Of New Year

Jump, originally uploaded by jonolist.

This year felt like two years compressed into one. With all the traveling and work done in 2007, i really wish 2008 would be a year to chill, with more time to just slack and watch the world go by. (on train, preferably along the Vietnam railway) but saying that i would most probably be drowned in work again rushing project after project only in hopes of earning time (and money) to do more trips (further away) and take more photos.

I missed the chance to India, so i hope to get there soon.

Save up for a new lense and get a replacement for Neil (my notebook) who can't handle all the stuff i'm making him do lately.

cliche as it sounds I need to treasure my family more

Run faster and complete the marathon in less than 4 hours
clock in more sleep along the way

find a new author. unless Neil Gaiman or Murakami comes up with a whole new set of amazing material.

do more stuff unplanned. i.e. more impulse travelling and less saying no to other people and more importantly to myself.

master ice cream and steaks

enjoy my 24th year of existence and help others enjoy theirs too

so thats my resolution. They say writing it down and telling it your friends help you see through the resolution.
I think its because your now accountable to everyone who knows about it. I guess this post is solely for that reason.

Have a blessed New Year

Of Natural Metaphor

okay alot of hesitation if i should have posted this but i had to get this out before the new year



yayness....


Taken from the ACTAR website on the new book by Josep Lluís Mateo, ETH Zürich.
Natural Metaphor, Architecural Papers III.

Description:

Written by cross-disciplinary authors across Europe, Asia, and America, this compilation of articles and images explores the use of forms in nature for diverse design approaches and perspectives. Nature has rendered poetic potential to stimulate, as a metaphor, the design process. From formal, conceptual, geometrical to literal engagements, the scope of potential correlations between nature and design is as far reaching as the human imagination.
Contributors: Iñaki Ábalos, Stan Allen, Manuel Castells, Catherine Dumont d’Ayot, Olafur Eliasson, Patrick Gartmann, Toni Gironés, Christophe Girot, Alice Hucker, Christian Kerez, Mai Komuro, Michal Krzywdziak, Jonathan Lin, (woohoo!!!!) Josep Lluís Mateo, Marcel Meili, Paulo Mendes da Rocha, Renzo Piano, Florian Sauter, Frederic Schwartz, Ramias Steinemann, Peter St. John, Philip Ursprung, Maria Viñé, Erwin Viray.

I'm undeserving to be named among the greats. I mean , i'm the only person in listed in the credits as "pursuing a Bachelor's In Architecture", the rest have phds and some have Priztkers.


edit: rereading what i just wrote.....this post makes no shit sense unless you read this other post

Of looking closer

A Triptych

Amazing cross section, originally uploaded by jonolist.

Look what blossomed in our Balcony, originally uploaded by jonolist.

Lying is Wait, originally uploaded by jonolist.

update: in case you didn't know, mediacorp is at SDE. Apparently Christopher "I love to drive dangerously" Lee is armed with plastic tubes playing an architect. wah lau and some "carelefares" are emo-ing at the carpark in front of year one studio (with tubes too, have those stone expressions of fake teevee affection). there is no hope for singapore tv architecture.

and there's no fiona xie in sight...pianggg. this drama series will not win star awards.

Of Work In Progress

Waiting for the Spray Paint to Dry, originally uploaded by jonolist.

1:200 scaled models of CHIJMES Singapore for an exhibition in Hong Kong in a few weeks time. We still have alot to do and our deadlines aren't helping. Nonetheless its still exciting seeing these models come up one by one.

Work In Progress, originally uploaded by jonolist.

Xtina and Huilian did alot of it. It'll look real good when its on the actual exhibition display. I'll try to take more photos then.

Mehhhhhhh

Mehhhhhhh, originally uploaded by jonolist.

mehhhhrrry christmas everibhadi!

Of well wishes

Hey guys! for those doing your projects (like the modelling go xtina and molly and beatrice and HG and jy and nich and jia and shux and prawn and gang!) HANG IN THERE!

and a merry christmas to you all

grrrrrrr, originally uploaded by jonolist.

so cute!

SCR in kuching, originally uploaded by jonolist.

it stands for : Singapore Chicken Rice.

