Happy New Year!

A photo I took of a friend!

Saigon oi!

I received a Christmas card from my best friend - Eunice today - Christmas eve!
I have had such a stressful time since I came back to Saigon last Tuesday because I'm studying up for my scholarship exam. I'm going to try and ace that Geography scholarship. I really need to. So, I'm gonna try my very best to get it. I'm also taking one for Art but I have less to worry about that than this.

Anyway, lately I haven't had time to blog partly because my laptop charger broke and I constantly have to shed time to do hw first before using it for any other purposes. Here is a review of my week!

Last week, I was going to work with my mum everyday to observe her work (well she let me come and help with the shop she is opening) I was actually learning quite a bit just listening, helping write email in english etc. So I went to Vincom with mum for work and I met Nicole! Omg It was the best thing that has happened to me all week. I had lost a lot of numbers so I couldn't really contact anyone and I thought most of friends would have left by now either temporary or really really left. Meeting with Nicole gave me an uninvited little farewell party that they all made up for Ali. I finally convinced Joshy to come and see me too and that made my day!

We had fun scaring Ali and had 2 sessions of bumper car, and then i gained myself another invitation to Ali's bday party :D Met Vy there. She seemed as awkward as I was which makes me quite comfortable actually xDDD hahaha I did managed to make new friends since most of my friends are now gone to some other places already. We went out later that night. I had quite a blast! :D

This week, I was determined to meet Harith and go to Ala Mezon because there is a live jazz performance thing i found on the internet. So we met in Fahasa to buy drawing pencils before heading off. I didn't know this was my opportunity to make friend with Lam Anh (she lives near my house too :D) lol we then invited Jimmy. Yup got on a taxi, gave the address, driver dropped us off at a random place behind Ben Thanh's market and told us to walk there bc it's only a few minutes away and he can't get in. We got off but realised that he must have mistaken it for another str so we got on another taxi and went back to Le Loi str to find a mass of ppl killing each other to take Christmas pictures. We had to get off the taxi and follow the driver instruction to walk to Ala Mezon.

What a crazy night right? I got scared to death by this fake awesome superman. Why on earth would anyone do that? leave a superman at a table, on a floor, by himself!?!
The music after all was quite enjoyable. I had a great time with Harith, Jimmy and Lam Anh.

Despite the quiet and loneliness of having almost all of my friends all over the world somewhere, I am having a nice time back home in Saigon.

Merry Christmas everybody!

Brick Lane

This is Brick Lane people! Full of street arts and vintage clothing. I do literally mean a lot of awesome street arts. They are everywhere and that is why it attracts so many Londoners here.

Everyone has a camera in their hands, ready to snap!

Everything here is so interesting. I bought some vintage clothes myself, found the loveliest blouse! It is just one of those things you just cannot resist buying. God the agony, the temptation of shopping!

I am on half term holiday and decided to crash into Truc's place for a few days to sort out some Art research in London before I head off to Coventry on Tuesday. I met some of Truc's new friends and they are fanatic! We had Thai food at a reasonable price after shopping. My Pad Thai and Tofu is hmmm delicious!!!

I met some intriguing people as well. A guy asking us if we want to do a shoot for vodafone and the man who simple asked "D' you wanna take a picture of me and I'll take a picture of you?"

British Museum

So Aigul had these tickets to the "Treasure of Heavens" at the British Museum and we all decided we should go before it expired. "Us" include Yen, Aigul, Me and Tiffany and Many (who was taking the photo)

In one word, the museum is HUGE and incredibly crowded! It seems that all tourists want to end up in here.

There is an ongoing art project right at the entrance of the museum. The purpose is cooperate all separate drawings together to form a big big artwork. It looks cool!

Only Aigul and I went inside the private exhibition. It was all about catholics and its history in England through the display of many delicate and well-crafted gold work in churches.

Afterwards, we came through a shop where I bought some postcards and played around with a few stuff at the museum shops. They hung up the decoration sculptures for haloween already.

Next, head over to Oxford street to SHOP!

I found this incredible artshop that I had to stop myself from wanting to go in.

We ended up in Muji though :D

M&M World

COME TO LOVE THE CHOCOLATE!

IT'S SO MUCH MORE THAN CHOCOLATE.

