Postcrossing exhibit August Waning: Scenery Worldwide

I didnt write a lot in the past few weeks because I'm really too exhausted
I even missed out the august waxing exhibit, but anyway this is it.
the theme of this fortnight is Scenery Worldwide and since I've accumulated too many cards I decided to display six cards together this time.

To start with, the top left hand corner one is, of course, my favourite.
Firstly, it's liverpool and it's a yellow submarine and what do they mean? the beatles of course.
I have never been to Liverpool before although I've decided that someday I must do so since it's where the beatles are from. (This card's from Canada though)
and look at the back

this postcrosser has been nice enough to give me so many Spongebob stickers.
and you know what, beatles + spongebob = i'm in heaven already
Really really thank you so much darupunkangel from Canada!

In the middle on the top row is a card entitled "Arizona Dust Devil"
I had no idea what it is when i first saw it
then at the back it has a brief introduction "Nothing says Arizona more than heat and dust. Dust devils are created when air near the surface becomes much warmer than the air above."
So basically it's a harmless whirlwind of sand
i think it's quite cute coz my parents who used to live on boats when they were really young said that similar things happen on the sea too
it's like sometimes the nature feels a bit bored it needs to stretch out and show off its beauty

Moving to the right its a small windmill cottage (I dun even know how to call this type of cute house :P)
it's from Sweden. i feel so lucky because its postcard id is 5444 which means only 5444 postcards have been sent out from Sweden so far and i'm lucky enough to get one (think about the whole number of all postcrossing postcards and thus the proportion!)

 

the stamp coming along with the postcard is also very special
no doubt it is very beautiful itself
and if you look close enough (dunno if it shows in the camera) there's a circular invisible postchop on it

the card at bottom left is actually not really a photo but a drawing
but it's so realistic so i count it as a scenery
according to the generous postcrosser it's Rome 150 years ago
she says the place is still pretty much the same today if the shops are not counted
i feel so impressed because here in hong kong places change so quickly that you may not be able to recognize the same place even after 10 years

The card in the middle at the bottom is from Hämeenlinna of Finland
I do not know much about this city except what Wikipedia can tell
but it looks like an environmentally-friendly and tranquil place to live in :)
the postcrosser wanted me to take notice to the stamp stuck on it

she says its the townhall of her hometown Mikkeli.
oh, dun google it, you'll be so jealous of the people born there. it's such a nice place.

So the last card of this fortnight. it's a beautiful huge tree
It is from Yaroslavl of Russia
It doesnt mention whether the tree's from the city
but it's a handsome strong tree anyway :)

Wow. Thank you so much again postcrossers worldwide.
I'm looking forward to your postcards. Tell me what you want me to write about if you're writing to me :P
Meanwhile, it makes it so difficult to look for good enough postcards and stamps to send out.

Happy Postcrossing!

Postcrossing exhibit July Waning: The Artistic Fortnight

The Artistic Fortnight

The ballet card is from Australia
Ballet cards are one of the categories I request in my profile because, simply, I dance ballet and I love it
I love this one very much not only because the colours match harmonically (not even talking about the beautiful alignments of the dancers)
but also I think the combination of grand elegant theatre ballet and urban worn-out streetview with irregular graffiti on the wall creates a magical mix-and-match effect

dear postcrossers, if you see my note here, and it happens that you have this kind of cards on hand, please mail me one :P

moving onto the girl with a fan at the top right hand corner
needless to say, it's certainly an impressionist painting
and it's Renoir, to be exact
i like Renoir a lot (ok im not an art major so i cant pretend by talking with those jargons)
he often draws girls/ladies in such a romantic way that i cant help wondering how he used to look at girls
and it's from Latvia

at the bottom left it's, if you cant already tell, vincent van gogh, travelling all the way from Germany
it's a sower with setting sun
i believe i read it somewhere that it's inspired by a painting of sower by Millet

tho when you see van gogh the touches of brush means like everything
and no one ever sees the sun so bright and the blue so vivid as he did
i love how he placed the man small in the corner and fill the space with a diagonal tree trunk
(from now on Millet's always seems like a cropped-out and van gogh's the whole picture)

last but not least the "Annunciation after Titian" by Richter from the Netherlands at bottom right
it looks like some renaissance painting but really a modern one inspired by a renaissance one

(ok please google it for more information since im not an art critic)
this new one is much more dreamy and blurred and less dimensional than the original one
the original black smoke that comes along with the angel becomes creamy in colour
and you cant really see the background in the new one
it looks like an old (it was produced in 1973) way to filter an image if you ask me


so much for this time
hope you enjoy them as much as i do :)



The previous postcrossing exhibit : The Fortnight of Fauna

Postcrossing exhibit July Waxing

in case anyone wonders, i took this with my Nokia Lumia 520, not bad, huh?

