rugby.

today i went to go watch a rugby game for free, thanks to NYU. It was a Guinness Premiership league game between Saracens Sarries v. Worcester Warriors. Saracens are in first place, and worcester second from last. I didn't know anything about rugby before going, so I did some research the night before, but that still didn't help much in terms of understanding the game.

they say american football is a contact sport, but it's NOTHING compared to rugby. they wear no helmets and no particular protective gear whatsoever. they must think american football is such a sissy sport for wearing ginormous helmets and tons and tons of padding. here are a few other cool things that I learned about rugby while watching the game.

1. players aren't allowed the pass the ball forward. so they pass horizontally while running in a diagonal, which is pretty cool.

2. when the ball is thrown in from the sideline, players can lift their teammate up to catch the ball. it's pretty incredible how high they can lift their 200 lbs teammates.

3. SCRUM! I think this is the epitome of a contact sport, where the two teams bind together in rows and go literally head to head. the front line of the two teams interlock their heads and shoulders while trying to gain possession of the ball.

4. lots and lots of blood on the players faces and one of them got carried out on a stretcher.

in terms of today's game, even I, a complete newbie in rugby, could tell that it was NOT a good game. lots of fumble, and not very exciting moments during the game. a lot of it was just brutish fighting over the ball. However, there was ONE AMAZING play in the second half where a saracens player named Neil de Kock scored a legit goal, as opposed to all the other goals which were penalties.

perhaps the most interesting part of the game was just being in the sea of british people. they were all drinking their guinnesses, joking around in their fun accents and cheering for their team. there were around 40,000 people there! lots of families were there too, and it was great seeing the parents explain the game to the children, while they enthusiastically wave their teams' flags. I also got to see the british pop bad, The Saturdays, perform during halftime.

All in all it was a fun experience, except for the fact that I was freezing by the end of the two hours. Also, watching a rugby game got me more excited to see a football game, by which I mean soccer, by which i mean FOOTBALL.

war memorials. st. aloysius. ulu.

(this post is about yesterday feb 11)

yesterday was the first time I genuinely enjoyed my Art & War class. Instead of just sitting in the classroom, making broad generalizations about the 40 or so war-related paintings, we took a field trip to Hyde Park to actually SEE some war memorials. I was skeptical as to how enlightening learning about war memorials would be, because most often than not, art history can be about making vague, bs statements. However, just like the first time I learned how to read a painting, I really enjoyed learning to read a war memorial. In Hyde Park corner, we were able to see the British response to the end of World War I, manifest in their war memorials. We discussed their desired messages/effects and their impact.

right: World War I memorial in Hyde Park Corner. left: David by Donatello (15th century, renaissance italy)

this war memorial was inspired by the biblical story, and classical art tradition, of david & goliath. it's the "underdog comes on top" story, where a little boy kill the giant goliath with just a sling shot. basically, celebrating the fact that britain was victorious, though it was never the "underdog". It's a very intellectual war memorial because it looks back to sources that not many uneducated people would have understood. therefore, it's not as powerful as a "public" memorial. Also, the classical elements, like the wreaths, are not very congruous with the machine guns that they surround. Finally, the idealization of the body glosses over the fact that thousands of men have died, and many of the living were permanently disfigured.

royal artillery memorial. combination of the more dignified bronze statues with the more classical marble reliefs. the most bizarre thing is that it is flanked on top by a HUGE machine gun. is it really appropriate for a war memorial to almost celebrate a weapon? is that really the compassionate/commemorative message that they want to send?

top: australian war memorial. bottom: vietnam war memorial in DC by maya lin.

I found the australian war memorial very beautiful. nestled into the corner of hyde park, it really creates a space for people to think and commemorate. Most likely inspired by Maya Lin's memorial, it is more a form of CONCEPTUAL art, where the idea matters more than the form. unlike maya lin's, the engravings aren't dead soldiers names but the towns where major battles took place, and the home towns/villages of australian soldiers who died in combat. the memorial curves downwards, naturally causing you to move along the monument.

