Friday, October 05, 2007

Lace it Up







Friday. Workday
We have settled in for work today. Yesterday was a terrific day off with great weather and a fantastic trip away from bustling Venice….And yes, a wonderful late morning…lol.

Da Wu came by the apartment to collect the banana plants. He’s doing a performance on Sunday and he’s using the closing day to prep his works. His plants are mighty heavy carrying it from one point to another. Soon after we left for the Mexican Pavilion and Bill Viola’s Ocean Without a Shore, before heading out to Burano, Murano and Torcello. Our day plan is Packed!!. Ocean Without a shore is very arresting. True to Viola’s style, he uses the gaze to engage audience, this time in the theme of Death. 3 screens portraying different people each time emerging behind a water screen in synchronization, one after the other. Amazing, disturbing, arresting. The Mexican Pavilion was good as well. Very interactive, Favorites were the light-bulbs on the ceilings that pulse according to the visitor’s heartbeat. There were about 100+ bulbs recording about 100 visitor’s heart pulse. Another was using shadows to tune in frequency of the airwaves. So its like yr shadows generate the volume and amplitude and strength of the signal. Pretty cool.

We thought of making a 4 island hop. The Cemetery (we heard good things about the view in the cemetery ), Murano, Burano and Torcello. But we started out late, so we only managed to get to Burano, Murano and Torcello. Murano was ok… we visited a glass workshop were they were creating art sculptures. But the prices there were pretty steep for my Singaporean wallet, lol.. so we didn’t get anything at Murano. Steep prices manz! And we cant afford to pack them in our backpack, and lugg it all down to Berlin and Rome. We went Burano, and was greeted with many colorful houses. Seemed like a coloring book gone wrong, but the colors made the whole place more vibrant and exhilarating. We walked about for a bit and realized that most shops are the same. But most laces are handmade as illustrated by their grandmothers and mothers that they display prominently knitting those intricate laces. Quite a sight. We bought a few souvenir lace coasters (although it’s a lil redundant as lace absorbs moisture and lets it seep to the table.. but oh well…) Deb bought a glass pendant from Murano for her aunt. Very nice and outstanding colors, and best of all, hand made from Murano. We headed back to the vap for our next stop Torcello. We reached Torcello at around 6ish, and we walked in a bit and decided to head back. The journey to central Torcello is at least 15mins, plus all attractions. Museums and all probably close around 7 – 7.30. We decided to headback to Venezia, Didn’t go to the cemetery though as it was going to be quite dark for us to see anything.

We headed back for some food. We walked past the first shop and bought our Kebabs. It was Halal. Yea for that. We were near the Rialto, so we thought we stopped at Billa to get some groceries. Time check 7.55. We ate outside Billa, to avoid the closing time at 8.30. At about 8pm, we threw away the kebab wrappers and walked towards Billa. The staff there was infront of the entrance and prevented anyone from entering. BILLA IS CLOSED. Damnit… and here we were just outside eating our food… Bad luck.

Because of that we decided to make ourselves feel better and treat ourselves to some gelatos. Yummy. We then head down to Rialto where we decided to make full use of our half day ticket, and take the ferry down the canal. Quite a nice boat ride home.. Quite a nice day I might say…

But today, im coming down with slight flu. Must be the Gelatos! Lol. Been sniffling constantly till Deb calls me sniffles. Nothing much happened today. Theres this sweet old Italian lady that commented that the exhibits should have Italian explanations instead of the English ones, as the biennale is held in Venice, Italy, we should accommodate their local language. Good point I think…

Otherwise, its off to an early bed for me, and hopefully tomorrow is a better day.

Ciao Bella…
.ryf / debs


1. Goofing around while waiting for the ever so long VAP at Torcello
2. A night / grand canal view of the Plazzo where The Singapore Pavilion is Held. Plus the Acadamia bridge.
3. Colorful Houses in Burano.
4. Mexican Exhibit, each bulb resonates to each visitor's pulse
5. Mexican Exhibit, Shadows corrosponds to the selection and strength of radiowave freuqencies.
6. Our very own chocolate + banana crepe. (Made with tortilla wraps... and chocolate)

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