts school with a medium-rise requirement. Many things have to be considered now. The building services, syntesis of the site, proposal to the surrounding environment etc. Only one design project for this semester. I guess it's not gonna be so easy.

This is the street

..of our site

The empty and vacant lot

At the back of it

Ken Yeang's building across the site

"See that?"

Chin Keng and Choon Wah

Doing some study

Having a small hokkien chat with local guy

Ujang and the rest joined in

Ryan and Balut at the seaside

This pakcik was trying to catch worms

Somebody left this?

After spending enough time under the hot sun, we've decided to head back to our hotel. We waited at the bus stop for so long and never appeared any buses therefore in the end we walked back. The 3.6km journey from Gurney back to Chulia street took about 30 mins. Super tired when reached back to room!!!

Some photos taken while on the way back:

The Wawasan Open University

An art deco-style house

A haunted school

Finally back to Chulia

An Odeon cinema is just right there

However, I can't jump onto the bed straight away as I had to meet with Pauline and Yuen Cheong later at night. I took a RapidPenang bus to Gurney drive where we met for dinner. And later on, I showed them to my territory in Chulia Street and we continued eating here. Haha. In Penang, everywhere is food. I'll post about it next, hopefully.

End of day 2.