More meet-the-family sessions + SSC!

I'll start off with a pic i took from my corridoor at around 7pm. Like it a lot, cos it's during the transition time, just after the street lights came up and just before the HDB lights come up. So it's an opportunistic pic, that's one of the reasons why I like it; cos it's not served up a dinner table.

Anyway, post proper.

Sat 7 Jul.

Brought 3rd uncle & aunt to the Pan Pac gym, to let them have a feel of the classiness. They said that they have no shortage of posh hotels in Shanghai, but just not in such high concentrations.
3rd Uncle went trigger happy with his camera, and he went up and down the Pan Pac glass lift at least 5 times, taking shots along the way. The girls and I did just 1 and we headed off to swim.

View of Suntec and more.

Good view of Centennial Tower.

After that was a dinner with my parents and my dad's parents. Ppl who know them will know they are not very easy people to please. So it was a very stressed out dinner for me, issuing rules to the girls to NOT act cute or talk too much in front of them. Like my brother calls them, grumpy old people.

I know it's mean, but both my brother and I figured out somewhere along the way that they do not behave respectably despite their age. And at some pt of time, our thinking progressed beyond that of theirs. No grudges, cos it's good progress that each generation makes some improvements from the previous. I simply fail to find them amicable, (unlike my mum's parents) and have to resort to PR in my relations with them.

To those who don't know, I PR with my own parents too but am sincere with Clarisse's parents. For the simple fact that I respect those who command it; it is not something to be taken for granted, or assumed to be tied with age.

ok back on track. The dinner was at a traditional Teochew restaurant in Bedok. oh yes, Clarisse's home is also Teochew (that's my dialect). I went to stay over at their place last July, and got to pay my respects to my own ancestral shrines as well.

The whole bunch of us after dinner.

Next day is yet another dinner. At Mushroom Park at Serangoon Gardens. It's a healthy Taiwanese cuisine, with all the precious and rare mushrooms imported from Taiwan. The only branch outside of Taiwan, is in Singapore.

Anyway purpose of the dinner was that the elders were paiseh after being treated to so many good meals, and they wanted to return the treat to us, the hosts. Clarisse's choice, cos we have been there before and soup is really tasty. Everyone likes it except my dad, but considering he just had a good scare from a medical checkup (my brother and I told the nurses to give him a good scare tho his body was fine), it was a healthy choice.

Didn't take photos...-_-... oops. but that would mean less scrolling for you guys!

Aft that was visiting Clarisse's only relatives in Sg, her mum's cousin. She's settled in sg, and has 2 small-scale facial boutiques in Yishun and Kovan respectively.

The 3 that haven't appeared before are Clarisse's aunt (mum's cousin), and her 2 daughters.

Monday was sending 3rd uncle and aunt off on their flight back to Shanghai, bringing mum and sistas to gym, Tuesday was Ben & Jerry's outing (forgot to bring camera) so I'm skipping all that.

Wednesday 3 July

Sg Science Centre!

Last time I was here, I was 12 years old.

It's reminiscent of old times. Which I really have to appreciate my mum for bringing me few times a year to the Science Centre, 2 hours bus ride away from home (in bedok reservoir), and got me inspired in the marvels of science. I remember that I always wanted to be an inventor, until I realised that being an inventor is infinitely more difficult when you try to do it, than when looking in retrospect. But truth is, most of the gadgets we cannot live without today, were the result of hard work and the hard-earned sparks of brilliance while working really hard.

Bought them 3 a nice sweater each for 5 bucks apiece! it looked nice, and it's quality was decent too, very worth the money, so I just bought one for each of them. Cos they forgot to bring their own, which is my fault, for not telling them it's air-conditioned in there.

Now the optical illusions gallery near the entrance got them stuck for more than an hour, marvelling at the displays. due to this, there was not enough time and we only managed to view 3 out of 8 galleries. So I got brutal and chopped off their heads.

The sistas heads served up with fruits on a platter.

A real tesla coil strike in action. It won't hit beyond the radius, as there is a conducting wire frame blocking it. Now I would like to refer to the Damn Interesting Site. This article on the guy named Tesla, after whom the tesla coil is named. I respect him for having ambitious dreams, tho it fell short in the planning department.

He had started a project which would have turned the entire earth into a giant battery, tapping on the natural electrical fields generated between the ground and the atmosphere. Wireless electricity and high speed wireless communications as early as the 1920s.

Investors lost faith in favour of weaker but more readily delivered inventions such as improvements on radio tech, and the project caved in. I salute this man, and mourn the great leap in technological advancement that was lost to the deathly gallows of simple Economics.

Anyway, Tingting wanted to visit the SSC due to the "7000 years of innovation in China" exhibit. And it was quite pleasantly enlightening.

An ancient Gyroscope.
Too large and cumbersome to be useful, but was the first.
The structure is 4m tall.

