+Blaine left in the early hours of the morning, but not without a "see you in class, bro" exchanged between us. He is off to Thailand with his family and will be arriving back in South Africa on the morning that our first class starts. Ha ha ha.
I had a peaceful morning, eating bran sticks (never had them before, they are incredibly delicious, can see me becoming addicted). Andy Warhol museum: 15 Minutes Eternal  |
| What a pleasant suprise that the Andy Warhol Museum is currently touring Asia and is it's largest endevour to this continent as of yet. I zipped down on the MTR underground to Tsim Sau Tsui to the Hong Kong Museum of Arts and was transported to a world of art. |
A couple of well known memorable quotes by Andy Warhol that were displayed on the walls:
"Everybody must have a fantasy."
"I've never met a person I couldn't call a beauty.""I never think that people die, they just go to department stores" (I had no idea what this one meant)
Some of his artworks/photography that I enjoyed:
 |
| Silver Clouds (photograph by Warhol). These are helium filled silver cushions that were also on display in a fanned room that people could play with and bounce about. JAY! ^_^ |
 |
| "Self Portrait" This haunting photograph of a floating head was taken a few months before Warhol's unfortunate death due to complications due to gallstone removal surgery. This may arguably be his most famous piece. Many variations are available obviously. The print in the museum was a massive one. |
 |
| "Silver Liz" Elisabeth Hurley. |
 |
| Photography of Ozzy Osbourne, catching Ozzy's younger spirit doesn't it? |
_ca.1954_300dpi.jpg) |
| The cover for a book that Andy wrote. The book's pages were blank except for images of 16 cats named Sam followed by one cat in blue titled One Blue Pussy. ha ha ha... |
 |
| He really found out that one could connect with the public using common items. Superb vodka! |
 |
| Each of these cans are were screen-printed on large A2 folios. He actually ate these Cambells soups for 20 years! He figured he may be famous, yet soup tastes the same for everyone. |
 |
| "Feet" |
 |
| "Ads: Apple" |
 |
| "Sunset" series on canvas. In this series he printed the same sunset but with 632 different colour schemes, each one carrying its own mood and personality. Prints quite large. |
 |
| "Cow". The wallpaper in one part of the museum was entirely of this emotionless bovine. |
 |
| Andy Warhol loved photobooths because he apparently felt they carried more natural emotional weight with them. He often brought over his friends and they would all have fun with the photobooth. Something about "stage director subject" |
 |
| "Kimiko Powers" |
 |
| His famous "Mao" portrait/screenprint. Many variations exist of this one. |
 |
| Andy Warhol was fascinated by Monroe, and each of his colour variations of his "Monroe" had it's own unique mood and attitude. |
 |
| Mohammed Ali. |
 |
| He had an artwork series called the Oxidation series... It basically involved urinating on canvas painted with copper based print. The uric acid reacted to the copper and turned different shades of green, yellow and blue. Some of his artist friends also joined in, every pattern would be in correlation to each persons diet. He thus jokingly became an alchemist if you choose to see it that way...transforming urine into art. |
- In 1983 he was asked to create children's art gallery... These paintings circled around the topic of endangered animals. They were the panda, Grevys zebra, orangutan, Bengal tiger, black rhino and African elephant. (I felt it very apt that the animals of display all had to do with my recent life... Either they originate in Asia, or they star in Life of Pi or they originate from Africa.
- On display, among other things, in the time capsules were maps and chronicles of his adventures in Hong Kong. Wicked!
- He even had a fun try at some human biology called the "Physiological diagram"which portrayed a schematic representation of our digestive organs and Lymphatic drainage of the trunk, abdomen and pelvis. MEDPOINT FOR ANDY.
- "Gun." He was shot in 1968 by a female coworker in the abdomen, leaving him in a critical stage, undergoing a 5 hour surgery and actually being pronounced dead at one stage.
- Prints of dollar bills or signs $ was his way of saying he believes good art is good business and like, and is not ashamed of, earning lots of money from it.
