火爐

The sun shone through the dark blue clouds from a low angle, lighting up only the spires and stone houses but not the hills behind. Scotland is strangely a lot more beautiful, peaceful and familiar than I remembered. Especially the highlands, so calm, all the rivers and castles. Travelling, the airport, picking a book, falling asleep before the safety demonstration, the nice people who helped me through the journey...

apart from my magical community in niigata, here's another mysterious network, of old British families, half term holidays in the estates with hand-painted wallpaper and all those. We visited a family friend's home, also a Cambridge grad, from the same faculty, but some forty years ago. They are a musical family, in fact, they have their own organ at home...We have fresh flowers in the bedroom, and finished reading the book while having a bath, strange mix of fiction and reality, of the conversation about the family friend's son, and my host dad's brother, who both sort of got mental issues while in Cambridge, 'problems with being too smart' they say, exactly what happened to the character in the book I bought this morning committed suicide while he was in cambridge. it's difficult to describe how beautiful the Scottish estates are, imagine Mr Darcy's estate in Pride and Prejudice

time to paint

今天在小巴上看到妹妹(狗)跟爺爺散步，落車後跑返上山找她，真是可愛的肥狗.晚上獨留家中，又凍了，但凍也好呀， 家中從日落到現在都很寧靜,天空由紅變紫變灰藍，現在漆黑一片的海上有很多小船經過，手冷得冰了。在聽BBC Radio-令我勁掛住英國, Edinburgh & London. Oh no! BA is doing promotion! 行きたい！みなさんは、いきたいですか？冬天吃湯感覺很暖暖。近日努力摺，要過健康點的生活。今天早上在温暖的太陽中跟小朋友看Eric Carle的故事。很喜歡平日每天早上都要坐船 : )

winter with mulled wine

 原來我們 曾經是這樣的

今天上山時看到小路牌上的mulled wine。想起聖誕節真的快到了，夜幕低垂，中環晚燈漸漸亮起,很多人都在Centrium四邊的空中花園吃晚餐, 香港的好餐廳真算不少，只是太熟悉的環境，少了在異國那份驚喜感動。在繁忙的城市，很需要自已一個人的時間。還是回家跟我最錫的hedgy bebe +blackie bebe 教大家自己整mulled wine. 煮mulled wine, 令我想起Quartermile 的廚房 :P 感謝畫筆從來給我的安慰,白色聖誕,就如走進黄色大門般,垂手可得.聽說，幻想是免費的。
對，現在我們還在整mulled wine，紅酒，cinnamon sticks, 八角,丁香,月桂,蜜糖 etc. etc. 明天再upload recipe 好嗎?現在我們要煮熱來喝了。看看相，只喝剩一口。為什麼余小姐還在吃月餅，我已經喝聖誕酒，我們都錯了！
cinnamon is the spice of my life!

hello. architect. imagine. yesterday. islands. ?

so cool nee phoebe jei jei architect. 

add oil - study archi so not easy! Especially being aboard alone. but seems like you are doing very well nee. Wish I could see your crit too! 

and me ley, I'm translating some architecture paragraphs at the moment.... long way to go...
p.s. you took the pic yourself?? You're maoshan mey??

Don't leave us please!

Had a lot a lot of experience of being sent off to the airport, but this is the first time I really see a very good friend off at the airport. I still know the whole route very vividly, it starts from a few days or even weeks before leaving, the whole anxiety and counting down, the feeling of having to go back to a boring and lonely place all alone, away from the beautiful and loving home... and feel as if it's difficult for those who aren't leaving to feel that unhappiness. Sometimes the tears of after going through immigration - the realization before take off, and then to the bright sunshine and cool air when arriving at London/Paris and the reality faced at Edinburgh. Even worse when it's winter... 

But this time, I actually experience the other side of the whole thing, which in fact is very sad too! HK without you is wrong, I guess it's even more so for tso jei jei, as she has to face a lot on her own... all the work... I guess it must be very difficult for her without you! ... can you come back? 

Last day in Edinburgh

最後一日在丁丁，Phoebe 已經去左機場喇，淨返我一個要等到五點，好唔慣呀－因為最多通常都係我走左去旅行嘛，而家好怪咁呀。昨天早上跟爸媽去了Deborah 在鄉村Duns的家裏，她的花園靚到丫..... 佢爸爸媽媽都係architect 來的。我地都好想去住下，不過我屋企人要返香港喇。

(點解你要咁低b樣呀?）

而我呢就同Kitty 去Scottish Museum 屋頂的Tower Restaurant tea，我地終於試到喇。跟住去搵Phoebe 同佢爸爸媽媽食日本野，係Tang's呀，應該係做學生的最後一次了!!老闆仔都問點解我地咁耐無去呀，呢個陪左我地過無數凍凍艱苦時刻gey溫暖小店，雖然唔係話特別好食，但係細細間好親切咁。諗起好多外面天黑黑，躲在裏面電暖爐旁，想着明天要crit的晚上....仲要我地兩個都好病，老闆仔一定覺得我地不可思議

