Kidnap my heart.

Monday, September 24, 200711:18 PM

Ladies and Gentlemen.... i present to you........

SAGRADA FAMILIA (part 1)

"The construction of the Sagrada Familia is slow, because the Master of this work isn't in a hurry" - Antoni Gaudi, architect of Sagrada Familia-

Following pics are promotional posters of the Sagrada Familia.

** pls note: Pls note that this impressive work of architecture is a Roman Catholic Church. Hence, to bring u guys on a visual tour around this church, wud mean that i will need to narrate certain stuff relating to the Roman Catholic Church's beliefs. Just wanna make things clear before i start!

ready????

And today, we shall stop at Sagrada Familia

Last sem, i had this teacher, Florence Lian, who would liven up her lectures by showing us photos of her (uber cool) vacation spots which wud include wonderful buildings. She showed us Sagrada Familia and informed us that they have been building the church for over a hundred years and they are still not done... We laughed accordingly and went on to the next slide.

So, when i read all those tour books describing the Sagrada Familia to be "impressive", "awe-inspiring" blah blah blah, i would just shrug and go "ah wells... we'll see". Little did i know.. when you see the Sagrada Familia, the feeling is just..... i cant describe it and all of the sudden, those tour books' cheesy descriptions just seem to fit. Many try to find a word to describe Sagrada Familia and all will fail because it's.... just tough to find the right word that fits it.

As we were staying in Eixample, we walked a few blocks down to Sagrada Familia. This is a view of it from far.

I tried taking artistic shots of it but the tree kept on insisting on being in the pic.

Stupid tree.

If you squint hard enough, you can see a man sitting on the bridge between the towers.

i got really worried at first, thinkn that it was a construction worker who could not take the pressure of life anymore. that is, until i used my camera to zoom in and realised tt it was a bronze figure! Hmmm can you guess what it symbolises? :D

As we walked closer, we could see the statues on the towers on the Passion Facade.

LOOK OUT! Mission Hot Guy at work here! ahem and the passion facade of course.

While i was dilgently snapping away, my family was commenting on the large number of pigeons (Audrey's favourite bird btw.... HAHAHA!) and this is my dad's Operation Pigeon to prevent pigeon poop from droppin onto him!

One more Photo of the passion facade without the distraction of hot guys...

"To convey this idea of desolation and pain, Gaudi fred the acade from any type of ornamentation. Likewise, he simplified its structure leaving it clean and hard bone-like forms, with no more adornment than the cold nudity of the steon. The reason for this absence of decoration is so the viewer pays all his attention to the monument's group of sculptures which describes the last days of Jesus"

One of the reasons why the Sagrada Familia took so long to build is that a lot of thought in put into it. The construction process includes

a) Studying the skeleton (as Gaudi considered the skeleton to be the base of the structure)

b) Photographing posed models in a system of mirrors which would show the image of the model from all angles. The photos would then be studied in greater detail and they would sketch out a picture on how they would like the sculptures to be.

c) Casting in plaster. After choosing the model and the posture it should adopt, a direct plaster cast is cast from nude bodies of people and animals.

d) Corrections in the casting. Gaudi increased the height of the figures high up so that they would be viewed the same as the figures low-down.

e) Chipping. After making the amendments to the size of the model and then put in its final location for any last corrections, sculpting in stone would commence.

Were all these proccesses worth it? You can be the judge.

The sketch of the Passion Facade:

The plaster model:

The Passion Facade now:

So after a thousand and one photos from the outside, it was time to enter.

As the Passion facade describes the last days of Jesus, it faces West where the sun sets. The red line in the following picture shows you the sequence to follow when viewing the sculptures.

"The sculptor made the order of the scenes from the Last Supper to the Burial, follow an "S" shape to reproduce the path that Jesus followed on the road to Calvary."

Remember the man sitting on the bridge between the towers? That is the Ascension of Christ, sculpted in bronze, signifying the last station of the cross.

The Last Supper close up:

The Last Supper. It represents the moment when Jesus asks Judas to betray him as quickly as possible. The apostles are shown to be in distress. A sculpture of a dog is also found there.

The Kiss of Judas:

For the uninitiated, Judas is well known to be the dude who betrayed Jesus by pointing him out to the soldiers. He had told the soldiers that he would kiss Jesus to identify him to the soldiers, hence the well known scene of "The Kiss of Judas".

