29/05/2009

Today should be the last day of blogging. It means that my immersion trip is coming to the end soon. I can imagine the feeling by the time i have to leave Dalian now. I've spend almost 2 months here. The hostel already became my home. It's so sweet to hear from the auntie in the hostel to say " 回来啦！" with a friendly smile. Hmm, I gonna miss everything here including them.

Hmm, everything will end very soon and we have to go back to Singapore. It seems to have a lot of things to catch up. Hope everything will be alright. Anyway, buck up, fighting!

28/05/2009

Today is the Dumpling Festival. A lot of stalls are selling dumplings and eggs. I'm not too sure about the reason why to have dumplings and boiled eggs together but i guessed it is their tradition here. It is believed that if we throw dumplings into the river, the fish will not eat QuYuan's body. The tradition is still being carried until today. This is the way how chinese remembered and showed respect to the people that had done contribution in the ancient time.

We went for dinner in Claypot Chicken（鸡公煲）shop. They also gave us a few free dumplings and wish us happy festival. It is such a sweet feeling. Suddenly i missed homemade dumpling and i missed my family. When we went back to the room we found that there are dumplings on the table. They are from Jonathan. Hehe Thank you sir!

Production in progress. Hmm, 4 more days to go. Kambatek!

27/05/2009

The project deadline has been extended to next Monday. It is a good news to us as we have a few more days to work on project. Today is the last day of tutorial and tomorrow onwards will be four days of Dumpling Festival Holidays and obviously it will end up becoming project days. Hope project will go smoothly and have a full submission on Monday. : )

Today we got the schedule of Beijing Tour. We got the chance to visit Beijing Olympic Stadium, Forbidden City, The Great Wall of China, QingHua University and so on. These are all famous places in Beijing that I have been wanted to visit. I'm looking forward the day to come.

23/05/2009

Next friday is our project deadline. Yet, not much work is done and the design ideas are still not really finalised yet. Therefore, we have to stay in the hostel to work out the design. It's such a pity to stay in hostel instead of touring around the city but for the project sake we still have to do that. Hmm, it's ok. We still can do that after the submission.

Everything will go very fast after the submission. We have to leave Dalian and head towards Beijing already. It's pretty sad but there is one chinese saying 天下无不散之宴席. There is a beginning and there must be an end also.

22/05/2009

Today we went to visit design firms and show flats with the students from Experience Design. The first company that we visited was 180. It is an advertisement design firm which is quite famous in Dalian. They showed us some of their projects and brought us around the office. The chief designer looked quite similar to Kelly,one of the lecturer in SP. The way they manipulate the idea and how they transform the idea to be different from other design companies is interesting.

The next stop we were brought to The Fifth Country show flats. The show flats there give me a "WOW" feeling at the first moment i stepped in. The style there is very luxurious but for me, i think it is a kind of design that i will be sick of it quite soon. I prefer that kind of clean cut design that shows simplicity instead of being so heavy.

We then went to the next stop which is E-graphics design company. The branch in Dalian is just set up few months ago. The people that introduced to us about the company is from France. He gave us a short brief about the company and also few projects of theirs.

21/05/2009

Today is Thursday,again. Feeling like time in Dalian is always in a faster pace comparing to Singapore. We had our interim review in the morning and as usual attended a talk in the afternoon.

The talk today is about The wisdom and method of expression. No matter human being or animals, they usually use their behavior as a kind of expression of their thoughts. If somebody gets closer to you, it means that he or she is trying to show friendliness to you. Therefore, it is essential to learn about this and translate into design. Design is also about how you did something and conveyed the message to the end-user. Another element, communication came in. Design is also about how we communicates the idea and transform it into either 2dimensional or 3 dimensional.

I like the talk today more comparing to the previous one. I can absorb more and understand more from this professor. Maybe the contents are more related to our course studies and also the way how she expressed her thoughts to us. She mentioned that manual drawing is still very important nowadays although the technology is so advanced and many people are using that to produce stuff. To be a top designer, manual sketching techniques are expected as a basic skill that we are able to manipulate well. Also, hand sketching is the best way to translate and record down our ideas in mind to a paper. From there, we can start to move forward and forward.

Manual drawing is not that well-drawn doesn't really matter. The most important thing that we must bear in mind is "Practice makes perfect". As long as we are keen in learning something, it can be achieved someday.

16/05/2009

Today we went to Xinghai Park. Heard from the tourguide last time, Xinghai Park is also one of the famous spot in Dalian. We took BRT to Xing Gong Street and then took tram to reach there. There are small theme park there and also beach over there. Along the street, we can see stalls that are selling souvenirs. Most of the souvenirs are made of shells.

As we walking down the street, we then came to the place where the Dalian Centenary Sculpture is located. It looks like a big book sculpture from far. A lot of people tried to climb to the top part of the book sculpture to experience the feeling of standing high. There are also artists there who help people to draw their portrait. I always admire their manual drawing techniques which is really amazing to me. It really requires a lot of practice and time spent.

The place is quite big so we even rented bicycle to tour around that place. Other than bicycles, there are also horse carts that can bring tourists around.

