Art Running Route- Marina Bay

A partial view of the Art Science Museum from inside Marian Bay Sands

Thanks to the haze and my laze mainly, it's been almost a month since my last run with the boys. On Sunday, I decided to go solo round my favourite route at Marina Bay.  

Teddy Bear by Julien Marinetti

A cloudy morning and the constant threat of a drizzle made the weather a perfect one for a slow run. 

   

"Doggy John" 

I knew my run would be rewarding in terms of eye candies and I was not wrong. There was a series of bronze sculptures by a French artist called Julien Marinetti. 

"Panda Ba"

This is what the plague says about the artist:

 "Julien Marinetti is a painter, a sculptor, an engraver, someone creative to the upper tips of the fingers. He is essentially a visual artist and explores numerous facets of Arts. Full loving of the Quattrocento, he embossed his path in the melting pot of flamboyant classicism. 

Today his work goes back and forth, without losing itself, between neo-cubism and expressionism to show his famous syncretism of Arts. His sculptures- "Doggy John", "Teddy Bear", "Skull", "Duck" and now "Panda Ba" -are mediums he forms in the unique aim to paint them. His sense of "Panda Ba"- volume is insolently innate, however he confesses always "being in search of the absolute of architectural composition, balance in forms, in symmetry, in harmony" and that "he doesn't search likeness but existence". When he paints, he gives birth to his sculpture with rapid strokes, in a profusion of colours both instinctive and brilliantly mastered, and his preferred colours are perceptible." 

It took me a terribly long 90 minutes to complete 9.75 km but that is all right. It is no longer about the running but the route. 

Fantasia by Escriba

We were really excited when we read about an unusual exhibition called "Fantasia by Escriba" touted as a "magical wonderland like never before".  Willy Wonker's Chocolate factory meets Cirque de Soleil, life size sculptures and giant wedding cakes made entirely out of pastry and chocolates by Christian Escriba and his wife Patricia Schmidt, samples and champagne, what more do I need for a day out, right?

Clowning around before the show

Well, we decided quite quickly to see the Midnight Fantasia because they promised some tantalising "adult only" shows (but it was truly because the price of the tickets were about 1/4 of the usual day show). 

"Step Right In"

Midnight Fantasia started at about 10.30 pm. Patrons were invited to an Ibiza party after. We were  really more keen on the sculptures and performances.

There was the dreamscape that came to Escriba when he was sleeping one night.

A mad scientist waiting to explode a cake in your face but never did of course.

And a make-up artist for the moon.

There was of course the tallest chocolate waterfall standing at 8.5 m and free all you can drink chocolate shots from the fountain.

In the next pavilion was the circus of sculptures made  from all manner of confections. 

Models posing as statue

We had more samplings of chocolate lips and chocolates fries and took home many. 

Escriba looking rather bred at the DJ console

We were nonetheless a little disappointed as they closed off a big part of the exhibition for the Midnight Fantasia. It was the recreation of La Rambla with the famed confectionery, Escriba. We also did not get a close up of all the finer creations by Patricia Schmidt.

O, and the tantalising adult only show? The wriggling and jiggling interested us for about 15 minutes before we decided to call it a night. 

I am glad we went of course. The chocolates were truly delicious and the sculptures were eye-openers. I will highly recommend it for all lovers of sugar craft. 

Good thing Escriba will be opening a shop in Singapore soon. I may finally get to see the exquisite "shoes" they bake. 

Singapore Night Festival - 2014

Spirit of Nature by Wecomeinpeace (France)

I have always love our night festivals. 

Dresses of Memory by Taegon Kim

This year especially was a special one.

Stop and Smell The Roses by SMU

As always the night lights captivated.

Landscape by Landscape by Agathe de Bailliencourt

Basked in love and beauty,

 I felt grateful to be alive...

A special thank you to  Clement Briend

I especially love his Divine Trees

Poetry : To This Day by Shane Koyczan

Something that moved me today....

The City of Dreaming Books By Walter Moers

Where shadows dim and shadows mate

in caverns deep and dark,

where old books dream of bygone days

when they were wood and bark,

where diamonds from coal are born

and no birds ever sing,

that region is the dread domain 

ruled by the Shadow King.