"Because this scene took place at night, hence the undefined outlines of the sculptures suggested how these people would have been viewed in the dark."

Not captured in this photo is a sculpture of a serpent placed behind the figure of Judas. As it is traditionally associated with evil, it represents the devil's symbol that inspired the disciple to betray Jesus.

The Cryptogram:

Behind the sculptures of the "Kiss of Judas" is placed a cryptogram which contains 16 numbers. The sum of these, in 310 combinations, always adds up to 33, Jesus's age when he died.

Care to try figure out a few of the combinations? Here's a better view of it!

Group of sculptures no 4: The denial of Peter

The sketch:

The sculptures seen:

Do you see a cockerel in the pic? The story behind it was that Jesus had predicted before that Peter would deny knowing Jesus 3 times before the cockerel cries annoucing the dawn of a new day. The 3 women in this group of sculptures symbolise the 3 times Peter denied knowing Jesus and apostle appears wrapped in a sheet (a metaphor of denial), ashamed of his cowardness.

Group of sculptures No. 5 :Ecce Homo

After being beaten, Jesus is presented to the people wearing a crown of thorns.

Group of sculptures no. 6: The trial of Jesus

Pilate, the governer then, washes his hands to abstain himself of the responsbility of Jesus's death sentence.

The main doors and the flagellation of Christ

See the words carved out on the door? It is the gospel text narrating the last 2 days of Jesus. 8,000 bronze characters were cast to write the text on the door! There is a mini cryptogram found on it too.

As for the flagellation of Jesus, the sculpture is 5 m tall. The column is divided into 4 parts to symbolise the 4 arms of the cross. "Its juxtaposition recalls the endof the ancient world."If you can see from the picture, the following symbols are found:

a) knot: symbolises the physical torture suffered by Jesus

b) Cane: reflects the ridicule suffered by Jesus when the soldiers gave him a cane instead of a sceptre which symbolises royalty.

The Middle level: represents the path to crucifixion

Sculpture no 11: Longinus

the soldier that crossed his lance across Jesus's side, on the cross. Afterwards, he converted to Christianity and ended up as a Church martyr.

ABove Longinus, you can see group of sculptures no 14 : Soldiers playing dice. In that station, the soldiers play for Jesus clothes (after they had stripped him).

Group of sculptures no 12: The "Veronica" and the evangelist.

"Shows Jesus's 2nd falter on the Calvary path. In the middle of the scene, Veronica appears showing the veil on which Jesus's face is marked. Her figure has no face in order that more attention is paid to Jesus's face.

The sketch before they sculpted it:

Notice the sculpture at the far left of the picture? That is a sculpture of Gaudi, meant as a tribute, as the evangelist who would tell the story of Jesus. Also in this group of sculpture is the roman soldiers helmets which copies Gaudi design of the Casa Mila house (visited on day 9!)

Present day sculptures:

Group of Sculptures no. 13 : The 3 Marys and Simon the Cyrene

The 3 crying women represent the Virgin, Mary of Cleophas and Mary Magdalene. Above them is the Group no. 17 the burial . It is the last scene where Jesus' body is wrapped in a sheet and is deposited in a sheet that is deposited in a tomb by Joseph of Arimatea helped by Nicodemus. Mary kneels down. I think from this pic u can see a round thingy... Its supposed to be an egg above Mary. The egg is the symbol of saintliness and resurrection.

Group of Sculptures no. 15: The crucifixion of Jesus

Arrghhh from this pic, you cant really see the whole scene of the crucifixion. But the 3 Marys are there. The cross is made of 2 iron bars. The front part of the start is painted the colour red to highlight an "I", the first letter of the inscription I.N.R.I.

Can you see a flat round thing? That's the moon to represent the night.

The Torn veil:

This bronze structure represents the veil which sepersteed the most sacred place in the Temple of Jerualem from the rest of the large rooms. In order to achieve a simiar effect to fabric, the bronse veil forms different creases. Beyonf the veil is a brighly coloured ceramic work, depicting a lamb to symbolise the resurrection of Jesus.

Interesting so far? :)

And this is just the Passion facade! I'm gonna stop here so do wait for my part 2! But here's a preview of what you might find!

What awaits you beyond the doors of Sagrada Familia???