15/05/2009

Today is the day of having fun. We went to Kingdoms of Discovery (发现王国）. It is one of the famous tourist spot in Dalian.

Everybody is so excited that can't wait to try every single games there. Other than those games that we would normally see in theme park, there are also shows for us to watch. One of the interesting one is the Crazy Theatre. It is a show that performs a lot of dangerous acts as if they are filming for the Hollywood movie. It is so amazing and exciting.

It is another fun and tiring day.

14/05/2009

Today we attended a talk about Advertisements and Brands Design which was presented by Professor Lin. A brand is just like an image of one product. Therefore, it is very important to create a positive image to give influence to the public. For example, when people talked about Dalian, they will think about abalone. People may forget about lots of things in Dalian but they will not forget abalone. This is what the professor told us. I guessed this is just like a brand. A brand will give influence to people and leave a deep impression in their mind. This is the success of the product which really helps in differentiating it from other products.

After the talk, we then went to Xing Gong Street （兴工街）to celebrate our classmate, Eelaine’s birthday. We had our dinner in Bulldog Steak House （斗牛客）. The steak costs about 20 over Yuan here which is quite cheap comparing to Singapore although the serving is quite small.

Tomorrow we will be going to Kingdoms of Discovery（发现王国）. Hooray! Good night everyone!

08/05/2009

The outing today was cancelled. It wasn’t so bad because we can have our own programme for the day. We then went to Victory Square（胜利广场）for shopping. The place looks a little bit like Bugis street in Singapore.

In Singapore although we can bargain in some of the shops, the price is still not as horrible as what we experienced in China. Shopping in China we cannot just ask for the price and pay. We must use strategy to bargain, bargain and bargain! But I’m not really good at bargaining. Too bad! Next time will be better. Haha!

We then had our lunch in 姐妹骨汤麻辣烫.We shopped for the whole day and bought a lot of things but still haven’t finish walking to every single corner. Hmm, it's big and a nice place to shop. It was a tiring day. Hehe, Victory Square I will be back! XD

07/05/2009

As usual, we have our weekly progress pin-up. We attended a talk in the afternoon by on the topic of 视觉知识在当代艺术设计基础教育中的价值 . I remembered one line from the professor: Creativity is to be different from others(创意，就是要区别于他人). This is quite true. If you want to be outstanding, first of all you must be different.

After the talk, we then went to take a look at the exhibition of the students’ work. The students are from the course of 材料与特种工艺. They manipulate different materials like recycled materials or the things that we can easily find from our daily life.

06/05/2009

Today on the way back to hostel after lunch, we walked past a place which really attracts our attention. After asking for permission, we then went in to check it out. This place is the practice room of sculptures (泥塑综合实训室).

There are a lot of different sculptures inside the room. We can see there is one completed work right in the middle of every group of sculptures. I guessed everyone will create their own work based on the observation to the completed work.

To have a good sculpture, I think it is essential to use both our eyes and hands to see and touch things by heart. Design is also like that, we have to use our senses together in judging or creating something.

02/05/2009

Today is Saturday. I liked this place when i first came here. But i don't really stop myself and take a picture of it. Today i did it.

From here you can see our hostel. Just on your left when you go all the way up to the slope.

This is the road that we always take to go out for dinner.

This is at 中山广场 .

Dalian postoffice.

The police in China are called 公安.

Do you discover around this building there are no people walking around? This is a high-end shopping place. All the shops inside are BRANDED one. Prada, Giorgio Armani, Gucci, Louis Vuitton...etc...

Every entrance they even have someone to open the door for you.

2yuan bus. wah, completely different from 1yuan one.

Renmin Square (人民广场）

That is kite not eagle.

He is the one who is playing the eagle kite. Skilful player!

Rose bed. : )

KFC. Nice outlook. haha!

Friendship Square(友好广场）

My dinner. : )

01/05/2009

Today is labour day and also our weekly outing day. In the morning we went to Gold Coast (黄金海岸）. It is a lovely beach with the famous themepark, Discovery(发现王国） nearby.

See! There are bicycles rental here. Single, two sitters, 3 sitters, 4 sitters....wOw!

There are also horse cart.



Peaceful beach.




The sky and the sea are just like no boundaries.

This is just like a sculpture being built into a shelter.

Haha...Jonathan on bike.

Eagle in the sky!

Eagle man?

In the afternoon we were brought to the training place of Dalian Mounted Policewomen(女骑警). This place is quite interesting as we got a chance to see those policewomen and their trained horses.

Lion-like dog.

This is the spectators sitting area.

Took a photo with the mounted policewoman and the horse. You know, to be a mounted policewoman must be at least a graduate and 170cm. And, each of them can fight against three guys at one time.

Then we moved on to the next spot which is the TV Tower(电视塔）. It is located on a hill that is 170m from the sea.

Windy and foggy.

We then went up to the tower.

1 yuan per time.

See how the railing connects to floor. How come there is a tape?

From here we can see the Labour Park ( 劳动公园）.

The smallest butterfly in the world.