New Start

dear all friends of mine and all my readers,

this wewe-wetwet blog has been born for almost 2 weeks.  with the supports from all of you, it is growing well.  i have so decided to host this blog under my own domain such that it would have it’s own identity.

so, here is the brand new http://wewe-wetwet.com, please kindly switch over there and i would stop posting here.

again, thanks very much for visiting me here and do continue doing so in my new website.  let’s continue our love and laughters there.

 see you all!

An Underwater Experience

  (Vissitudes, 2007)

One would find this a very extraordinary experience created by Jason de Caires Taylor: finding some sculptures under 5m clear water in the sea of Grenada, southern tip of the Windward Island in the Caribbean.

    

The sea of the Caribbean is crystal clear, and the sculptures could be viewed simply by swimmers doing snorkeling.  There are several groups of sculptures, several communities, that Taylor has placed under the sea.  Through the clear blue water, the sculptures look like some ancient ruins and the appreciation process becomes an interesting discovery process.

The sculptures at the beginning are the art creations of Taylor, but after those have been placed under the sea, the nature takes it on board to shed lives to the sculptures.  The sculptures have evolved under the sea through time and eventually become part of the coral reef and habitats under the sea.  The project demonstrates and experiments on the relationships between man and environment, art and nature, transformation and immortality. 

Quote:  Taylor focuses his work on the connection between the object and the environment in which it is placed reflects his own experience: “I encountered change from an early age as my family moved from one cultural environment to another. This was the beginning of my fascination with how objects and relationships change as landscapes and contexts alter.”

One of the underwater communities created by Taylor is the Vissitudes: a circle of figures, all linked through holding hands. These are life-size casts taken from a group of children of diverse ethnic background, evoking ideas of unity and continuum.

 

Here are some other underwater communities created by Taylor, they are now in the sea of Grenada, transforming and waiting to be discovered.   (The Lost Correspondant, 2007) 

  (Sienna, 2007)

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Jason Taylor was born in 1974 to an English father and Guyanese mother. Educated in South East England, he graduated at Camberwell College of Art, London Institute with a B.A.Honours in Sculpture and Ceramics. He has exhibited sculptures in several public spaces, including Trafalgar Square, Regents Park, Waterloo and Camberwell. He is a fully qualified dive instructor with over 14 years of diving experience in a variety of countries worldwide.

 

A Shining Star

this post is dedicated to a dear friend of mine, and tomorrow, she would start her new life.

she is a pretty, talented,  energetic, smart and cheerful lady, who has been working brightly and most admirably.  she is loving, kind, graceful and trustworthy and all friends love her very much.  it’s my honour for knowing her and being friend and colleague with her for quite some years.  to me, she is really an angel to us.

in pursuit of her career, she is leaving our company today.  on one hand, i really miss her and dont want this to be true.  her leaving is a loss to us all, for lossing such a brilliant and loyal teammate.  on the other hand, as her friend, i do support her move.  i believe that with her all rounded qualities, she would do very well in her new career. 

my dearest friend, please excuse me for not having any precious gift for you.  to mark your meaningful day, i have drawn my wisdom card for you.  this is what your card says:

“you have drawn this card today because it is time for you to break free from the restrictions caused by such believes.

your life is on the verge of a beautiful transformation, yet in order for this transformation to occur you must first examine your believes. 

you are worthy of happiness.  you deserve to be and have all your heart desires.  honour, respect and love yourself.”

dear friend, trust yourself and trust your talents.  the new world is ahead of you.  you are a shining star and you would make it a success.   don’t forget you have got your Guadian angels watching over you, you would never be alone. 

with love.

let go

    

(“the kiss” 1908 & “mother and child” 1905, Gustav Klimt)

 

“the more we care, the more we lost …  i better give up ……” – said the frustrated harry potter. 

i was watching the harry potter, the “order of phoenix”, tonight and i was touched by these lines.

isn’t this too true for us all, especially in the era of love and relationships?  the more we care, the more we love, the more we are hurt and frustrated.

we always ask ourselves, why they don’t appreciate what we have done?  why they don’t understand us?  why they treat us so bad?

 if this is all out of love, why we are hurt and frustrated?