They even used the merlion symbol (wait? don't you need permission to do that?). Apparently its quite a fad here, i already saw two branches. Thats alot for a population of half a million.

anyho its qui9te happeing here in kuching now because of the huge catholic presence in the area, it took us 30 mins to get by 100m of road because of the sunday mass. happening xia.

Of more from kuching!

We stayed at a friends place last night, a colleague of my mum's. Her house is damn cool! She's got three dogs!!! Ling Ling, Liang Liang both 10 months and Joey (not Korea Joe, eh Joe if your reading this lets go out for dinner soon!) 10 years old, Joey is the more lembek one but he guides the two younger ones and doesn't lick that much.



Check out brother here playing with them.



and Joey, my fav. with the cool ruffled fur and garang looking eyes.

Anyway the house is real cool with the three dogs and the irritating fighting cock next door. They also have two starfruit trees, one mango tree and an asparagus garden. And they have illegal satellite television!

All we have at home in singapore is a little pot of basil and a miserable expensive starhub cable tv subscription plan (and i used to own to teraphins and a two hamsters). You know for 1600rm you can get the illegal television heaven that receives al-jazeraah? no shite okay, its a damn nice channel with bbc standards and they don't televise bin laden all the time. Its sometimes about kids in British Islamic kindergartens and muslim comedians. Really good stuff.

but i digressed, back to the trip. So we stayed at the place so that we could leave early in the morning (4am when the irritating cock crows) on two jeeps to visit the sarawak kalimantan border, where the indonesians and natives would come out and sell their local produce, which was an eye opener. We saw weird stuff prepared in weird ways (weird like the way tiffany says it). and the good thing is we looked liked the only foreigners there.



Pitcher plant rice. I always thought it was poisonous, but everyone eats it here, its like loh mai kai without the chicken.



Everyone eats this too. mixed with some deep fried something. Their still moving, its weird to grab a grub, it has this weird dry skin that moves. How the heack people can stomach this i dunnoe, but i heard it's considered a delicacy by the natives.

and no, i didn't have the balls or drunkeness in the wee hours of the morning to try it.



mother huge TONGKAT ALI!!!!

with free samples. And again no, errrrrrrr.....this time unlike the grubs, i had the balls not to take it..hur hur hur



very shy fruit seller.



made me laugh....

oh darn my one hour internet tie is up, anyway here's one more of Relac Jack. Its gonna be my wallpaper when i get home.



can you imagine the little eyes staring the start button? !!!:)

Of Greetings From Kuching

Yoyo! its so lembek here, everything is damn relac jack. i like!

Kuching in Kuching!, originally uploaded by jonolist.

meet my first kuching (malay for cat) in kuching (a town in Sarawak). So cute! and he has this lembek look in him, i shall name him Relac Jack

I'm no longer a Kolo Mee Virgin, originally uploaded by jonolist.

i refuse to pay so much for it in singapore. I've been waiting a long time for this. My first kolo mee in Kuching, i'm going to eat one of these for everyday i'm here.! :))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

Singgahsana Lodge, originally uploaded by jonolist.

view from the guesthouse i'm in....love it, i could chill here the whole week.

Of that building with the Monsoon Windows

Had the chance to visit an apartment block in One Moulmein Rise.
I'm Amazed! Private lifts amazing lap pool, most beautiful/understated foyer ever.
I guess the pictures do more justice then any other review i'll give...

Monsoon Window, originally uploaded by jonolist.

you can see the fireworks from here! and Pearlbanks too! (my other fav high rise apartment)

Monsoon Window Detail, originally uploaded by jonolist.

you wind the knob to open the hidden plate that allows air to flow through, achieving ventilation without rain getting in. simple brilliant elegant.

One Moul, originally uploaded by jonolist.

lap pool. Its pretty near the main road but its elevated and the trees partially filter the sound.

I heard the rent here is pretty expensive, but hey if i had the money i wouldn't mind. that being said, if i did have the money, i'll buy a little dinghy and sail around the world with a leica.

of Gordon "F%$king" Ramsay

My new hero! He's actually quite a nice guy, friggin fast cooking!
What he said at the last part was pure class

Of a sleepless night

City of Lights, originally uploaded by jonolist.

its 5am now, i can't sleep.

