Hong Kong, day 5

Actually, this is more like day 6, since I haven't been writing every day. I know this because I brought socks and underwear for 7 days, and I am out!! Oh well. It is not a perfect world, is it? Laundry day is tomorrow.

Today, Matthias had to get up early for a simulator session at 6:30 am. I got up early, too, but I got off to a slow start. It's nice to have no schedule!! I finally decided to go to the Hong Kong Art Museum today. I am so glad I did!!! The Museum of Art is located across the harbor (Victoria Harbor) from where I went yesterday. It was another long subway ride. I do love the subway here! Easy to use, clean, and great people watching.

Since it was almost noon when I got to the museum, I decided to eat lunch before going in. I sat outside at the museum cafe, where I had a nice view of the harbor, beyond the sculpture garden. (The sculpture garden only had 4 sculptures in it - wimpy!) Another nice day in Hong Kong.

The special exhibit at the Art museum is a collection of the paintings of Wucius Wong. He is from Hong Kong, but lived abroad on and off for 17 years of his life. His paintings are a combination of Western and Eastern Art. His main media was ink on paper. The paintings were GORGEOUS, Gorgeous! (IMO) Emotional, with lots of atmospheric effects. One of them moved me to tears (this is a new experience for me; the first time it happened to me was last year at the Van Gogh museum.) While I was enjoying his art, I looked over to where a group of rich looking people were gathered, and realized they were listening to Mr. Wong himself!!! So I sidled over to where they were, and got to listen to the artist talk about his work. He had these crooked, big-knuckled hands, and he said he had the mind of a designer, but the heart of a poet. Sounds like a painter to me. I would love to paint his portrait. It was a wonderful treat to see him, and hear him talk about his work.

I did explore the rest of the museum, but it was freezing in there! The second favorite aspect of the museum was the gold and jade exhibit. I saw granulation galore! Thanks to Harold O'Connor, I know what that is, and how hard it is to do.
After the museum, I went out to look at the harbor and enjoy the sunshine. (I needed to warm up after that museum air! Frigid!) Here are some photos from Victoria Harbor. The tallest building is the one that Matthias refers to as the "nose hair trimmer." Every time I look at it now, I laugh about that. It is the tallest building in Hong Kong, and it has 88 floors. (88 is a lucky number in China.)

Hong Kong, day 4

Today, Matthias was in the 747-400 sim all day, so I decided to go downtown by myself. I must say, just riding the subway is entertaining for me. Since we are staying on Lan-tau island, by the airport, it takes almost an hour to get downtown. I just people watch the entire way.

I first went to the Flagstaff Museum of Tea. It's located in Hong Kong Park. It was a beautiful day, almost 70 degrees F. The Museum of Tea was right up my alley. It took you through the history of drinking tea in China, with lots of examples of pottery from each dynasty. It even had "poetry of tea". I liked how even the way tea should be prepared was carefully explained: " when the water begins to generate bubbles like "fish eyes" and sounds like "wind blowing through the pine trees", this is when you add salt. When bubbles are like a "string of beads", stir and add the tea powder." Cool.

After I got out of the museum, I wandered through Hong Kong Park, looking at fountains, fish ponds with turtles, and water lilies. What a beautiful oasis to find in the middle of a city filled with skyscrapers. I picked a perfect day to be in a park. I managed to find a spiral staircase leading to a vantage point, from which I took some nice photos of the skyline, and the Tea museum with tall buildings behind.

I next went to the Hong Kong center for visual arts, where there was an exhibit of art from the graduating students. I was the only person in there. So if you are in a crowded city and you want to escape, just go and look at art, apparently. It was interesting to see art being created by students from a completely different part of the world.

It was not a long walk to the Hong Kong botanical gardens. Matthias and I had been there in October, but it was such a nice day, I decided to stay outside and enjoy the sun. I tried to see everything we didn't see in October. I was unable to see any of the aviaries, either in Hong Kong park or the botanical gardens. Here's the sign explaining why. I did get to see a jaguar, and a bunch of monkeys and tamarinds. Orangatans, too! There are many stairs to climb up and down in Hong Kong, and I pretty much climbed stairs the whole time I was downtown.