“you will be surprised to know that the English word love comes from a Sanskrit word lobha, lobha means greed.  it may have been jsut a coincidence that the English word love grew out of a Sankrit word  that means greed, but my feeling is that this cannot be just coincidence.  There must be something more mysterious behind it, there must be some alchemical reason behind it.  in fact, greed digested love.  it is greed, lobha, digested well, which becomes love.

love is sharing; greed is hoarding.  greed only wants and never gives, and love knows only giving and never asks for anything in return;  it is unconditional sharing.  there may be some alchemical reason that lobha has  become love in English language.  Lobha becomes  love as far as inner alchemy is concerned.” – <love, freedon, aloneness>, osho, 2001.

do we notice that it is out of greed that we think / claim that we care and love someone.  for this greed, it means desire and expectation.  do we ever notice that when we love and care someone, the deep down reason is to fulfill our desires and expectations? 

i love you (and i wish you love me in return …)
i love you (and i wish you obey me in return …)
i love you (and i wish you are loyal to me in return …)
do i truely love you … ?

when desires and expectations are not met, that becomes the source of our frustraction and disappointment. 

to love someone, to care someone, and we also have to learn how to let go, to let go of our desires and greed.

if we love someone, then love them the way they are;
if we love someone, then love them and don’t ask them to change;
if we love someone, then love them with freedom and give them space;
if we love someone, then love them and don’t ask for return.

we let go, and we hope that our beloved ones would let go too. 

love, with “greed digested well“, would become the unconditional love.  it is when we could let go our greed and desires, the distilled true love is with us.

relaxing sunday

Ely & Nepomuk, is a lovely and pretty short film produced and directed by a Swiss Director, Rafael  Sommerhalder, in 2000. 

“Ely and his cat Nepomuk are happy. They catch raindrops with their mouths, chase butterflies while walking on their hands, and fall in love with flowers. One day three grey men appear … ”  

Let’s enjoy the simple and child-like pleasure in the film.

Rafael  Sommerhalder
Born in 1974 in Zurich. 1996-2000 Attends ECAL (École Cantonale d’Art de Lausanne) Cinema Department. 2000 Diploma in Directing. Since 2000 freelance director.

Filmography
1998 Au paradis (documentary) / 1999 bow wow (animation film) / 1999 Pizza (short film) / 2000 Ely & Nepomuk / 2004 Herr Würfel / 2005 Container (animation film)

sophie’s gallery

my black & white impressions.

 to the light house, okinawa, japan, july 07.

coastal, okinawa, japan, july 07.

from “small” to great

doing a little bit each day, and that would build up to the great, this is always my believe.  

taking every little piece of work we do seriously everyday, we would build up our reputation. 

treating every person we meet sincerely everyday, we would win their trust and supports.

serving every stake holder with heart and care everyday, we would grow our business.

expressing appreciation to our team players everyday, we would keep up a strong team.

leading a small change and accepting a new challenge everyday, we would change the culture.

of course, writing a lovely post everyday, we will build up our readership.

Light & Form

Church of Light (光の教堂), Ando Tadao (安藤忠雄 あんど　ただお), 1989.
4-3-50 Kita-Kasugaoka, Ibaraki- Shi, Osaka Perfecture.   
Tel) 0726-27-0071

Ando Tadao is one of my favourite architects.  His famous artistic creation, the Church of the Light, is a valuable gift to the world.

Born in Osaka, 13 Sept 1941, Ando entered into the profession of Architecture in 1969 after doing self-study and travelling around the world between 1962 and 1969.  He has won lots of architectual awards since 1979.  The lastest one is the 2002 Gold Medal of the American Institute of Architects, by his “Chikatsu-Asuka Historical Museum, Osaka”. 