Just rewatched my "300" dvd, love the saturated colours and dramatic sky in the movie. Thought i'll try it out here. (guess it didn't work out, lacks the blood)

I need to get out and shoot again (and also clear up my back log of photos waiting to be uploaded)

Of Time

a little friend pops by, originally uploaded by jonolist.

"Time sometimes flies like a bird, sometimes crawls like a snail; but a man is happiest when he does not even notice whether it passes swiftly or slowly."
Ivan Turgenev

rather busy now, but hey its the holidays! yayness

of the stuff that clogs my...aiyah hu-gifs-a-shet

FOOOOOO Glorrr..ious...ssssssssssss FOOODD!
taaaaa taa taa da tah tah!
dances in front of the screen


From some place outside Melaka old town. I don't think i will ever come here again (even though i would really want to) because its by some ulu road 30 mins out of Melaka old town. It rocks to eat with locals who know the area.




After breakfast meal. The chendol was the sole reason why my Mum wanted to come back here.



Mum (in green) buying the good stuff from the lady in pink.
We're gonna try gula melaka ice cream soon!!!! :)

Oh Thomas and Samantha....please refrain from scrolling down anymore. The following photo will induce unpredictable verbal/physical reactions.
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ladies and gentleman....i present to you nostalgia in its purest form.
The only western import (other than fish & chips) to ever prove itself useful in the 21st century.
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Taken in the Melaka Sentral Bus Terminal, where half of its customers are Singaporeans
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behold!
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Ahhhhhhhhhh, i teared when i saw small kids eating curly fries.....there still is hope left! :))) *punches left fist in the air *places right fist by the heart

Of the Weekend

Chendol, originally uploaded by jonolist.

will be away for the weekend
to somewhere that needs no introduction

in the meantime please watch this!!!!

The man rocks!!! i am shit too!

Of Yogyakarta

Yogyakarta, originally uploaded by jonolist.

I know the dangers of nostalgia but this morning i woke up with the feeling of something missing inside me that i can't describe. That need to go back.

Its been a full year since Jogja, i really miss that place. I miss the students and teachers at the university who had so much passion in what they were doing. i miss the food, the lovely simple food. I miss Borobudor and Sendang Sono, i miss the gang of us and the stupid games we played, i miss "racing horse" and that numbers game and quail egg forfeits. I miss Kampong Kali Chode and the vibrancy of life. I miss the walks to school, passing by the graffiti, the pet shop with the cutest pug ever. I miss Madam Surharti's Ayam Goreng. I miss Kotagede and its kids especially the small baby who by now i hope could walk around the pavilion we built together.

Its these memories that I hold dearly to me and i guess why they came back to me this morning was the sudden realization that many of the things i place highly important to myself this year have been misaligned, over emphasized and heck i think i veered off somewhere along the way.

So maybe thats the reason for nostalgia, it doesn't tell us what had before but reminds us of what you wanted then. Which if you think of it ain't half as bad as the seductive liar people put it out to be.

of Procrastination

of Procrastination, originally uploaded by jonolist.

i hearts bumming around

btw I LOVE HEROES SEASON 2!!!!!!!!!!! but why did it have to end at episdoe 11??? i wish the writers protest would cease, but the last i heard it had gone to a full swing.

Of Grandma's Porridge

Grandma's Porridge, originally uploaded by jonolist.

I'm not a big fan of porridge, but grandma made such a beautiful lunch today so there was no point in me being fussy about my dislikes.

its worth waking up late in the day for (man i love the holidays!)

of the very long run

the xian thing is its the same timing as the previous attempt, meaning an overall deprovement...hey but i'm still alive!!!!
i must say finishing the marathon gives you a killer high that far surpasses any submission or exam completion, slow or not.

that being said, i'm pretty much home bound for the next few days. I think my knees are goners now. shite i'm getting too old too fast.

Happy Birthday Owen!

Happy Birthday Owen!, originally uploaded by jonolist.

hope you had a great 22nd. btw shooting on Polaroids! so fun!


update: jonography will take a short break as it has been for the past week. Come Sunday, i'll meet my impending doom trying to complete the marathon without proper training...sure the last time i did it, i had some preparations and i still cramped up. this year i'm so gonna lose my legs.

anyway more posts come monday.
plomis!