This is how I spice up my little area at office
In the past I just change the postcards whenever and however I feel like
but from now on I'll change it every fortnight with a theme
and Waxing means first half of the month, and Waning will be the second half

July Waxing is the fortnight of Fauna
the sleeping cat and lion make great contrast with the round-eyed wide awake owl in the centre
the two at the bottom are sent by my friend from Taipei
the snake one is actually the entry ticket to the postal museum which i think is a cool idea
the one with two cats is from a place called "Hou-tong the cat village" in Taipei
I've been there before too, it's an old-fashioned train station which resides lots of stray cats
a lovely place for taking photos indeed

a photo I took there when I was there September last year

Look forward to more postcards from postcrossers around the world :D

World War Z

I am never a fan of zombie movies or monsters or any sort of those things
(well, things like Monster Inc., are not included here)
coz I'm so easily scared and I get no excitement from being freaked out
but lately i've been reading the latest issue of Philosophy Now which talks about zombie problems
so I decided to watch it to learn more about the issue

before we went i didnt expect it to be so scary
i was expecting a couple of zombie scenes near the end of the movie
but whooooooooooar it was much more than that

ok so i was so scared that i closed my eyes from the beginning right to the end so i have no idea what this movie's about except there were talking and screaming
lol joking

as i said above, im never a fan of zombie movies, so i got a number of questions flowing around since i was watching
for example, do zombies die on their own if no one go to kill them?
if they dun, and if there're no more humans in the city, no one ever goes in it and no zombies are ever allowed to come out, will they just keep on walking with their tilted heads, stuck out teeth, and open-too-widely eyes forever, until the day of final judgement or till the sun explodes and destroys earth?
i mean, even if they dun feel pain, wont their bones wear off at the joints, have tooth decay (since they dun seem to have the habit of brushing teeth), and stuff like that?
do they eat at all?
do female zombies still have menstruation? if so, wouldnt it be too disgusting... or are they especially fierce on those days (like female humans do)?
if the women have makeup on when they become zombie, will their skin soon becomes too bad coz i dun see any zombie remove makeup?

ok, those are just questions about zombies themselves, but i keep wondering things about the movie too
first, if zombies are stimulated by sound, should we all carry a little machine that produce sounds then when zombies come we can just throw it off and let the zombies go chase so that we can escape? (you can install songs like the Cranberries' Zombies in it)
second, should the UN distribute every human a good headphone to protect their ears then produce some great great great noise to destroy all zombies' eardrums in order that they become easier to deal with?
third, if people can become immune to zombies, will the UN open cities taken all by zombies for people to go in to play real life Biohazard (and use the money for remedial purposes)?

oh, and why Korea, Israel, and Belarus (is it?)?

Although most of the time I was very touched by the nice nature of the people in the movie (like, every one seems willing to help instead of selfishly/foolishly create more problems)
i was still upset when the UN has to send Gerry's family away and when the pathogenic stupid ass was shot (was he shot?) and slipped and died
the former was really selfish, i mean, hey, even if gerry's dead, the guy gave his life for you because you had promised to take care of his family
the latter demonstrated that people could sometimes really stupid, and they have to pay high prices for that

one more question, how do they have so many people in scenes like Philly or Israel?
Are they the same actors?

I think I should get stronger and braver, just in case, you know

Candy Crush Saga

Click me to see how to draw Candy Crush Saga in Dragoart.com

It's been a while now since I stopped playing this game
It was fun I like the music I like the animation
but it really hurts my wrist and finger joints a lot
so I was forced to stop

When I was still playing I was the only one in the family who played it
then I asked my dad who spends a lot of time on computer games every day to join
(so that he can send me lives and stuff :P)
then my mum joined, then my sister joined too
Now I'm the only one who doesnt play it in the house
yet they keep asking me to send them lives
-_-

Alright
Hope everyone enjoy either playing the game, drawing the saga, eating candies, or having crushes :P

turtle

i got this capsule toy today
it's a lil turtle in a container like how we keep it as a pet
on the paper enclosed it says that this one is a "Malacochersus tornieri"

(the scanned enclosed paper introducing the turtle)

and there are altogether 9 kinds of them in the whole series
the others are these

picture from "small toys" facebook page

like, every time when there're turtle capsule toys out i got crazy about them
coz i just love turtles and if i cant keep the real ones as pets i can at least get the toy ones

and this time they're especially cute coz they actually come in containers with furniture and stuff
like you're really keeping them

guess im getting more of these in the following days

Top Dogs datestamped first day cover with stamp set

Top Dogs datestamped first day cover with stamp set by Australia Post

Yes, so...
I know I've been spending a bit too much lately
but I promise that at least I'm not getting any more overseas stamps very soon

