Free MoMA!

© Joselito Briones

We got in MoMA for free. That's a big deal, me being the cheapo that I am. I wanted to go there originally this Friday, having heard that entrance feee is waived from 4pm to 8pm Fridays, but what do you know, turned out that Jens now works for a museum (albeit in Boston) and he gets in most museums for free. Company included. How he got to be a museum's resident scientist from being a nano-physicist, I can only wonder. Actually no, I did ask him. He just happens to be one of those smart people who can do plenty of different things. He's taken up bust-portraiture (clay sculpture of heads) recently with impressive results.




The food in the museum cafeteria, "Cafe 2" isn't bad at all either. I had butternut squash ravioli in a very, very rich sauce, and lentl and portobello mushroom soup, both very good. I'd have preferred the ravioli with a simpler, subtler dressing though. The price was just slightly more expensive than the numerous cafe's scattered in the city.


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Search & Destroy

© Joselito Briones

This is one of the most interesting shops in the East Village, called "Search & Destroy". What's on sale are actually, literally, junk. Interesting junk. The junk that some collectors look for. The junk that somebody else's granny threw away that young girls (or boys) might be interested to wear. The kind of junk that you'll never think of finding in a shop. This is one of the shops that make East Village what it is. Don't expect to be buying anything wearable though, unless you're a hardcore hipster, the prices aren't exactly cheap.


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Astor Place

© Joselito Briones

Missed this one. I've told you all about this one, of course, when I took pictures of it last year, I just thought I'd take more photos of it under different light.


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One more

© Joselito Briones

Last Union Square photo, promise. Also taken from DSW, I like how the place is covered with snow, and the atmosphere complete opposite of what it looks like in spring and summer (doh) where the place is full of skateboard kids. This photo was post processed, there was way too much difference between the highlights properly exposed (buildings in the background) and the shadows (the whole park) so I had to tweak it a little.


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Views from DSW

18 March

© Joselito Briones

While shopping in DSW, Jane pointed out to me the awesome view from the open windows of the store on the third floor. Above is the view looking northwest, with the Empire State Building on the left, and below is the view looking north east. Naturally, I was too busy looking at the merchandise to notice for myself what's going on outside the building.


© Joselito Briones


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Sleek Hong Kong: The Departed

© Joselito Briones

Just so you won't get the impression that Hong Kong is all old and monotonous, here's a photo of one of the best buildings there, in Admiralty. It's already an icon in Hong Kong, of course, the Bank of China, by I. M. Pei. The best time to look at it is the early evening in Autumn, when the sky is clear and deep blue, there's no fog, and you can see the lines clear and sharp all the way to the top.

As this is the last Hong Kong image I'll be showing you for a while, I'll just write here something else that Hong Kong is famous for. Movies! Action movies to be exact. Okay, fine, it's not about a Hong Kong movie, but something based on one.

The movie, of course, is "The Departed", based in Hong Kong's 2002 critically acclaimed thriller "Infernal Affairs".



And what a movie! The cast was excellent, especially Mark Wahlberg and his filthy-mouthed character. Jack Nicholson just cruised through it, like it's all fun and play for him. Matt Damon adopted his inscrutable poker-faced persona in the "Bourne Identity" franchise, and even Leonardo di Caprio, who showed teen-level angst in what is meant to be a grown-up role, managed to project a bit of grit in his eternally pre-pubescent voice. The star of the movie though, no question asked, is director Martin Scorsese. The way he constructed the twists and plots was the work of a true master. It was also great that, in what I assume other people would see as plot holes, instead of spoon-feeding us, the audience, with every details, he let us figure things out for ourselves. Ok fine, there are still holes in the plot, but who cares! The tension was unrelenting in the whole movie, there was no chance to think of inconsistencies - until the next day when you've had about 24 hours to mull things over.

I'm not even putting a synopsis here. Go watch it, it's great!


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Staying Low

© Joselito Briones

This photo was also taken in Hong Kong, in Midlevels, and interesting in that these are among the very few low buildings remaining in (Midlevels). Most of the buildings in this area (mostly residential) are like the ones I posted a few days ago. This one was also taken from Josen's apartment window, looking down.


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Midlevels

© Joselito Briones

I know, by now you're probably tired of photos I took in Hong Kong. But I want to post them anyway, and it's not like I've got a lot of things to tell you presently, so this'll have to do. This one's also taken from Josen's apartment in Midlevels, in the south side.


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Mini Reunion

© Joselito Briones

We had to rush to Jing's place in BF Homes in Paranaque. I was under the impression that the reunion that we've been planning for sometime, for our batch in Architecture in Mapua Institute of Technology, would be held at about the same time as the last time - early evening. She sent me a text messages saying the first attendee family has arrived. at 9am. We didn't make it until 2 anyway. The ones present were: Jing (Arch. Geraldine Legaspi to anyone else, now doing mainly restaurant projects and thriving, aside from teaching in the same uni), her sister Joy and her kids, Ramil and his wife, Nora (Arch. Nora Soriano, please, currently terrorizing the new administration of the school), Maricel and her daughter, Norman and Ching (uni sweethearts who had their first baby they lovingly refer to as their thesis, having been born in our last year in Mapua), Boyong and Weng also uni sweethearts, and their kid.