Ando’s signature is his favourite material, the fair-faced concrete (清水混凝土, in Chinese).  In his master pieces, one could easily appreciate the contrasts of solid and fluid, dark and light, raw and artifice, hard and soft, form and space, concrete and abstract.  His work always blends well with the natural environment, instead of confrontation and alienation, which shows his love and respect to the nature. 

The Church of the Light is one of Ando’s most famous creations.  Applying his favourite material, the fair-faced concrete, Ando has created a clean, quiet and humble space for people to pray and meditate.  Inside the Church, a cross-shaped opening is crafted on the plain concrete wall at the shrine to allow natural light from outside to come in.  One may find it miracle or even sublime that when natural light comes into the Church, a “light cross” appears at the shrine, a cross that is made form light and form only.  With the non-materialistic “light cross”, one would immediately understands the concept of divine and spiritual and be “enlightened”.  I would say that, the Church of the Light, by itself, incorporates Ando’s philosophy and representation of beauty with sublime beauty.     

       

   

“There is a role and function for beauty in our time. In Japan it may be translated into the concept of Uskuji, which also means a beautiful life, that is, how a person lives––his or her inner life. It’s something beyond appearance, or what only meets the eye. You can’t really say what is beautiful about a place, but the image of the place will remain vividly with you. People tend not to use this word beauty because it’s not intellectual—but there has to be an overlap between beauty and intellect.“

- Ando Tadao, in an interview by Architectual Record, talking about “beauty”.

Awards

• Annual Prize (Row House, Sumiyoshi), Architectural Institute of Japan, 1979
• Cultural Design Prize (Rokko Housing One and Two), Japan, 1983
• Alvar Aalto Medal, The Finnish Association of Architects, 1985
• Gold Medal of Architecture, French Academy of Architecture, 1989
• Carlsberg Architectural Prize, Denmark, 1992
• Japan Art Academy Prize, Japan, 1993
• Pritzker Architecture Prize, 1995
• Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, France, 1995
• Praemium Imperiale First “FRATE SOLE” Award in Architecture, Japan Art Association, 1996
• Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, France, 1997
• Royal Gold Medal, Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), 1997
• AIA Gold Medal, American Institute of Architects (AIA), 2002

In progress

• House, stable, and mausoleum for former fashion designer Tom Ford , near Santa Fe, New Mexico
• Expansion for the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts
• Rebuilding the Kobe Kaisei Hospital in Nada Ward, Kobe, Japan
• New Tokyo Tower

my beloved southern french cuisine

when i first started writing this site, i was thinking of sharing my precious moments with my readers.

“good wine, good food and good friends”, should be an universal formular for our “precious moment”.

don’t envy me, what i am going to introduce to you, is the only restaurant of a world-wide culture and trendy label, the Agnès b. le pain grillé.

    

this is the first and only Agnès b. restaurant all over the world (except that there is another Agnès b. cafe opened in HK as well, shortly after this le pain grillé), serving southern french cuisine.  it is located right underneath the Agnès b. Travel Concept Shop.  it seems that the restaurant itself is making a declaration on the fushion of fashion, travel and cuisine, i.e. culture and life. 

during its first opening in Sept 2006, the waiting list was up to 3 months.  this restaurant was really the talk of the town at that moment.

the food and wine served by this shop are pure southern france traditions, even every decoration inside the restaurant is from the southern france.  sitting inside the cozy restaurant, tasting a glass of fine french wine (in a very competitive price) and ordering their tradition french dishes, one would hardly believe they are now in hong kong. 

among their dishes, i love their freshly baked bread, foiue gras,  la omlette, mussels (exactly the same as those i tasted in paris and southern france),  crepe & souffle in particular.

if you ask me for a recommendation of french cuisine in hong kong, this Agnès b. le pain grillé should be on the top 3 of my list.

_______________________

Agnès b. le pain grillé - Shop 1, G/F, 111 Leighton Road, Causeway Bay, Hong Kong 

(852) 2577 2718