- He snapped and developed an estimated 150'000 photos in last decade of his life.
 |
| Another interesting thing about his life is that after moving from a silver studio he had to a new one, he got the idea to make time-capsules (612 of them) with cardboard boxes to be handed out/sold one day. |
 |
| The boxes were the same price and appeared identical, but the contents were a gamble. You could receive a box of art or his old Vogue or Seventeen magazines. |
A last g-bye
After the museum trip I took a stroll about TST and decided that I should enter one last random completely Chinese restaurant for my favourite food. Proud to say I greeted, ordered and thanked all in Cantonese. ALEXPOINT!
 |
| My favourite Char Siu Fan. Ah how I will base my entire 2013 diet on this dish. Also had me some iced coffee. |
 |
| Ah, this is how you are attracted into a restaurant, when these are hanging outside (and also whether the line is long at this particular restaurant). Fortunately both of my pre-requisites were fulfilled! From left to right: Sweet pork, crispy pork, chicken and duck (all in Cantonese roasted style). My char siu fan is of the piece on the left. |
My exact 30-hour trip back home
The public transport to the airport was efficient and über cheap as always. Pretty soon I was lugging my luggage to the check in at HK international and boarding an Airbus A380 (I specifically picked this plane haha).
Notes on the journey to/in Dubai:
- I had failed to notice my flight was to make a stop at Bangkok until it just landed there. This is quite funny because Blaine will be there in a couple of days; seems I was subconsciously following around a bit.
- Sleeping on a plane is uncool. The really large guy in the isle seat next to me was sleeping the whooole time so it was pretty impossible to go take a wee.
- At Dubai International I got a meal card so I'm going to go get me a pizza and pudding at some Indian place, jay!
- I've got my running shoes on because they are least compressible and my bags are full to the brim. Coupled with my comfortable jeans and short hair I'm feeling a little awkward like a runner who needs to prove it to the public....and also feeling like Steve Jobs a bit. Feeling very awkward. Oh well!
With my meal card I got an oily pepperoni pizza and water and chatted with a couple of crazy looking and talking travelers. Austria, India, Korea.
After about 4 hours of my 5 hour flight for the next plane whilst staring out the observation window I wished I could at least some day get out of this airport to see the tallest building in the world. I mean honestly, I have been blessed to come by this airport 8 times now and not once I even caught a glimpse of it. I think I almost fully learnt a valuable life lesson next: I looked out the window, looked for it and then I saw this insurmountably tall spectre piercing the sky as if it were a reversedlightning-bolt. There she was at 828m tall: Burj Khalifa. How blind I was before. Little did I know that later the Boeing-777 would literally make a turn around the building before setting off home. The building sure is beautiful, wrapped around her the world's most extensive water fountain. Bucket list: fall into it.
 |
| Burj Khalifa, Dubai |
Arrival in South Africa and my farewell
Back home. It smells sweet. The South African accents, languages and people left me smiling wide upon exiting the plane.
My blog ends here. I do not feel I need to say any more other than that I was extremely blessed to have gone on this trip.
I just would like to say that I have made some very good friends on this trip, some I saw often, some less than I would have liked to. I'll allow myself a shoutout to Maggy,Richard, Matt and ofcourse Blaine, I think you are all monstrously likeable haha. And if I have a reader other than me of this blog:Thank you for coming on this journey with me, I truly enjoyed writing this, even it only was to chronicle my own journey. I tried putting all my heart into it. I have calculated that this blog has taken me +/- 70hours to write. Well worth it!
Writing this I have learnt a lot about how differently people view things, and that different certainly does not mean wrong. On this trip I have learnt a lot in many areas of life, and shall have to process all of these things in the month's to come.
I have found a rejuvenated love for my country and the people in it, and feel more strongly than ever to want to be a part of it. Thank you South Africa, for welcoming me back so warmly. This is truly where my heart lies.
Cheerio!
(I will continue to do some touch up's on my blog posts, maybe adding a photo here or there or fixing some truly Afrikaans-English grammar. I will also put as a final 22 post an ultimate itinerary for anybody that would like one, based on what I felt was the best in Hong Kong.)
Comments
Post a Comment