夜晚我地同所有Architecture Chinese 飲野，行返屋企o個段路，天開始黑.... 好似我地以前無數個walk咁

點解會咁ga，淨返我一個就會覺得nostalgic... 仲有大把野要trash. 希望返到香港o個晚真係會出lai玩啦, hahahahahaha, 記得人地都話我貪玩，哈哈 : )

iphone 4

今日專程坐火車去Glasgow Apple Shop! 但去到好長queue 同都無晒喇。所以明天清晨六點出發，再去過！ 好野呀，好開心呀，不如我轉跟Apple 啦，好想換，但我一定係會等－下個月－白色，靚幾十萬倍呀！

又shopping 咩boss? 

買唔到iphone 變左買錶買鞋咩...... 

坐火車好開心，好舒服，明天可以買早餐上車吃！

返丁丁食左經典kebab，kitty 返左黎喇!!o係phoebe 房短敍 ;)

明天早上，蘋果店見

習慣離別 (1)

呀，點講呢，由邊度講起呢。剛剛在雨中走路回家，沒穿厚衣沒打傘，是丁丁經典的雨灑在厚厚的葉上，整個草原空無一人，漆黑中坐在房裏，只有桌前的小燈，累得很，卻感到說不出的安靜。

Third year 各散東西前吃過一頓飯，今天找回這夥人再來一次，雖不齊人但依然開心。想不到這樣就過了四年，那些形式上的最後或不最後/畢業禮/ Grad Din etc. 從來都不是my cup of tea, 最重要係那四年來開心過, 成長過, 享受過, 即係愛過活過啦。

很想要多點寧靜，又再一次有這樣的desire. 我知道，常常都有， 這刻我擁有了，但仍希望會有更多更多。我愛的，我想要的，從漫天花香到別的，都很期待，期待可以繼續追尋。

今天晚飯，很din，很multinational, 叫到喉嚨痛,聽到大家的未來, 打從心底為所有人感到高興! 有的會跟喜歡的人以後都一起；有的會繼續尋找適合自已的生活；也有會到UWC教書的！真好，正如我blog 話，唔知點解life's so good, 唔知點解我地個個星期做兩個鐘design 都高分過舊同屋二十四小時做的幾十分，唔係串，只係話呢，都係一齊做多d開心事好，成日諗,人生每個moment 都unique ga ma, 每個今日都只得一次，所以一定要係過得好。
不過美中不足啦...

Canvas that work!

Painted last night at phoebe's room, with mei mei and "big five" & their "baby" - www.katetsui.hk 's membership card! wowowo.Yet, I intended it to be a clock, the membership card will be replaced by the hands of a clock : ) 

Phoebe please, fai d paint, it's your turn! fai d! 

Ah yes, it's based on a starbugs cup phoebe made for Kate last year, but now it's with patterns of cupcakes, bB, and big five! 

Sun. shine. on. me (4/infinity : )

Life's so : ) 

esp when the sun is shining on the green soft grass and the budding flowers all over meadows. 

Have to speed up in model-building

Sun. shine. on. me (3/infinity : )

Visiting artist studio again, we all liked this one a lot, with SO MANY pastels.........
I love the Germany bakery, matthew pointed out it's not called BAKERY, something like Konditioner..... hmm
hahaha
PRetty sunday, can't wait to go out : )

Brioche, Mao mao love, sunshine

The coming Friday is the infamous interim crit, to have a stress-free crit week, I must start pre-planning my schedule.

[Recollection] 

The past week was ... very packed

Weekend away, Chinese New Year celebrations x 4, Skiing, Isabel visiting, visited a prettier artist studio in Edinburgh, finished posters for Ellie and her Vice-president campaign. dog walked twice : ) 
CNY @ host family home; Jap dinner + Outsider's; Outsider lunch (HK arch); Tron (post-ski); German Konditorei and Backerei; Glass and Thompson...... Let's welcome pre-easter new healthy plan! 

[On Gallery]

One of my favourite little gallery in Edinburgh accept work submission, one of my c hing lol in Edinburgh draw really pretty line drawings (even my professor's archi firm use his design as the logo) and he sell his art pieces, prints and badges, and postcards there too. 

[Interim Review] 

My recent photo updates has stirred up some random guessing among my coursemates, they always complain about not having to do anything apart from work...... so nowadays, when they see me, they usually ask things like "Are you planning to be an artist?" or.... " Do you go away every weekend?" (My friend randomly flies back to HK or sth sometimes, so we both give off this wrong impression) Nevertheless, we are going to be ging in this interim crit (well at least will try to! shineee) yay! 