Mandy and I went down to Leceister square to buy our tickets to "Wicked" the musical. And here is out discovery! 

Columns and column of rainbow M&M!

The M&M Sherlock,

M&M UK :D

I met Truc again after a long, long time no see. We walked around to Oxford Street in the hope of finding ourselves drooling over the windows of shops.

Mini guitars with awesome patterns on it!!!

And of course, we did not want to miss Disney world!

Donald duck - where are your pants?

My lover <3

DUDEEEEE!!! The most awesome street drummers I have ever seen in my life. His drumkit is made from parts of bicycles and anything he could collect. That is only the first awesome thing. The second is the OMG-HIS-DRUMMING-IS-SO-FREAKING-MINDBLOWING!

SEPT 2011

Superman? Really?

A group of Superman in Central London. Gosh! I must be lucky to see them!

They are fast!!!

Walton on the Naze

Last last week, we went out for a Geography field trip. This was one of the best trip I have had. I really like doing practical work because words and numbers and siting in class is so not my talent. May be this is one of the area I would like to head in. I learnt to use a clinometer and a ranging pole and carried out experiment with quadrats. We were looking to see if this cliff/coastline protection scheme is working. One side has seawalls and groynes installed to the beach to reduce the process of Longshore Drift and the other side has nothing but Managed Retreat. I had to take lots of photos and do field sketches.

I look really lol in those clothes xDD 'cause they keep me warm! and the backpack is very practical. I can hang equipments there.

There is a historical tower of Walton here that the local are trying to protect. Inside they have a small cafe at the bottom selling delicious sandwiches and beautiful hand-painted postcards. Upstairs is some sitting places for the cafe, an art exhibition space and the Tower history at the top.

Now we are writing coursework for this. It is a little bit more confusing that anyone would think.

Someone drew Spongebob there! :D

I bet you have never seen me in uniform!

On Saturday, it was Mill Hill's Foundation day so we had a lion in (just learn that :D) and enjoy some delicious lunch. After that we went out to London Dungeon for the first time in order to celebrate Sonya's birthday!

That is me with a plate of cheese!

Definitely don't like blue cheese very much...

On the cab to London Dungeon

Tried to take a picture inside the Dungeon...

Party in the cab on the way back!

Saatchi Gallery

Here are some of the exhibition that are on displayed at Saatchi Gallery at the moment.

The gallery is a beautiful building, located near Victoria Station and surrounded by a lovely park. It held around 20 different smaller galleries inside. The type of artworks ranges from paintings to sculpture and lighting. I strongly recommend visiting the top few galleries upstair which are showing Prudential's sponsored artworks from Philippines. These are astonishingly beautiful and many have deep meaning in them.

Marine Reserves now! | Greenpeace International

Marine Reserves now! | Greenpeace International

Back in London

Starting school and already I feel so tired!
I have decided to join the swim training on Monday and Wednesday (to learn front crawl again) which I enjoy most of the time. Then there is jazz piano that should be finalise anyday now. Art activities on Tuesday... Gosh! So many things to do!

I came to Art horrified because I had no idea what I want to do for my new project, apart from the few artists and some ideas I jot down on the plane. My teacher had no idea how to help me either. Finally, I found Fred Kennet - a pen and ink based artist who produce exceptional detailed drawings. I want to do something similar to that. I want to depict the modern world today as being too industrialised and polluted with cities filled with skyscrapers and car honking on the busy road.

I thought it would be amazing but right now, with the load of work I am doing every night. I just find no inspiration to do anything. I am drawing buildings from photograph I have taken around Central London but it is so hard to sketch them out. I just don't know how artists can do this, sketching amazing buildings on a piece of paper. I am helpless.  Oh I need help!

Despite all these works are depressing me, I did went to see an amazing musical "Billy Elliot" at the Victoria Palace Theatre last week. It was part of our Drama course - to write a theatre review. The musical was fantastic it its set, lighting with the most talented young actor and the most moving plot. It was a magical night for me because this was the first proper musical I have seen. On Saturday, Mandy, Sharon and I went to the Saatchi Gallery where we found some amazing students sketching what they see in gallery. There were many artworks that were simply astonishing and some were at the average in my opinion.

This thursday, I am going to head down to Walton on the Naze in Essex for my Geography investigation. That should be fun!