I like how all these doggy stamps worth the same price
coz most of the time when new stamps are issued, there're usually only one image for each value
for instance, in "My pet and I" (Hong Kong), $1.4 - dog, $1.8 - cat, $2.5 - turtle
well they did have all horoscopes all for $1.4, but it happens very occasionally
i'm not saying that all animals/dogs should worth the same so the stamps should be so too
coz obviously the values of the stamps have nothing to do the with the values of the animals on them
what i'm saying is, like when I like the turtle stamp best but it's $2.5
if i want to mail to local friends with it im bound to pay more than im required to
i dun really mind several cents, just that it's kinda stupid

I bought this obviously is mostly because i love dogs (like all other animals)
and among them i like king charles spaniel most

 

they're just like big-eyed little girls wearing bunches with curly hair

but i wonder why all "top dogs" here are small dogs:
Miniature Schnauzer and dachshund, King Charles Spaniel, Pug, and Australian Terrier
why are there no big dogs in the ranking?

I see that Australia post has also issued kangaroos stamps
and Royal Mail of UK has issued Jane Austin stamps which are really really lovely
I have no more money so let's hope that I will receive some of these cute stamps from kind and generous postcrossers :P

Happy Mother's Day

My favourite love quote from "The Nightingale and the Rose" by Oscar Wilde

thanks all mothers for their sacrificial and selfless love :')

p.s.: i learn it from dragoart

sorry for the small wing

Oedipus the King by Hong Kong Theatre Works

 

So I went to see this Oedipus the King by Hong Kong Theatre Works today

I've never seen their production before

nor have I ever heard of them

The venue was North District Town Hall Auditorium, which is very far from me

but thanks to MTR it only takes like 1.5 hr to travel across Hong Kong

I went there with two friends, as I mentioned in the previous entry

We took the theatre course together in year 2

and the teacher actually played us some videos of companies performing this in class

Greek tragedies were played by actors with masks on

so seeing live masked actors is actually one of the things I most looked forward to

and of course, it is always intriguing to see how classical plays are moded and played on a Hong Kong stage

Before the play started I saw a lot of junior secondary school students there

It surprised me very much because I didnt expect such young students would be interested in it

We were guessing maybe their school had encouraged/required them to come

anyway it is always good for children/teenagers to have a chance to appreciate classics

The play started with the actors walking out with their masks in hands solemnly

forming a circle, facing inside, then putting on the masks together

and when it ended, they took off their masks in the same way

i wonder if it's a kind of ritual originated from ancient Greece (i know, i should've paid more attention in class)

Back in those days when tragedies were played in huge theatres that could contain an audience greater than ten thousands, it's necessary to put on masks to exaagerate the face of the actors

it seemed to me like when the actors put their masks on, they are no longer themselves, but the characters

when they put it down, they come back to themselves again 

I didnt have a chance to ask the people from HKTW why they only had half-masks instead of the full ones

but i guess it's partly due to the small size of the current audience

besides, unlike the traditional ones these masks are irregular in shape and have different colous

they remind me of Sichuan masks :P

The whole play was performed by altogether 5 actors

while it has like 9 or 10 characters

to be honest, I thought there were more - I mean, I didn't notice some characters were actually the same people

of course it's partly because the actors have put on masks

but they even have different ways to speak, walk, gesture, and all those

Since I didnt keep the booklet, I still cant tell who's who, so

and about the tragedy itself

some people say it's about Oedipus facing his fate bravely

like when at the end he realises that he's the guilty guy he himself is looking for

he doesnt escape, but accepts the fate and punishes himself

i dun think it's about that

i think it's about how one's personality determines his fate

it's solely because Oedipus's determination/stubbornness to find out the truth

that it ultimately leads to his own sorrowful end

if he doesnt insist that much, like, he gives up the finding at some point of the thing,

listens to the prophet, doesnt send for the shepherd, or returns to Corinth to succeed his kingship

then he'd not have to reveal the horrible facts himself

and would not have to blind himself and leave the city

one thing i dun understand is

if jocasta is Oedipus' wife, how come she doesnt notice the old wounds on his feet before the shepherd from Corinth talked about this?

Generally I like this show very much, especially the performing part

If they put on some other Greek tragedies or even Shakespeare or some other classical works,

I'd definitely be glad to go see it

trinity

I went to mass today and it was a great one
the Father was talking about the concept of trinity
i hope i didnt get him wrong
what i understood was like, Father is like the author
Son the words, and Spirit the interpretation

and i think it's very clever

it actually makes me miss people like Irenaeus and Tertullian

 

perhaps i should read "History of Christian Thought" all over