The interior of Sagrada Familia! This is the plaster model they did before the construction work started!

see the little man there? He has been put there to show u the scale of the church.

Hope you enjoyed my virtual tour of the Passion facade! :D we should totally go back one day!

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Sunday, September 23, 20077:18 PM

Before i start, a few shout outs are necessary!

a huge Thank You goes to Alvinna and Yi Qi for helpng me hand in my religion assignment! If not for them, i would not have made the deadline in time! i am forever in their debt!!

Another huge Thank you goes to Sharon for helpin me ask about my facial package with spa espirit. If not for her, i would be just another customer who has a grudge against spa espirit! :):)

I got very angry with a stall holder yesterday. Because my mother was tired, i volunteered to go buy dinner from chomp chomp. My mom was undecided about what she wanted to eat. Hence, she told me to "buy anything that is convenient". I know that my mother does not like to eat takeaways which are food she can cook (which is pretty much anything), so i decided to buy Hokkien mee as the "long queue" one has quit business.

I ordered 2 packets of mee pok, told them that i would be back later to collect and went over to stall 27 to order. After i had ordered the hokkien mee, i asked the auntie whether it would take long and she said not really. So i decided to wait at the hokkien mee stall. For those who have not been to chomp chomp, it is really stuffy and crowded inside. Add the smoke and people trying to pass you in the narrow alley, its not the most ideal place to wait. And i was standing near a very smelly dustbin, so needless to say, i wasn't having the best time of my life. I waited from the point the chef started to cook, all the way until it looked like he was completing it.

Then, an old man came and took his packet of food. Apparently he had ordered first and came by to take his food. Now, i decided to get my 2 packets of mee pok then come back to the hokkien mee stall to pick up the 1 packet and head home.... but when i got to the hokkien mee stall... they didnt say anything to me and i remember thinkin how weird it was that the maid who was waiting was gone... and the chef was starting up a new batch of noodles!!

After waiting for a further 5 mins, i saw this teenaged boy cme up to order 2 packets. And when the batch was cooked 5 mins later, the auntie gave him his packets first which got me really mad. Like i have waited 20 mins! and this dude who came way after me got his packet? That's not very fair is it? so i tapped the auntie on the shoulder and said "auntie, i was here first". i saw this flash of "damn. made a mistake" look flash across her face before she composed her face and told me that because i had gone off for a while, i wud have to re wait my turn. LIKE WHAT?

1) i saw an old man do the same thing but h did not have re wait his turn
2) even if i had to re wait, i came back before the teenaged boy ordered.
3) i wudnt mind if u made a mistake but if you try to push the blame to me???? that pisses me off more!

I very seriously wanted to slap the heavy eyeliner off her face then!

In the end, I was so angry, i shouted that i did not want the order and stormed off in a disgust.

I went to 2 other stalls to buy food and within 10 mins i was out of chomp chomp! hmph! of all stalls, i had to place an order at a horrid stall!

Anyways, i came back and angrily related the incident to my family.. turns out that my elder sister has had a bad experience with stall 27 too! The chef is a young guy, one young and old woman taking orders. They use banana leaf for their hokkien mee. Its located near where the chee kwuay stall used to be.

From now on, im gonna buy from the stall beside the wanton mee. They use banana leaf and the food is not bad! If i could, i would sign up stall 27 for GEMS (go the extra mile) courses! hmph

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Tuesday, September 18, 20071:50 AM

hey everyone!

as u know, im back in spore and gobblin all the spicy chinese food i can lay my hands on in a bid to pamper my taste buds after torturing them with ketchup (there is no way mere print can sufficiently convey the outpouring of scorn and derision on that word). blurrrgh.

anyways! i've come to realise that i keep on describing Barcelona as "awesome" which is getting old so i've got a thesaurus next to me. plus! with more than 3000 photos (i say ha! to ting here) and if you are reallly really patient, u'll be rewarded by the occasional snapshot from Mission-Hot-Stuff! hahha! u ready for this ride? here goes!!! :D

EuroTrip (the family edition)

Starring

the man who was the whole reason behind this trip....... DADDY TAY!

Photo taken at Parc Guell

the woman who made it all happen...................... MUMMY TAY!

