Wedding blog to share interesting ideas I have found.

Monday, May 17, 2010

Our royal visit to ACM

During Saturdays, woodblock and me will usually try to occupy ourselves with a little special trip here and there like some excursion days! I was almost jumping from joy when woodblock announce to bring me to the Asian Civilisation Museum (ACM). Now I had been to ACM in the past before but that was pretty much alone as woodblock never really appreciate trips to musuems like i do.

Before we drop by to ACM which opens at 5 pm, we decided to indulge ourselves in a nice hi-tea session! (after a much tiring session shopping at far east)

The first place that came into my mind was the hi-tea special set by TCC recently. So we dropped in to the TCC branch beside the Thai embassy.

Woodblock always have a grounchy OLD man facial expression when his coffee addiction sets in.

For me, I was busily trying to fixed the new clip on ribbon i bought from Far East to match my new dress from Bugis Village.

The settings of this TCC was really victorian and I cant help but admire for a long time.

I notice a deer head being hung on the wall and was so glad it is a faux one. It will be gruesome to have a genuine one here. I bet it is going to affect the appetite of the diners.

If dont believe that woodblock is a coffee addict here's the proof!!!


There once the coffee is serve, woodblock kept SNIFFING it like some sort of drug abuse =(

PROVEN GUILTY!

After the coffee sniffing nonsense, he became energetic and started reading his latest comics craze : Prince of Tennis.

I ordered my fav coffee :Juliet =) (This is actually the cold version of Perfect Match)

A romantic drink in a Victorian setting.... I wish time could freeze for a little moment there!

Princess Christine busily slurping Juliet! (sidenote: I totally adore my ribbon that I warned woodblock that my ribbon must be in full view when i am taking this pic)

The royal hi tea set! The taste was not bad and it was pretty filling for a hi tea session for the 2 of us.

Finally after a slow and lazy noon of hi tea, we started to stretch and warm up for our adventures to ACM!!!

On our way to ACM, guess what I saw? The famous vintage gate that many brides will take with as the background! Ok since I didnt have my bridal photo being taken here, I am DEFITNITELY not missing out on this chance!


Urgh cant see the ribbon anymore =(

Anyway in the end I realise that there are just so many pretty sceneries along the way that I kept forcing sir woodblock to help me snap more pics!!!

Love my Sky blue polka dot dress with full victorian lace at the top.
Sweet isnt it?
(Shopping tip: For those who are into Korean Lace dresses etc, it is much cheaper to buy it at Bugis village than at Bugis Junction or far east. I saw this dress selling at $59.90 while I bought this at $37.00. What impresses me was that the shop has a proper nets machine which they dont in the past. Therefore to save $$ means i have to walk a freakingly far distance to withdraw cash for payment.)

Outside the ACM, I notice they have huge vibrant coloured windows!

How I wish I have a vintage bag too => maybe I shall add that in my coming Friday shopping list.

What are the odds that the flowers outside ACM matches my dress too!!!
I feel like I am modeling the dress on those Gmarket website I always shop for clothes.

Ok if you are the frequent visitor of ACM, you will being pondering why did i waited for 5 pm plus to reach the musuem instead of just going in the noon???
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That's because IT IS FREE ENTRANCE from 5pm to 11pm!!!
http://www.acm.org.sg/exhibitions/eventdetail.asp?eventID=621

I cant help but notice that an art installation was being setup just outside the musuem. I later found out that this event is call :
Invitation to Dream - A Fire Garden Installation
By Compagnie Carabosse (France)

Before we stepped foot into ACM we decided to explore this Fire Garden installation before something caught our eye and we ended up beside the river!

It happens that there was a dragon boat race at that moment! You can hear cheers of excitement while the dragonboats race in close proximity with one another.

It is a werid coincidence that the boats came in in the same numerical order of their boat numbers.

Surrounded by so much river water and hi tea session, it is a no wonder that it is soon our HIGH TIDE season => meaning we were in a rush for the loo.

We headed to ACM's toilet and while waiting for woodblock, I cant helped but be amuse that the toilet labels!


Maybe when I have a home one day, I shall label my royal loo with some special pic too.

At the reception area of ACM, there was an exhibit by GOOGLES on the winning entries of the SINGAPORE GOOGLE logo compeition held some time back ago.

