Sunday, September 7, 2008

venice

ok random flower photo i got at the peggy gunaheim museum. mrs tay wanted me to go so i went. i think i saw dynamics of a speeding horse+ house there by boticelli. @_@ i think!
ok last post of the whole trip! im skipping out milan since there is so little photos and we really didn't do much there. wanted to catch the last supper but er. you had to book 3 wks in advance. thats even longer than our decision to even go milan ahha! anyway we were there  less than 24 hrs so we didn't do much. so now onto venice!

anyway this is the take on the boat trip from the main island to venice island. yes they have a MAIN island. you can't possibly land a place on the small little island can you!
i like the second photo it had this ray of light shining out from behind the moody clouds thing. its kinda hallelujah moment!
the rest were just water, clouds and building. was cloudy that day so not much. though the water is green! not grey! im surprised.
random walk around venice we came across many stuff er shan't elaborate since i don't know much about them anyway. there is one of me and my family at the famous bridge ahha. i saw it on mr yaps wallpaper and realise we both went to venice during the holidays! i don't think it was at the same time. didn't ask.
anyway the night one may not be clear but basically there are drains to get the rain water of the island right? but cause it was raining so much and the tide was coming in that day, it ended up flooding the island from the bottom. as sea levels rise venice would one day be submerged under water. this is proof!
the second last photo was taken in this soap shop. yes i know it looks like candy but its not. the smell was kind of overwhelming afterawhile though. the last one shows a venice mask. over there in venice the masks are very popular! my mum bought one as a suvenier. another thing famous was their glass. though i didn't get to see the workshops i got a few glass fountain pen for me and dawn :) somehow i had a feeling she would like it.

and to those who wonder
do the houses really just over look water??!
i say this picture says it all :)
im surprised the water is still. green.
since i was htinking it was going to be all polluted and rank. then again if that was the case there weren't be any tourist would there!
haha row row row your boat gently down the sea!
 didn't sit on the. boats ( forgot the name) but oh well i walked all over the island so it's good.

barcelona

ok today we are off to barcelona. i mixed up the 2 days of photos since there werent any ont he first day. or much rather. sooo today we are going ot go back to some art cause well. barcelona has gaudi who is.. famous. sooo off to tourist attractions
i cant remember much about most of these historical things so excuse the lack of information
there are all of gaudi's art work. if you can't already tell he is an architect( lol huiling) and he designed and built all these houses. the first one is a huge monument that is still building to date. gaudi worked on it hile whole life but couldn't finish it. so the government has set orders to continue it's building. you can see construction sites all over the place.
the details are impeccable in there and its so detailed you really wonder why bother when its so high up and no one can see it!
there is this number plate thing where all the numbers in the highlighted row/column/arrangement add up to 33. i think its a christian thing, not sure of the significance but it is interesting!

in the garden, we actually had to climb a REALLY steep slope up. i'm talking 45 degrees and what not. thank god half way up they installed escalators! ( an advancement i noticed only in barcelona, not in paris) it was wonderful though. yay no more tired legs. i wanted to go the garden badly since it was a spot of many films the minute they went to barcelona. its iconic. the mosaic and the waves. i remember a season of america's next top model went there for their final runway. and i stood there! so cool! and i think the cheetah girl's had a movie scene there as well.
after that kind of walked around barcelona more. i relaise there are many wonderful buildings in the city which is quite amazing. they just suddenly pop out from nowhere. and bam there is this colourful building. even gaudi's buidlings were just smack int he middle of a busy area. im not sure who these are made by, but they are colourful!
this is the market and must i say it holds a large array of things from fruits ( tropical ones too!) to spices to gelato(ice cream) to seafood. you name it they got it. and all at reasonable prices. when i got to barcelona one thing i found was that their strawberries are. oh my god sinful sweet gems. they are literally so sweet its like you dipped them in sugar! plus they are sooooo much cheaper than those you get in singapore. and thats saying something what with the exchange rates.
at night we went to eat one of the top can't remember rank restraunts and had that rice seafood thing. its really yummy! every night my dad researched up the top ranking restraunts and we had our meals there ( freeinternet in hotel the joy) and the hotel had double decker bed and jaccuzi. soo haha its fun

lol next stop venice!


Saturday, September 6, 2008

bordeaux day 6


once again more flower pictures to start off this post! haha i think some have really gotten better. i particularly liek the purple flower and the red leaf:D the pink spiky thing is alot a cool plant. not a very good photo but a cool plant.