There's so many stories to tell, I'm sure once in awhile these annecdotes will make it here. Right now it's just great to see old friends again, and to know that they're doing well.


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Christmas

© Joselito Briones

Having distributed all the gifts last night, we took it easy today. It was the exact opposite of the frantic house-to-house trek of the kids, collecting money from relatives and Ninangs.

We decided to treat my parents to lunch today. We went to Tony Roma's in Alabang Town Center with Kuya Toto, and thankfully so. After several misses on restaurant choices, at least this one, albeit still formulaic chain restaurant fare, delivered the goods, at least with the baby back ribs. We ended up bringing back two extra racks, one for Kuya Toto and one for Ate Julie. My mom wanted to see if she can produce the same texture, if not the taste, so we passed by Makati Supermart to buy some frozen ribs, but the grocery was close today.


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P.S.
The image on top is actually a movie, a trial if it's worth putting flash movies here. It's probably too big a file if you're on a slow connection, but if you're using broadband, it should load smoothly.

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Thanksgiving

© Joselito Briones

It's that hokey time of the year again... when you're supposed to think of all the positive things that has happened in your life, or things that you have, and express gratitude. Naturally, I do not want to think THAT hard. I do think it's appropriate to be thankful to have had "Bed Day", yesterday.

I phoned Norie in California to wish her happy thanksgiving. Turns out they had an early dinner, with her Kevin and Dave, my two brothers Noel and Cesar, and Uding and Little Kevin. Since this holiday calls specifically for enormous dead birds, she decided to (gasp!) order, from the place where she usually gets her honey-roasted ham, a (gasp!) deep-fried turkey. She's adventurous that way, you'll have to give her that. She was already doing the dishes though, by the time I called, and was getting ready for her nap.


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"Bed Day"

© Joselito Briones

Have you heard of this holiday before? We don't have school today here in Germany (or maybe it's just Bavaria) because this is supposed to be the day in the middle of the week when you're supposed to just lounge around in bed all day. Am not shitting you, it's true!

Oh well, I might have spent all day in my pj's, but in front of my computer. I edited some pictures, for the brochure. I also did a new version of this photo that I took of Carrie a couple of years ago in New York. I wanted to experiment in high-key desaturated colors.


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Back to Basics

© Joselito Briones

Back to Erlangen, and back to experimenting with digital pics. This one is taken in the Bamberg train station... I was trying to create an old-world, hand-colored character to it.

MTV: In constant rotation nowadays is Christina Aguilera's "Hurt", from the album "Back to Basics", really well made, the make up alone when she's sitting down crying is flawless and a pefect fit to the video, it must've cost a fortune. Also, among the top British MTV's dance videos is the one that Frieder produced, "Dance for Life". And I happened into MTV2's Barrio 19... wow! How could I have missed this show before?


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Delineated Sunset

© Joselito Briones

This train station is somewhere in Germany, of course. I wasn't paying attention when I took this digital snap, and I was probably half asleep, so I didn't see where exactly.

The only thing I find interesting in this photo is the geometirc sunset, which is the reflection of the overhead lighting inside the train on the window, through which this is the view.


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Cutting the Flo

© Joselito Briones

It's gotten officially too cold this morning, I decided to bring in Flo, Godfrey, and Ronnie indoors. I had to trim most of them though, the summer heat left quite a lot of dead branches. I should've waited, by late morning it got very hot again, but I was too lazy to bring them out again.

The photo above is from a roll I thought I've lost, from Toulon, south of France, late last year. When I was going through the box of unexposed film rolls to take to Prague, this one was inside a film box, but with indication that it's been exposed, I had no idea what was in the roll. I took it to Frankenlabor with the Prague films, and surprise, surprise... this one came out.


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An interesting BBC newsfeature for today: Cutting the flow.


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Images from the upper deck of a tourist bus

© Joselito Briones

The stupid sun decided to come out today, now that I'm going back to Erlangen. Oh well...

© Joselito Briones

I slept the first couple of hours in the bus, and the rest of the time I decided to pass by taking pictures from the bus window. The best images from where I sat though, were the ones I thought best left undisturbed, even by my lens - the child-like joy in the faces of the much older passengers, when they alight from the bus to see friends and family waiting for them, and their careless hugs and kisses.