Photo taken at Montjunc

the lovable leader of operation dog!, using her directional sense to guide us thru the streets of barcelona..... give it up for........JIE JIE! that's chinese for elder sis. the sudoko convert who changed her mind and had to share the sofa bed with me and got shoved to the side during the night... HAHAHAAHA! who had to surrender usage of her laptop to various family members! HAHAHA! who had to endure many of our spontaneous songs!

Photo taken at Camp Nou (Barcelona Stadium)

the sister which made the trip so so enjoyable because i got to tease and irritate her 24/7! the sister who ran after her kumon worksheet which flew down 3 stories to the road (due to wind in Lourdes) HAHAHAHA! who had to peel egg for us! HAHAHAHAHA! who BROKE MY EARRINGS and is SO GONNA GET IT later. not so much HAHA here. whose funky red specs were picked out by adel of great taste... who wore a mini skirt in lourdes when it was 9 degrees celsius... HAHAHAHAHA! and had to improvise with jie jie's shawl... here's the result.

Photo taken at Candles Stand near the Grotto in Lourdes

and of course.. starring yours truly, the great adeline!! give it up for adel!!!!!

.......

ignored????!!! (yes pei, i was inspired by the pi pi pizza kun!)

fine. no applause..... *bitter* let's get on with it then.

Day 1

So, we stopped by milan, italy for a transit and i nearly fainted when i saw that a gorgeous male was tearing our tickets (when we had to re enter the plane). oh la la! i cud just melt him and lick him all up! okay i got distracted already.hmph! concentrate, adeline!

The plane ride was okay, not as bad as i expected. Hey, sitting for 12 hrs str8 does strange things to one's bum. I was kindly informed by my sisters that i spent majority of the 12 hrs sleeping with my mouth open. hmph. like they were doing cartwheels ard the plane.

anyways! we arrived at our apartment (we booked a service apartment because it was way bigger and cheaper than hotel rooms ). I am happy to say that yours truly helped in the extensive research for this apartment (Trust me, it wasn't easy. My parents found like more than 5 apartments in different areas of barcelona and i had to post it every location on this map to show thm the different locations and my mom asked me to research more....things were pretty crazy then). and the apartment turned out to be FABULOUS!

my family trying to buzz in. Audrey, of course, is not helping. Look at her! i just wanna PINCH her chubby cheeks! Pssst ting! recognise the jacket she's wearing?? :D

We finally got in and we realised that the elevator was the quaint ancient type where u have to manually close 2 doors before it operates! really adds a rustic charm to it eh?

So! here we were, exclaiming over the lift and then we realise that with our suitcases and bags, only my mom and audrey cud get into the lift. My dad, jie jie and i happily said that we will walk up to our apartment as its address as #03-**. i mean 3 stories aint that high up right?

Wrong.

there were 92 steps in all. Turns out that they dun call the ground floor (lobby) the 1st floor. the 1st floor comes after about 4 flights of stairs. So while my dad happily skipped up, i started panting and wheezing after 5 flights. Here are some pics of the stairs.

if you look carefully, you can see how worn out the steps are! Just goes to show how many people have trod upon these steps!

Every time i climbed those(%$#@*) stairs, i felt as if the SDE (my school) steps were mocking me.. going "hahaha! you, who took the elevator any time u had to go up, have to pay penance now!" grrrr.

and yes, i am repeatin this joke a lot because it was the only thing my brain cud come up with whilst climbing those stairs.AND THEN, we found out that the lift can only take 4 pple. My family has 5 members. So... do the math.

i wish i had my laptop and photoshop so that i can do my collages and all bt this will have to do. Within 10 mins of entering the apartment, my family made it our own space. i.e. messed the place up. The following pics were taken on our last day, when we had hauled all our luggage out.

The corridor:

The stove in the kitchen. we took ages to figure out how to switch off the stove because it was one of those new cook-without-fire kinda stoves.

bedrooms. Note how 4 people can sleep in these rooms.

but! jie jie chose to sleep on the sofa bed with me instead..... so there shud be no complaints about being shoved to the side of the bed or not getting any blanket! As u can see, the laptop is at the end... Person in the picture = audrey

bathroom in master bedroom.. i LOVE the huge white sink!

a painting which greatly amused us

So then! enough of the house! It was time to go out! As we walked around, i was just amazed that i was actually in Europe. It's like when you see a building and you think "hmmmm the architecture is really european style" and then "wait a minute.... i AM in Europe! Wow! that's a real european building!"