It was SOOO windy and everyone was freezing by the end of class, but I still had a good time. I choose the worst days to wear converses out. they are NOT very warm shoes at all.

So, after class, I took the tube straight to St. Aloysius infant school to start my first day of VOLUNTEERING! I signed up with this program called the SHINE project that places volunteer student tutors at local primary schools serving underdeveloped neighborhoods. I got assigned to help Year 1, which is 6 -7 year olds. I must be honest, the first day wasn't as great as i thought it would be. I walked into class, and immediately the teacher asked me to help individual students practice read out loud. So, my first student was this cute little blonde girl, but she absolutely refused to read!!!! she gave me the blank stare, didn't say a word and just sucked on her sweater. so, i called on the next kid, charlie and he was much better, much cuter. It's adorable to hear them read in a british accent. The books they were reading had one 5 - 6 word sentences on each page. My favorite was "Mum was cross." the mom in the story got upset because her son spilled flour all over the floor. haha MUM WAS CROSS. so great.

there, i had a rather shocking experience. I was walking around the classroom helping kids wrap up and tidy up their desks, when i came across these two kids having a little conflict. Then, i heard this 6 yr old girl say "you fucking shit!" I was so shocked, i froze in place. I couldn't believe this little girl was swearing! we'll see how she is for the rest of the semester.

Also, st. aloysius is a catholic school, so it's very religious. they have singing time, where the entire school gets together and sings prayer songs. and they end school by praying with their hands together. it was all very new to me, because i didn't grow up in a particularly religious environment. I volunteer for an hour, every thursday so it's not that big of a time commitment, and i get to hang out with british kids in uniform. brilliant* (it's one of the british-isms that i'm trying to adopt)

THEN, later that night I went out for the first time in london, with my roommate and her friend. We went to ULU (University of London Union). During the day, it's a normal student center, but after a certain hour it becomes a members only pub scene. So, we went down there around 8:30, expecting to grab a beer and then come back. except, it turns out it's KARAOKE night!!! so we stayed there until midnight, watching drunk british and american college students having fun karaoking.

My favorite part was the fact that the university of london's sci-fi and fantasy club "warstory" (i think) was sitting at the table in front of us!!! It wasn't so much when they were just sitting and hanging out, but when they went up to karaoke!! these three, slightly awkward guys went up to the stage, started singing an unrecognizable song in english, and dancing like crazy. it was great. BUT the best part was, when at the end of the song, one of the guys screamed "SCI-FI FUCKING ROCKS!!" that made my night.

all in all, yesterday was much more exciting than today. I spent the majority of today TRYING to work on my 10 page Art & War paper on francis bacon and i have......3 pages done. goodness gracious.

soho.

today I explored SoHo, an area on the West End of London. Originally, I was going to download a free walking tour onto my ipod, but once I got there I realized that the file wasn't transferred onto my ipod. So, i had to do my own little walking tour the old school way, with a map and good sense of directions. it's an interesting area where shopping meets theatre and chinatown. apparently the name originates from a hunting call, which is very different from NY's "SOuth of HOuston."

I started off at Goodge St and visited Pollock's Toy Museum. It was cool getting to see all the different, simpler toys, ranging from jacks to toy soldiers to wax dolls to teddy bears. But I realized that wax dolls creep me out, and I'm not sure if it was worth the £4. regardless, it was a good half an hour.

"The toy theatre was a popular toy in the Victorian times, when children would have put on performances of popular plays running at the time. The theatre and plays would have been bought in sheets and cut out and pasted up at home. One of the best known suppliers of toy theatre material was Pollocks in Hoxton, after whom the Museum is named"

- Pollock's Toy Museum Guide.

they were really intricately painted and it's such a different concept of a toy.