today we are off to more win tasting and the quaint little village like place of  st emilion. (read st-eh-mil-e-on) its a small little town tats on the outskirts of bordeux. once again view is.. oohlalala.
so off to all the wine tasting again
first place we went to was this guy who was really funny. D: he kept tricking me and my mum with magic tricks haha. i think its cause he has alot of kids so he does alot. its in this little house and we go to watch a video on wine making and what not.
after that went to this place where they had the wine all kept in caves. its quite cool, really cold and dark in the caves even though it was very nice and sunny outside. the place was over touristy though so we didn't get as much information out of the guide as the day before.(we didn't go as a tour group either so not much information in the first place)

after that went to the little town of st emillion. ( dont know how to spell again) we went to tour this underground church area where the people used to live. so under that whole town there is actually a whole underground world. really cool:D literally too!
 after that we went up to the bell tower and looked at the view from the top. was really cool since you could see the clean organisation of the quaint houses. its.. pratically a painting the organisation was really nice. and you could see the outskirts of the country side on the side. really was nice!

we also went there for another wine tour. this time its in this old guy's house. and its like this small little door which you go through and you realise the whole back of the house is huge! it was filled with antiqueish stuff, like those old wallpaper and stuff. really cool. then after tat we were kind of like where to next. we were lead down a steep staircase and into an underground cellar. after walking around you realise its huge @_@ i think it spreads to under his neighbours house! according to the guy the tunnels were made by the prisoners/soldier? during war and there were still some drawings on the wall to prove it. very very cool. he keeps wine in there which are like.. a million years old. i think i remember one 1800++ kind. thats way old. there is a photo where u can see mum and dad posing with a grimy old box with cobwebs. thats the one!
my year was a particularly bad year for them (1992) so all the wine during that time was really bad and cheap. haha! oh well so much for collecting your birthyear wine thing.

there was this guy selling his homemade cheese and he makes everyone try it. so we went to try too. it was really cool he just scraps off some from the surface with this cheese scraper thing and we get to eat flakes of cheese. its quite old and salty but quite nice. parents bought some back :)


 

bodeaux

better photo: http://julie-rc.deviantart.com/art/Play-with-clouds-92740635
1. some cool fountain beside the mirror water place.
 basically the rest are some shots i got of the mirror water. it is a photographers heaven la. too sad 1. i dun do model shoots. 2. i am bad at photography. yea. 
so oh well throw me there i just do my best ok? refer to the linkk for a better photo.
anyway basically there is a light layer of water on the surface, this water then reflects everything around it. its really cool!
so it looks like you are walking on water kind of.
there is one in there of a guy biking over the water. really cool! good thing i caught a photo of it!
i wish i had a bike to do that on!
the pictures are not in chronological order anymore cause its hard to structure them that way. so now its all going by types!
so these are some of the flower pics i took for the day!
1. just a daisy i plucked from the ground and put on a notebook
its a cliche idea and i didn't execute it well
sadly i only took one shot at it.. so here it is! 
2. some odd cute plant i found outside the garden of chateu malle, i think there were alot of bees around them
3. random flower in chateu god knows what.
4. this is.. like a fruit. it kind of looks liek custard apple but its not
its artkichoke (sp?) haha its like this.. leafy squishy slightly bitter mushy thing. you keep eating it here in france.. i think it was in season? anyway a plant we don't eat in singapore!
lunch at chateau-i cannot remember name. the one on the left is our main course
er.. i forgot to take a photo before i ate it. so there you go.
its chicken, i think it was grilled slightly and had this white awesome delicious heavenly sauce on it. i dont relaly care for the chicken. but the sauce. oh myyyy. me and dad requested for another serving of sauce! we are greeedy.
the one on the right is fraguar again. i think this one was quite nice. i liked the jammy thing on the side, can't remember what jam was it. i think it was fig and something.
its really sweet and nice.
all the above food are meant to be eaten together with specific wine. yes VERY SPECIFIC.
since i dont drink
i don't like taste of alcohol
i can't really tell you how well they go together. but they taste good themselves really. so i don't care!
another "photoshoot" with the above daisy. i like the contrast of the rough gravelly stone and the soft white daisy. with the hints of pink it really made a nice photo. i like this photo!
hence it gets its own upload.
random photos which were all portrait ahah!
anyway
1. this is the mirror fountain thingy, more on it below
2. just a pretty flower of the countryside outside one of the chateus.
the greenery is the long ros of vineyards. its everywhere!
tried out a 1/3 rule here. 1/3 white 1/3 green 1/3 blue sky!
3. i tried my best to take alot of alley shots in france. here is one ok them
edited to max drama and impact.
i think it looks really nice this way, slightly undersaturated and hue changed.
it has a certain eerie sadness to it.