[Coming week]
Chinese New Year week = ate out way too much! So let's follow the lent 40 days tradition, and start a real big new healthy plan! MUST! So now I must go out for a jog for some sunshine and fresh air, before I come home again. for the other half of my lunch. 

Maoshan's not an architect

I have received an architectural compliment today isn't it weird! (if you could call it that)

Today, I walked into tutorial, with my beautiful, all white, minimalist model. and my sketchbook. Before I said anything, my tutor introduced me to the other two guest tutors as "the Sejima of the class!" 

Note: Sejima together with Ryue Nishizawa forms SANAA, my architectural idol! who have designed the Naoshima Marine Port, Kanazawa 21st Century Museum, The Serpentine Pavilion in London etc....

sun. shine. on. me

This morning, I saw myself in the mirror, and thought, how insignificant I am, among the 6,800,000,000 population in the world, each with their own dreams and uniqueness. But on a second thought, MAYBE.... it's not that bad, because there's only one, single, me, special me. 
There was another special encounter this morning, through a very cute baby, chatted with a beautiful Music Professor at Pyard. Off to Dean Gallery and the Scottish Contemporary Art Gallery now, I don't even know why I am going there, maybe the sunshine the river and the landscape? Hope it'd be nice : ) 
Shall I get you, Issey Miyake? 

Daffodil, lavender, sunshine and lemon

Guilt. This was where my sadness branched from. Even though I have all the reasons to justify my act. 

Most of my group mates worked overnight in the studio, although this is only the first review. totally unnecessary. People always love to exaggerate on workload instead of working efficiently. I see no correlation between the number of working hours and the amount of work produced.

So naturally I didn't join them both last night and this morning, as I find it totally pointless and wasting my youth, (also other reasons, like their lack of punctuality) 

I love the team spirit of working overnight together, complaining etc. but NO. 休想

Note: the photo consists of a lot of sugar, readers are encouraged against physical consumption, enjoy it visually instead. 


Anyways, today would have been one of my prototypical perfect day, apart from the the overhanging cloud casted by the unjustified guilt


Warm sunshine shone on my face all morning, half-conscious at 7 am = my most productive time of the day
Received an email from the Children's book artist's assistant I worked for in Japan, they will write me a reference letter AND will be exhibiting in Paris on 19th March, 2010; (my final crit is on 17th March) meaning I will GO TO PARIS AND MEET THEM! 
SO this morning, there was a baby black labrador outside Peter's yard, waiting for her owner, she (the dog) got so excited during our brief chat , but started leaning on me once calmed down... that's how baby girl dogs are like.


Later on, a very pretty girl, that looked totally French with huge eyes and tall nose started chatting with me, she's German, doing Phd here in Edinburgh on the *History of the Book* lol, she worked in a Children's Publisher for TWO years in Germany before coming there.


Had Bean + potato soup for lunch; Went back to studio, had lecture; viewing the castle at the calming outsider; had Beetroot coleslaw and bread as dinner; then YOGA! yayayayaya YOGA! 


Dissertation, no conclusion. 
sleep early wake early! 

Punctuated. breathe.

Had another extremely wonderful afternoon in Peter's Yard, it's becoming addictive, and I badly need to sleep early. As I really wanna have early breakfast there before the sky brightens, they open at 7 am. I love the people there too, they genuinely wanna be friends with you, not just some marketing tactics. We went to Starbucks first, then got so suffocated and moved to Peter's Yard, loved the airiness and serenity there, a very carefully curated interior marked with sophisticated sense of materiality. 


Anyways, I really wanted to sleep really early tonight, but it's midnight already, it's precisely when I push myself to sleep, I counter-convince myself with concrete work to prove that I am still up for a reason! I don't understand this!
So probably this is one of the evenings that I have done the largest amount of work: which is - wrote three formal emails - to further facilitate my formal endeavors in the coming months.


Anyways, badly need a to-do list, even though since LPC, I know so well that to-do list is purely a list, like Angel (Cheung) and I both concluded, the process of listing is sort of comforting, it's a obsessive compulsive act.... But we never look back onto that particular list as we move on...


1. Sleep
2. Have Breakfast
3. Read my very interesting book for my very interesting essay
4. Draw a postcard and write the Japanese words on it, and mail it
5. Meet Stuart
6. Write traveloguesssssss for magazine! 
7. Illustrate my stories
8. Plan my graduation trip
9. Do design project? 
10. Finish my meaningless application
11. I still haven't decided whether to keep my dress, help...
12. Find out the address


the list goes on, dun underestimate those trivial items


Tomorrow will be a long day..... 
I guess I need yoga to calm myself down, focus just on breathing, and fall asleep now. 