4000 year old toy!!!

view into a dollhouse window.

compare this modest version of monopoly with.....

the WORLD edition! with electronic banking units?! craziness. what is monopoly without the physical act of counting and holding on those fake bills?! I found this edition at Hamleys, the FAO Schwartz of London.

continuing on to the "mod" / shopping area of SoHo...

Carnaby Street. cute little area packed with lots of clothing shops/cafes.

i like colorful photos

.....i like colorful photos.

regent street (major shopping st) and a red double decker bus. i take those every now and then to get around the city, and i sit on the top deck every time.

chinatown! very excited to see what they have in store for lunar new year festivities.

must go see les mis at some point this semester.

not too interested in Avenue Q, but i loved the building. just gives you a sense of the theatre district in london. very different from times square.

that concludes my SoHo tour. apparently this is where the red light district is as well, but i didn't walk through it today. maybe next time. So my conclusion about SoHo is that it's just as, if not more, commercial as its counterpart in nyc. However, i think it retains more of its local authenticity. definitely plan on going back and spending time.

I was planning on finally going to the British Library afterwards, but my entire body was frozen by the end of this walk that I had to go back home and thaw for about 2 hours. i snuggled into bed and sipped on earl grey tea.

Tonight, i asked 2 kids out to dinner. They both go the NYU, and more importantly we all went to middle school together in seoul. The three of us were at the school together for just one year, 8th grade, and didn't interact with each other at all back then, or even in nyc. but, thought it'd be cool to get together since we're all in london. we went to a local indian restaurant, and had a great 3 hours just chitchatting about middle school and nyu and london.

not london. paris.

I didn't have a particularly interesting day, other than the fact that i walked past the British Library and British Museum on my way to school, just like I do every day. haha. Therefore, I'd like to share my photos from PARIS from two weekends ago. I took the highspeed train from london on thursday right after class at 3. It's almost absurd how easy it is to get your ticket, through customs and passport control. On the train, I sat with two other american students from St. Lawrence university in upstate ny who were also spending a semester in london. One was from NE, and the other was from SERBIA! It was ironic how where he's studying abroad (london) is closer to home when where he actually goes to school (upstate ny, basically canada). We chitchatted away during the 2.5 hours train ride, and before we knew it, VOILA we were in PARIS! What's crazy is that I told Jeff, my host for the weekend, about the two boys and he told me he went to St. Lawrence for undergrad! small small world.

I will preface this post by saying that before going to Paris I was very skeptical, thinking it's all a hype. but, i was wrong. the city completely won me over, and I can see why people love Paris.

DAY 1

It rained all day, so it was my museum day. I got to the Louvre at 9am, and stayed there 2:30 including an hour lunch break! Here's are two pieces that I particularly liked. I don't have photos of my own because i didn't bring my camera, but i honestly think that helped me concentrate on the pieces.

Francesca & Paolo - Ary Scheffer. I had never heard of the artist nor the subject matter, but this piece made me stop. the light, the anatomy, the intimacy, the curvature. all seemed to just work. I looked up the subject matter after getting back, and Frances and Paolo are a pair of adulterers during the time of Dante, and their story is recorded in the Divine Comedy.

Nike of Samothrace 200BC- Hands down, absolute favorite piece in the Louvre. Nike is the Greek goddess of victory. so in classical representations, you'll often see this winged figure on battle/war scenes. This statue is placed on top of a marble staircase, so approaching it almost recreates the ritual of approaching a temple/shrine of a goddess. it's just breathtaking. monumental yet weightless. stationary, yet thrusting forward. drapery, wings. some people say the want to find and attach the head and the two arms, but i think that'd ruin it for me. it really is GINORMOUS.

obviously there are other highlights in the louvre, like the mona lisa but meh. it had its own fake wall, and it was behind bulletproof glass, with a rope around it and two security guards watching over the mobs of people taking pictures.

after 4.5 hours, I still had more to see, but I had to move on to the Musee d'Orsay. Rainy but short and sweet walk there.

I'd never heard of this museum, so I was pleasantly surprised to see a renovated train station.