After a couple hours of park enjoyment, I decided to work my way back to the hotel. I walked to the subway. There is an interchange between the downtown subway and the subway to our hotel, and in the middle of this interchange, was a diorama of a giant "Hello kitty" getting married!!! Try not to throw up, but I was forced to take a photo for nostalgic reasons. My sister and I had Japanese pen pals growing up, and they used to send us all kinds of Hello Kitty paraphanelia. I have to tell you, I was not the only one photographing the wedding of Hello Kitty - just the only non-native!!! Funny. Becca, I took this photo for you.

Riding the subway back, I realized how tired I was, but NOT TOO TIRED to do a little bit of shopping!! ha ha ha. I made a goal for myself to buy purple things today, so I bought a pair of purple pants, and two purple shirts. Nice! Purple is much harder to find in the US. For all of you fashionistas out there, I am happy to announce that the fashion of the 80's is alive and well in HK: short denim skirts or long sweaters worn with leggings, stripes everywhere, converse with tight ankle jeans, and - believe it or not ARGYLE!!!! No kidding. Perhaps the next set of photos should be fashions...

Hong Kong, day 3

I did take photos yesterday, but I took so many more today, that I am skipping yesterday, in favor of these much more exciting ones from today. Matthias and I went into the city and saw the goldfish market, the flower market and the bird market. WOW. It was a good day. The gold fish market was so so SO cool!!! If you are a fish person at all, and you ever get to Hong Kong, put this at the top of your list. The only thing I didn't like about it was the fact that I found two EXTREMELY cute and fat goldfish that I really wanted, and I couldn't buy them. There were walls draped with plastic bags full of fish and water, tanks galore. There were lots of adorable tiny turtles and even frogs! It was amazing. What is striking for me is how many shops there will be, right next to each other, all selling the same merchandise. Try to imagine about 6 or 8 blocks of fish stores, all lined up in a row. Crazy. The whole place smelled like a giant aquarium. There were saltwater tanks, too.

The flower market was close to the fish market. Except that we forgot where we were supposed to go, so we ended up walking back to the subway, where the map was, so that we could get our bearings again. The Chinese New Year celebrations are coming up soon, and so the flower market was packed with citrus trees and orchids, I guess in preparation for the celebration. The smell and colors of this flower market were intoxicating. Talk about eye candy. I was surprised at how many of the flowers I still know the names for, since I worked in the flower store before we were married. I have never seen so many orchids together in one place, and that includes Hawaii. It was spectacular. There were throngs of people, and it was slow going, walking by the flowers. We did buy some tuberose, as a time machine of smell, to transport ourselves to Hawaii once again. They are in the bathroom now, in a plastic water bottle, and the fragrance has infused this entire hotel room. Fabulous.

The last stop downtown was the bird market. For us, this wasn't as exciting as the fish or flowers were. I have always had a bit of an issue with birds as pets. They are supposed to FLY. But I did really enjoy the wooden bird cages, and the sacks of bird food that the wild birds had discovered and were taking full advantage of. You could also buy grasshoppers of any size here, but I forgot to take a photo of that.


The subway was crowded today, since it is Saturday. Everyone out and about. So here is a photo of that, too. The subway here is wonderful. It is easy to use, since the signs are in Chinese and English, and it is really clean. I find it even cleaner than the metro in Paris! Impressive.


There is more to come, just you wait and see!

Hong Kong, day 1

I arrived in Hong Kong this morning at about 7:30 am local time, after more than 24 hours of travelling. (That includes the drive from Salida, and some of the hang around time in airports.) That is a long journey! I am happy to be here, and SO HAPPY to see my long-lost husband. He has been here since December 25th. He is training for his new job with Cathay Pacific Airways.


Matthias met me at the airport, and we came back to his hotel room. We took a little nap, and then decided to get outside and hike around a bit. There is a big Buddha on Lantau island, which we visited when we were here in October. A tram will take you to the Buddha. We took the tram all the way to Buddha in October, and noticed a trail, running parallel to the tram. It is the trail they used when building the tram. It is steep!!!