© Joselito Briones

© Joselito Briones


© Joselito Briones


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Gray Day in Berlin

© Joselito Briones

Nothing's quite right today. I woke up with a headache. It started before I went to bed last night, there was no place I could go to to buy some paracetamol. Or maybe I just didn't know where, but sure enough I asked several places. I went out after shower, hungry for breakfast, determined to go to the first place I see that serves anything digestible. The sky's gray. My only full day here in Berlin and the sun decided to play hide and seek. Bleh.

© Joselito Briones

First thing I saw was KaDeWe. Sure, those Dior clothes look yummy, but not in a nourishing way, the opposite actually, it made me want to not eat ever again so I'll fit in them. I'm sure though that if the store was already open I'd have gotten in and procastinated on getting headache relief. Thankfully, the KaDeWe apotheke around the corner was already open, so I got myself some painkillers.

© Joselito Briones

I wasn't so lucky food-wise. The first place I saw was McDonald's. I had mcMuffins. It did the job. It didn't stop me though from stopping at several wurst vending places while walking and talking pictures all day.

© Joselito Briones

These are all taken with a digital camera, the one I got as a present on my birthday. As you can see, in all the pictures, the sky is consistently gray.

© Joselito Briones

First two pictures, left and above, are of the same building, in the Museum island, something something dome, my map said. The first one was taken while I was walking along the river bank, just before it rained. I let the rain pass while having espresso in a sand bank (made to look like a beach) cafe, then continued on to the island itself, the next picture.

© Joselito Briones

I went around the island, until I got to where I started, the east tip of it, and took this picture (left), which I'm sure so many others have taken before, a visual gag trying to make the TV tower look like it's on top of the dome of another museum. I think this is going to be the theme for today: taking cliche' pictures. Only doing worse version... one with gray sky on every picture. Hmmm... come to think of it, this had always been the theme of all my pictures. Oh well...

© Joselito Briones

The digital camera actually adjusts the brightness, so that instead of dark gray which I see in reality, the images have a very bright gray sky.

© Joselito Briones

It's all museums basically, this area, so I decided to go somewhere else, and headed towards the Reichtag (left). Last time I was here in Berlin was 1999, and the only two places I remember from then is Liebskind's Jewish Museum and this, the Reichtag. The rest are all a jumble of cranes. This city was full of promise. And if anyone's to gauge its fulfillment, now's the best time.

© Joselito Briones

The next few pictures were taken in the same area. Except for the last one and the one before that, taken in Mitte, and the third one from the last picture, taken in Galleries Lafayette (designed by Jean Nouvel), close to Unter den Linden, where I bought a couple of socks.


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2006.12.01
As you may well know by now, i've reformatted my blog, and some pictures are too big (and I now deem unnecessary) to put here, so if the text refers to a picture that isn't shown here, that's because I've taken it off.


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Photographer, interrupted

© Joselito Briones

Photo, above, are wild flowers that simply refused to be contained by the fence, in a construction site.

I wanted to go to Milan today, for the weekend. It was mainly to test the theory that Germany being central enough in Europe, one can just hop in on a bus and go to any major European city. Almost got away with it too, no advanced booking, no advanced planning. How far did I get? Nuernberg. I'd have made it to Milan too, had I left the apartment an hour earlier. By the time I got to the bus station, the ticketing office was closing in five minutes, and they had no more bus connections from Nuernberg to Munich, where the bus going to Milan is originating.

I could also have bought a bus ticket from Munich to Milan and just take the train to Munich, but I didn't have the train schedule with me, and there was no time to check before the bus ticketing office closes. So in theory, I could've also made it if I left the apartment only five minutes earlier, and took the time to get the train schedule from the Nuernberg Hauptbahnhof for trains going to Munich.

Oh well, next time. At least I didn't bother to unpack (there wasn't much to pack to begin with), just in case.


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How fat is that pussy in the window?

© Joselito Briones

Not very, actually. Just can't think of what to call it, and I thought it interesting that this is on the same street where they display the other kind, also in windows, under red light. One of a series of pictures from Amsterdam that I will be showing you. Be prepared to be bored.

This is my first proper animal picture, so it's special to me, plus I like that the colors are very Ingres-like, hence the flickr title, "Ingres Cat".


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Amsterdam

© Joselito Briones

Found myself in a bus to Amsterdam. It's a new experience, long distance bus ride, but eventually it's just as any long distance mode of transportation. All I wanted was to get it over with and get to the destination. In a way it was more comfortable than flying, because one has the comfortable feeling of being closer to the ground, better than train because it stopped several times, and of course, compared to driving, one doesn't have to bother about finding one's way and the fatigue of driving itself, and the advantage of being able to sleep whenever one wants to. The downside, of course, is that it took a loooooooong time.

Will be seeing Wil there, and Gau and Tony after a very long time. I last saw Tony in the Philippines, about three years ago, and Gau I think when I left Hong Kong for California, six years ago. We all decided to meet up in Amsterdam this weekend, to see the Madonna "Confessions" tour.


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