and now onto the proper chateu photos!
1. me and my family outside chateu malle. most of the wine that we were to explore were called sautan or.. sumthing  that sounds phonetically like that.( french never ever spells phonetically damn.) we had gone on a wine tour and i got a discount since i don't drink. oh joy! i still get my good lunch!
2/4. inside one of the chateu. most of the chateu were lived in by important personels in history like generals and ministers. its kind of cool. the decor is still pretty much the same and has the old funky european style to it
3. the chateu malle wine. you can see its a really light yellow like. grainish colour. its supposedly a very sweet wine and all. lighter the colour the younger it is. see i learnt something too even though i didnt drink! ahha i like the colour though. its unique. there is another wine my parents kept drinking, called a rose with the ´. so its rose-eh. anyway its a pink wine! its not a specialty of the area so no photo, but its a market thing so.. just look for it in supermarkets i think?
5. vine yard again
6. mum and dad and statue outside chateu malle ( and if you are wondering why i remember the name of the chateu its cause all the photos have it written on top haha)
7. this is the cellar place thingy. they keep all the wine inside those barral for it to age and become drinkable.
glucose + yeast-----> alcohol!
yes thats a little chemistry for you. though i think this is not the part where you do the fermentation.
its really cold in there and smells like some horrible alcoholic :/
8. the guide/lady person tried to make me drink T_T
as u can see i was kinda URG but i had to just let her pour it for me
i smelt it tentatively and gave it to my parents.
they wanted it anyway
im being a filial daughter! 

well a much more condensed post since its taking far too long to post nowadays. an hour for each post is steep.
just a few more!

Friday, September 5, 2008

bordeaux day 5 trip

and off to bordeaux on the train we go!! bordeaux is read bor-door
took a really long time to figure out the tickets, but we made it!
that is the bullet train we are to take.
its a really smooth ride really, but sometimes it goes so fast you ears pop. its only then you realise how fast you really are going.
i like the train stations in paris
its always cold and drafty
maybe i'm not suited to live in singapore! i like the cold weather. cold is good!

on reaching there we got our own rented car and figured our way to the hotel
it was kind of off the highway and looked like some sort of old warehouse
no joke. add that with the fact it is surrounded with car showrooms
you really would think its  warehouse!
anyway the hotel is really new and hence we got a good deal out of it.
i was suppose to get this extra bed in the room
but there was some miscommunication and me and my mum and the lady at the reception ( she was the only one working that night! imagine how scary that is!)
so we 3 had to haul up mattress and all 2 floors up. it was kind of comical.. other than the fact we got locked out of our own room cuz my dad fell asleep when he was suppose to help us open the door! D<

well the bed was awesome to sleep on so i'm not complaining!
the poor lady, i hope they got more workers to work with her at night!
she had to run down the stairs for the phone every few minutes..

anyway before all that we went out to the countryside for a ride.
bordeaux is like a city with amazing rolling greens just off of the city.
i love how its just a few hours ride away! well dad had to pose with the magnum size wine there
oh did i mention we are in bordeaux for dad and his wine fetish, hence no more art talk but more of my nature shots now!

this is a classic chateu ( read cha as in chalet and teu as "tow") its basically big mansions which are really cool haha. i'll get more photos up on them when we go onto the next day and our chateu trips.

as promised here are all my plant photography
ass took when i was waiting to have dinner at one of the wonderful restraunts( and it was a pretty good deal for the food!)
anyway in order left to right up to down
1. its some hairy lookin weed that i though looked cute.. maybe if it had more water droplets it would have looked nicer, or i had a more contrasting backdrop, or i coudl control my damn focus!
2. leaf + water droplet= ying zhi and camera go kacheek
3. the grass had an awesome sun setting light on it, it probably looks kind of dull so small, but when i look at it at a rather large size it looks really nice! i think the light really brought out the bright greeness
4. those are actually baby grapes! yeap vineyards and strewn all across the countryside.
5.rose. they just grow quite naturally unlike in singapore! my mum says roses are grown near the grapes as they are really delicate plants. so when there is any disease the roses would show symptoms really easily and the disease can be curbed ASAP.
6.this is some weird bumpy leaf with alot of water droplets. my focus once again was horribly off, but i think ater cropping it it looks really interesting! its knobbly and drippy and all shiny.
7. sunset! this is the only few sunsets i grabbed. no slash tat my one chance in the whole trip. since the sun sets really late we always end up being indoors for dinner during that time! the sun sets are REALLLY long so its kind of an awesome waste i didnt get much of it. i blame my dad D:
8. this is some flowers which have like white hair growing on their green stems and inside its actually yellow. haha i think it just looks pretty..
the fooooood! presentations awesome
taste even better!
1. mum's rack of lamb i don't really like lamb, but its ok. its got that mint jelly thing dripped onto the side!
2. appetiser--- farguar(sp?) it is actually duck liver. yes abit yucky sounding but its actually very rich and creamy. carn stomach much cause it gets abit sickenign after you eat too much. its a specialty of france though! so a must try.
3. my duck! i swear the french cook duck like heaven. it was ammmmmmaazing. i loved every bite i took!
4. dads asparagus and some sort of mushroom? was it? soup.
no.. the soup was sumthing rather exotic.. wad it a flower? i can't remember now. i know its really tasty though! awesome yummyness
the white thigny on the side is this foamy thing.. i think this is the mushroom. i forgot. either way it was a very unique dish and yummy.

this is a sunset i took desperately out of the car window cause i though my dad wouldn't stop!
but in the end he did
but i like how the light reflected off the car side. its kinda nice!
accidental amazing shots.

ok so tats all for bordeaux first day! would be going more indepth for the other posts.