I am a fanatic for arty crafty design stuff, therefore I took the pics of all the winning entries as a sharing here:

I am astonish by the simple and "clean" logo drawing skill by the little boy.


The national winning entry was really an amazing beautiful piece of water paint drawing but I just feel that it should be a winning entry as it is suppose to be the url LOGO on the search engine site and this is a little complicated, messy and distracting whenever I open up the google search engine.

Did I mention that woodblock's company had a small noon excursion for their employees(yes i do think they have a wonderful wellfare) and woodblock had promise to be my tour guide for this evening!

Tour guide woodblock: LAI LAI LAI("come, come, come" in chinese), follow me ....

There was this huge picture book like story book which introduces the stories and legends of singapore. Whoever, the author is, to be honest, it is a big thumbs down =( The story was written in a slip shod and dull manner that I dont think the tourists can remember a single story once they close the book.

A miniature display of the coolies quarters.

I was pretty absorbed in this mini OFFICE table accompanied by a mini stool. I realise they belong to the money lenders in the past who wants to save $$$ on rental space. Therefore there can be many money lenders who shared 1 office space in a room, occupying only a super small fraction of the room.

We soon entered a dark room and it was quite an aesthetic idea to have the videos being screen directly on the floor.



Another huge video screen.

Can you guess whose foot print is this?
Tour guide woodblock: It's the buddha foot print!
Did the word "BIG FOOT" came across your mind instead?

Tour Guide Woodblock : The monsoon wind is important for sailing and ships will stay docked in 1 area for at least six months before the monsoon wind changes direction to bring them back to the place they came from.

Woodblock listening to some audio about a monk's life. Anyway I think the musuem should make the audio volume louder as the sound was pretty faint and it was a strain to listen to every single words in the video.

Tour guide woodblock: In the olden days in India, the richer you are, the heavy the jewelleries the ladies have and hence a pair of very elongated and droopy ears =(


Tour guide woodblock: China was the first country which invented the introduction of colour paints on ceramics. The above shows the art in its experimental stage. The parts which is not painted will be covered by a layer of wax. While the paints(i am not in what form) was actually place over areas to be coloured and place in the furnace. The high heat melts the paint and causes it to fuse with the ceramic. Therefore, you can see lots of traces of dripping paint on the statue.

After many years of refining and improvement ......

ALAS the fine piece of gorgeous classic painting technique was born!


Tour Guide Woodblock: In the olden days, people in China, will paint fans and write a short poet as a gift to their friends. After receiving the fan, the friend may at times add on more details onto the painting on the fan and write down another related poet to the new addition in the painting. This explains the many different chinese name chops that you see on the above fans representing the many artists/owner at one point or another of the fan.

I seriously thought that this is such a cool and interesting idea. It will be fun reading the poems and guessing which part of the painting belongs to who.

The ACM was actually planning a more interactive theme to attract the crowd this time as there were many installations specially for the tourists to take photos.

There was even several turbans meant specially for the phototaking. Do i look like Ali Christine BABA?

It felt like an Indian wedding! Love it! I wish I can get marry again. I must thank the security guard who helped us take a photo.

Tour Guide Woodblock:
Now the Islam (if I am not wong) has this rule that forbids drawing of animate beings. Therefore, some artists which tries to find a way out, decided to use words and characters to do the trick (indirect drawing of animals).
http://www.islam-qa.com/en/ref/39806/drawing%20pictures

After a loooooooooooooong walk and comphrehensive guided tour by tour guide woodblock, it is HAPPY to say that we can receive FREE ICE CREAM AND COKE on the house from ACM!!!!! Talk about a cheap date lobang!

While indulging in the ice cream, the green pasture in front of ACM was converted into a Fire Garden with a wonderful musician who was playing a flute like instrument. It is difficult to describe how the music was like but it felt like being in the storybook of :"One Thousand and One Nights ", simply mystical and dreamy tune.


There was interesting sperical cages of burning charcoals, ablaze in flames.

Even the bridge was so romantically litted up! I wish my tummy wasnt growling in hunger then (meaning we were rushing to somehwere else for dinner)and I could have brought a nice picnic mat along to enjoy the mystical night outside ACM.....

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