Dance like nobody's watching!

Tell me, who would not love contemporary dance?


Contemporary dance classes at dance base has started three weeks already, but this was the FIRST time I went, there must be sth wrong with me! Remember in the past, I always struggled whether to go or not, as it's on THURSDAY night (night before tutorial/crit) at 20:30, way too late in my standard. But what always motivated me to go - was the memory of the amazing feeling after each class! 



Dance to me is like painting to (unnamed person who is still sleeping, therefore still need to ask for approval)


"I wanna paint. But without you, my motivation is not high enough, (...) it never occurs to me that I will be interested in painting. I think it is even better than writing. Usually, when I write, I am in really bad mood or confusion, as I write, I pour out all my thoughts in head. Sometimes it is painstaking. You have to confornt all the evils in your heart and you feel drained. I think painting, like what Blink said, is happened behind the locked door. You just let mind lead you. You are so focus/blank out on each move. No constraint. No need to worry about the handwriting, grammar, try to descibe something you simply dun understanding to reach a comfortable conclusion to console yourself." 


I guess that's how dancing is to me, so free, so emotional, full of expressions free of grammar. I love painting too, unluckily I must say, it probably does have some grammar to me, can't reach that state of totally carefreeness. 


I was thinking to myself, I wish I could come dance every night! Yes, even though I love yoga to the bits too, but don't be mistaken, I don't love everything! There are other kinda dances I have tried before that I very dislike, but thanks to Niki who recommended Contemporary dance to me! She said it'd suit me, and I totally see why. 


Contemporary dance is sometimes ground hugging, and high-reaching, personally I find it resemble yoga moves. But best of all, it's full of freedom to express. It's exciting. Often half way through the class, we line up in one corner, and walk diagonally towards the other corner, then start adding movesss, then forming a dance, in pairs. two by two, together with LIVE music. So cool ! like a catwalk! 


The whole room is like a nursery classroom :P fill with laughter, mistakes, tripping over, jumping, music, simple simple joys.................. instantly back to childhood

Food for this week

One piece of news that got on Yahoo!US this week was about a mom who managed to half her family's annual grocery bill by planning dinner ahead for a YEAR!

I don't think I could do that, but I very much want to plan ahead for a whole week as well, instead of wandering endlessly in supermarkets, kept getting distracted, and bought things home but couldn't finish eating them! Also last week, wasn't the best, in terms of my healthy life plan, have space to improve, so today, I did food shopping for the whole week. I never knew that could happen to me, cuz I always wanted to just follow my heart, eat what I wanna eat that day, which is pretty wrong. End up spending more, and eating something not as good. Now though, I realize it's possible for me to follow plans : )

Still need to get 小白菜，帆立貝和魚。明天早上去買魚。明天下午去Glasgow. 冬天，煲湯好呢。

(the food in the pic is mainly mine, not that much really, even though it seems a lot hahaha, but I often cook for Phoebe as well : )

Lots of delicious healthy meals : )

買魚 Best fishes in Edinburgh

Eddie's Seafood Market 強記 - An amazing miniature market, hidden in Marchmont, operated by a Hong Kong family from Aberdeen (the one in HK), since 1986, and with long queues outside their shop everyday!

This is my parents' favourite shop in Edinburgh :P

Maoshan - ms. nutritionist says you should at least eat fishes twice a week ;)

They have an overwhelming variety of seafood - mussels, exotic live big lobsters in the tank, crab, cod, salmon, scallops, haddocks, tuna, swordfishes, yellow trevally... all looking very very fresh and cut to size. Some people complain about the staff's influent English, but no worries for us, and in the end they are just really friendly and wonderful and typical HK people lol.

I especially love their adorable website. One page has a picture that says "What a variety.. can you name them? Come and visit... Bring the kids!" Don't you think it's sweet? One more word on their website, it has no opening hours and map... but it's so sweet and adorable, their not-the-best English + cute captions + pictures and even a page on their employees, totally show their genuineness!

A content spirit

Again, green tea over Chinese education and politics, cities, Naoshima Zen, nutrition, yoga, French movies, literature.......

This looks like something that would appear in a British girls school's brochure, one that a lot of Chinese secondary school girls flips with admiration and hope. Typically in those pictures, girls sit casually on the carpet of the common room, but wears relatively elegant clothes, or their very English uniforms.

Anyways, last night was amazing, went there at 6 pm, and chatted till well after midnight.

In the age of cities and cybercities, not only connecting within ourselves, or the nature has became rarer, but also a real connection between people, something I am learning more and more to cherish everyday.

I'm a person with so many imperfections, but countless wonderful tiny things in life blessed me with a very full and content mind and spirit. : )