It felt good to be outside without long underwear and a heavy coat, hat, and gloves. It has been such a cold winter in Colorado. I only had a long sleeved shirt on, and I definitely broke a sweat. I mean, there are butterflies flitting around! I tried to get a picture of a beautiful black, yellow and orange one, but he was shy, and made a hasty exit.

I did stop to pee before we began the hike, and what fun to open the door to the famous Asian toilet!!! This is the height of glamour, my friends. And you thought McDonald's bathrooms left a little something to be desired... Word of wisdom, always carry tp with you!

It was a nice hike, and I am glad we got some exercise. Here are some of the things I saw along the way. We also rode on a double decker bus to get back to the hotel, which may not be that exciting for some, but it was a first for me. We don't have many of those in Salida, that's for sure! Stay tuned!

A new monotype

Just a quick note today. I did get to use the printmaking press on Thursday. I am so glad I did. It was fun! I only printed the larger size, 8 x 10", but I liked what I did. Here is one of them:

Leaking Roof

I spent most of the day at home today. The kitchen roof is leaking, and my friend, Greg Mather, came to help me clear off the snow and ice so that I can get it fixed. Thank you, Greg! He did most of the work, so I fed him soup, and gave him some frozen salmon. It will be a relief to get the roof fixed, so that I can stop putting towels on the kitchen table, and I won't have to look at the crumbling joint compound anymore.

I finally finished the gallery packing. YAY!!!!!! I only need to get the big easel out, and three other random things, and then I am completely finished. What a relief. I was beginning to think I would never finish. I promised myself I would go and print monotypes as a reward for finishing, so tomorrow, I am going to the Colorado Mountain College in Buena Vista to use the printmaking press. I can't wait!!! It is the perfect reward.

I am posting a larger monotype from the last session, which was before the holidays, as a preview of more to come! I think this one is about 8 x 10" for the art, and the paper is bigger. It's called "Vibrato in Blue".

What is a monotype?

As promised, I am going to tell you a little more about the process for monotypes today. In case you forgot, or haven't been reading my blog until just now, montypes are my new favorite medium!! A monotype is created by painting on a metal or plexiglass plate. I use oil based printer's inks. Watercolor inks or regular oil paint may also be used. Once you have completed your painting on the plate, a piece of dampened paper is applied to the plate. The paper I have been using is called BFK Rives, and it is designed for printmaking. It is a fairly heavy paper, and has a soft texture. The dampened paper and plate are then rolled through a printer's press. If you don't have a printer's press, you may also apply pressure with a baron or wooden spoon. I have been using a printmaking press owned by the Arkansas Valley Art Center. Once you have pressed the paper and inked (or painted) plate together, you may lift the paper from the plate. It is exciting, because the pressure causes effects that you really couldn't create with a brush, without painstaking efforts. I have been using pieces of cardboard, leaves and feathers, and putting those on top of the inked plate, before applying the paper. The dimension of the cardboard, or other objects, creates intaglio (an impression in the paper) which I have been finding fun and interesting. Once you print, there is sometimes ink left on the plate, and if you print the image again, it is called a "ghost". It will look very different from the original print, and I often add more ink, or other elements to the "ghost". Each print is an original, one-of-a-kind piece of art, since you only print one. So when I sign the monotypes, they are 1/1.

Once the monotype dries, it is possible to go back to it, and rework it with watercolor or pastel, or some other medium. I have been using pastel. You can also ink another plate, and print on top of the first printing, for different effects, or if the results of the first printing weren't quite what you had in mind. The monotype you see here is a ghost, and I did rework it a little with pastel. It is called "Industry" and it measures approximately 5 x 7" for the art. It was printed on a buff colored paper. If you are interested in this, or another of my monotypes, you can check out my etsy site at karineswenson.etsy.com. Hopefully, I have explained this so that you have a better understanding about monotypes. If not, feel free to send me an email, or post a comment. I will do my best to respond, and answer any questions you may have.