Elephants of Africa – Tournemine i love elephants

After another 2 hours, I took the bus #69 that starts from the eiffel tower and ends at the bastille, and covers most of the major monuments of paris. At bastille, I had a nutella crepe and took the metro back home. On my way home, bought a baguette and two types of cheese and that was my dinner. beautiful

DAY 2

Bookstore in Marais

synagogue in Jewish Quarter

bakery in jewish quarter. best strudel ever.

center pompidou for modern art. discovered SIMON HANTAI 1922 – 2008

walk to Musee d'Orangerie.

impressionism. water lilies - monet. much more impressive than moma

walk up champs elysees

arc de triomphe

view from arc de triomphe.

DAY 3 - lots of walking.

walk from apt to rue cler to notre dame + 3 mile walking tour!

rue cler market. yummmm

walk along the sienne

notre dame!

mob of roller bladers!

shakespeare and company bookstore
latin quarter
saint chapelle
last photo. view from pont neuf of sienne and pont de arts.

so that's my extremely abridged summary of paris. it was glorious. It was meaningful to have a chance to be alone with my thoughts in a foreign city. i loved having the freedom to do absolutely anything i wanted.

i apologize for the incredibly inconsistent blogspot in terms of photo size. i'm still new to this. i should tell you, this post took an HOUR because internet is quite slow here.

lots of love.

stonehenge & bath.

though most people found stonehenge underwhelming and dismissed it as just "stones," i was still very impressed. some think it took over 1000 years to complete this mysterious monument, which is pretty incredible considering that even the most ambitious gothic churches took no more than 600 - 700 years to complete. I was surprised less by its size, but by how compact it was. I imagined it to be spread out, and hard to recognize its composition. but i could easily envision it being a religious monument/temple, which i think was its purpose. it's hard to wrap your head around the fact that people were able to mobilize in such a way to move these huge stones and carry on the construction for a millenium. i spent an hour just walking around it. the geometry and spacing of the stones were extremely consistent. oh, and the sheep were also entertaining too; free roaming sheep grazing near a world heritage site. enough said, here are pictures.

then we took an hour bus ride to our actual destination; Bath. i didn't know about it before signing up for the trip so here's quick background. it's famous for being the only place in the British isles with natural hot springs. there are three in total, and the hottest one was recently developed into a very posh spa called "thermal spa" as a part of their millenium project. there's also renovating an adjacent old classical building into a 5 star hotel to bring more people into the city. though its claim to fame is its hot springs, it was also a religious center during the georgian period 1700s to early 1800s. I was pleasantly surprised by how beautiful and quaint the city was; there's a nice mix of classical and georgian architecture. Bath is also where Jane Austen lived from 1800 - 1805, and apparently the city and society of Bath served as inspiration for some of her novels. the entire city is a world heritage site. I definitely recommend people to visit if they ever come to england.

entrance to roman baths.

gothic church, right next to the roman baths. nice contrast of architecture. nicknamed the "lantern" because at night, when the interior is lit with candles, light floods out of the HUGE windows.

the famous royal crescent. series of apartments/houses shaped in a crescent. the famous architect of bath is John Wood. basically everything worth seeing in bath was designed by John Wood, or his son, also named John Wood.

fun story: as a world heritage site, none of these buildings are allowed to be altered by its inhabitants. for example, all the doors are to be painted white to preserve continuity. however, in the 70s this badass lady got pissed that the local police painted yellow parking lines on her cobblestone walkway, so she painted her door yellow in protest. she went to court, and surprisingly won her case, so her door is the only non-white one. and now, no one is allowed to paint over her yellow door.

roman bath! in 400 AD, the roman bath complex included a temple dedicated to the goddess minerva, because divinity was their only explanation for hot water spewing out of the ground. you can see the steam.

coins found in the springs/fountains. found with these coins were metal plates/scraps of paper where citizens asked goddess minerva to curse those who have wronged them. ex: the thief who stole my hooded trench (coat)

all in all, great sunday.