Hence, i started to excitedly snap photos of several buildings which caught my eye!

Apartments:

A church we happened to stumble upon:

More examples of their buildings:

Before we left for Barcelona, my parents borrowed like 2o tour books and i was tasked to read them and note alll the interesting sites. So, on the first day, i reccommended that we have a nice walk in Parc/ Park Guell, described to be a "a wonderful world of colour, so much so one feels as if one has stepped into Dr Seuss's land". We made our way there via metro

their metro's doors have buttons for you to press if you wan the door to open.

we finaly reached the metro stop near Parc/ Park Guell and................. not one of the tour books mentioned the steep climb to the top. It was like San Francisco all over again!

We consoled ourselves with the fact that there were some escalators near the end of the slope so we set out eyes on that target and gamely huffed up the slope!

see the green trees in the far distance? That was the destination!!

AND, Of course, we reached the escalators to find out that several of them were spoilt!!! You can just imagine the horrified look on my face then.

Nevertheless! we reached the destination and the view was totally worth it. It literally took my breath away (maybe cause i was almost out of breath anyways).... Th picture doesnt do it much justice but i'll leave you to be the judge!

TSK! the one holding the blue shirt! NOT the other two, and esp not the black pudgy one! my taste isnt so bad!

hahaaha! welll here's the view ofbarcelona!

You can see the Sagrada Familia from here. We visited it on Day 2 so stay tuned for more pics!

the cucumber building:

the La Ramblas are marked by the trees (visited on Day 2):

It took much much persuasion on my mom's part to get us up this tall stand. The steps were scarily small and if u fell from climbing up, there wasnt any barrier to save you. You can tell how bloody terrified i was from 1) how my face is drained of all colour 2) How im found clinging to smething/somebody in all the shots found. I didnt mean to be a scary cat but i have a little teeny weeeny bitsy fear of heights with no barriers between me and a fall.

Here are the results:

So after a rather terrifying descend, we started wondering where the heck were the colourful statues the tour books were raving about.. We heard the sound of a saxaphone and realised that we were on the wrong track! And since the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, we decided to take a short cut thru the woods!

Thankfully, there were stairs placed there. We noticed dogs and their owners popping out from the woodlands before our discovery of the stairs. I have to say that the dogs were really skinny and fit. if i had brought dash there, i have this feeling that we wud have to carry him down!

To make the walk down more interesting, we started hammin it up for the camera. Here's an example of us being silly.

AND WE finally found Parc Guell! I tried jmping for the camera to demostrate my joy but....

hmph. lousy camera. All my efforts for nothing!

Here are a few more sane shots for you guys to enjoy the beauty of Parc Guell!

the perimeter of the above picture is decorated with pretty mosaics. No two mosaics are the same. In fact, all the colours and pictures found in Parc Guell are made of mosaics. Here are a few examples:

It's really amazing how they manged to craft the mosaics when u consider the scale of the park. Anyhoos... here are more pics of Parc Guell for you to enjoy...

Does this tunnel seem vaguely familiar?

.....

If you watchAmerica.'s. Next. Top. Mo-del (Try to do it in the irritatingly breathless way Tara Banks does it)., it would. This was the site where the CariDee and Melrose took part in a final runway show. Theme was gothic bridal or something spastic.. They had some stupid "fight" drama here.

Cute Guy alert! Can you spot him??

I like this house... Makes me feel hungry. I just wanna eat its icing roof!

Pssst! Disclaimer: the guys in the above pic wudn't budge so i took a photo of them to show you the scale of the window! I do not, in any way, admit that they are cute!

Before we knew it, our feet were crying out for mercy. We knew that we had a heck of a long downward slope to go, and so we reluctantly tore ourselves away and headed for dinner.

I let my family in on Mission-Hot-Stuff and they enthusiastically joined in. Once i heard "shuai ge", i wud go on full alert. Anyhoos, i wasn't so sure abt this one but my mother said "just put it in anyways.. people got different tastes mah" So here's day 1's last attempt of capturing a shuai ge on film!

Well, that's all i have for Day 1... I have this awful feeling that by the time i get to day 10, it'll be exams! hahahah! still, thanks for waiting patiently and all the reminders abt updating this blog. As i like to say on the other blog.... stay tuned! :p

And because you have been so good...

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