...Walter Moers

I am completely, hopelessly and heads over heels in love and I think I may have very well found my current all time favourite book even though I am only at page 21 of this 455 paged speculative fiction- something new I learned today, this genre called speculative fiction, but I digress.

Imagine having an authorial godfather once you are old enough to read. Imagine him to be 888 (a very auspicious number for Chinese) years old when he died. Then imagine being bequeathed a piece of perfect writing, so immaculate that you might find reading it "a terribly traumatic experience. It will dash all your hopes and tempt you to abandon a literary career. You may even consider doing away with yourself." Finally, imagine travelling to a city called Bookholm, in search of this genius of a writer.

I am starved of the words required for me to describe every tingling down my spine and every single sweet sensation I experienced as I savoured the jewels of the 1st 21 pages. Let me show you why.

In Western Zamonia, when you've traversed the Dullsgard Plateau in an easterly direction and finally left its rippling expanses of grassland behind you, the skyline suddenly recedes in a dramatic way. You can look far, far out across the boundless plain to where, in the distance, it merges with the Demerara Desert. if the weather is fine and the atmosphere clear. you will be able to discern a speck amid the sparse vegetation of this arid wasteland As you advance, so it will grow larger, take on jagged outlines, sprout gabled roofs and eventually reveal itself to be the legendary city that bears the name of Bookholm. 

You can smell the place from a long way off. It reeks of old books. It's as if you've opened the door of a gigantic second-hand bookshop- as if you've stirred up a cloud of unadulterated book dust and blown the detritus from millions of mouldering volumes straight into your face. There are folk who dislike that smell and turn on their heel as  soon as it assails their nostrils. It isn't an agreeable odour, granted. Hopelessly antiquated, it is eloquent of decay and dissolution, mildew and mortality. But it also has other associations: a hint of acidity reminiscent of lemon trees in flower; the stimulating scent of old leather; the acrid, intelligent tang of printer's ink; and overlying all else, a reassuring aroma of wood. 

 @@@@@@@

Is there any wonder why mere mortals like me find it hard to review this book? What possible words can I string together to do all that justice? Maybe I should just resort to sounds like sighs or oohs and ahhhs . 

So for the next few days if you don't see me hanging around on blog land, you know where I'll be.

Bookholm, of course!

I Will Not Stop Running

Race Bib of Runners United to Remember

I am a runner. I don't run like one, I don't look like one but I am one. 

December 2006, I ran a full marathon in just under 6 hours. It was the most grueling race of my life. It was also my most exhilarating. I couldn't walk for 3 days after that and I stopped running for 2 years. 

In early 2009, I resumed running again with a group of friends who have become like family. Thanks to them, I haven't stopped since. 

For some of us, we harbour dreams of running what we deem the most prestigious of all marathon races, the Boston Marathon. For me, the dream is a distant one as it is near impossible to make the qualifying time. Yet,  I continue to harbour that dream because running a marathon is precisely about overcoming what we often think is the impossible.

Because a marathon is a race to celebrate a super human will and tenacity,  it generates a goodwill beyond boundaries. It is not uncommon for people to withstand extreme weather for hours waiting at the finishing line to see their friends or family run in. Or for strangers to stand by at the half way mark, with bags of bananas, handing them out to runners swishing past. Runners who can probably only manage a  fleeting smile and a single word of thanks and who they will likely never meet again. 

What happened in Boston yesterday shocked and saddened me. It felt really close to home. In fact, I knew these people. They were the people I ran with in all those races, they were the spectators who cheered me on. I mourn their passing; I cry for their loss. 

And that is why I will not stop running. In their honour, I will continue to run for as long as I can.

Art, Artistry, Artisan- Mary Leu

Every stitch, every fiber, every stroke, she painstakingly carved out of wood.

Her gallery,  呂美麗精雕藝術館 or The Mary Leu Fine Arts Carving Gallery was one of the highlights of our trip when we were in Yilan, Taiwan. 

Forgive me, Mary for taking these pictures but I hope more people will visit your gallery when they see them.