Intricate carving of a dragon on the side.

A more modern gyroscope, followed the design of the West.
Much more compact and transportable.

Ancient astronomical chart.
Got that old, antique glow on it.

Zhou Da's charted map from his sea voyages.

If I didn't read it wrongly, Kunlun (昆仑) used to refer to Thai+Sg+M'sia. Liuqiu (琉球) or "glass ball" used to refer to Taiwan, which could mean that it had a rich supply of gems, which was also probably why it was later called Baodao (宝岛) or "treasure island". Philippines, an archipelago, was called the Three Islands (三岛) after the 3 main clusters of islands in the archipelago.

Zheng He's ship. His fleet was made up of 62 treasure ships (50% larger than junks), but none as powerful as his, which served as the headquarters in his travels. It was considered a marvel of technology at it's time, and could rival the Spanish Armada's famous battleships. Except that... China had only built this one at that time while Spain had a fleet.

An huge Pelvic Bone. from a rhino.
Significance?

Real 甲骨文, or "Chinese Bone Script".

A printing press.

The dragon I etched out.

A chart depicting the evolution of Chinese Characters from graphical representations to what they are today. I can't help but notice how graphic the word "mother" is. It's the bottom word.

Tingting and Zefang got to enter the restricted zone (there's a no trespassing fence), cos the demonstrator was Chinese, and his daughter was the same age as Tingting, so he was nice and all and let them to view it up close. I took pix from the other side of the fence cos Clarisse and I were too paiseh to go in.

Anyway, he's stirring paper pulp. The sieve on the left of the picture is dipped into the pulp after stirring, to pick up a thin film of paper pulp.
The paper pulp is extracted and laid up to stacks of 500, and are squeezed repeatedly to compress and expel excess water. That's what the wooden machine in the background is for.

After thorough drying, paper can be pulled out sheet by sheet from the compressed chunk. Amazingly, it is quite easy to take individual sheets from the super-compressed chunk.

Tingting got a gift of a piece of paper she made herself.

An ancient seismograph. Internal workings hard to explain; but basically, eight dragon heads in eight directions, each holding a ball in its mouth. Eight frogs on the ground to catch the falling balls. Whichever ball falls, would imply that seismic activity is occuring in that direction.

An ancient distance-measuring chariot.

A huge weaving machine
12 metres wide and 5 tall.
Needs 2 to operate.

The exquisite work produced by the above machine.
We got to see a demonstration of how it worked.

Jade burial suit.
Wiki page here.

The Chinese equivalent of egyptian mummification; except it didn't really make the dead one immortal, nor did it preserve the contents very well. Most corpses were almost completely rotten when found.

A really funky looking dragon that I couldn't resist taking a pic of. Looks damn funny. Silk embroidery.

Dou Gong (斗栱)

It's a type of interlocking construction system which does not need any screws or pegs. No, they didn't make it this complex for fun, but it is made to dampen the effects of a quake by about 70-80%. Quite impressive. But I remember that the Japanese also have something like this. I don't know who was first to invent.

Storm Bamboos by Guan Yu
关帝 风雨竹

A printing press picture, replica of an original piece. First, on the printing method.

Stone printing. Carved into stone, words, picture and all. Stone tablet placed on table, paper laid upon, and soft-headed hammer beats on paper, such that it etches in and paper takes the shape of the carvings. After that, a large cotton stamp is used to dab on ink, and dabbed upon the paper so that the sunken parts remain white, while the non-sunken parts are black.

Skill is extremely important. Too much ink, and the paper would be too wet and sticks onto the stone. Too little ink, and it would take more repetitions to complete. Ideally complete in 6 repetitions, allowing the ink to dry before dabbing again, and so on. 4 hours even by the skilled printer. Result is a really good texture and feel, and the drawing becomes 3-dimensional.

The original piece.

不谢东君意
丹青独立名
莫将孤葉淡
终久不雕寒

By Guan Yu, the guy from Romance of Three Kingdoms. Yes, he's a real historical figure, as are most people in the stories in the book. The book is based on real events but often dramatized. There was a point in time when Guan Yu was captured and assimilated by Cao Cao, who tried to win the heart of this great general, by giving him the treatment of a close aide.

Guan Yu, being an honorable man, is grateful for the enemy's kindness, but maintains his stand that his hear remains with his sworn brothers, Liu Bei and Zhang Fei. He does not thank Cao Cao in person, but sends him this drawing before he leaves. The bamboos depict his emotions at that point, swaying violently in the thunderstorm, but standing firm nevertheless.

In the centre above the bamboo drawing, are four words, 别有洞天， which translates to "there is more than meets the eye". No, not transformers. Take a closer look at the bamboos, and try looking for chinese characters. A pleasant surprise is in store. Thus the deeper meaning of this work.

Though abit steep at 30 bucks, I bought one copy for Clarisse's dad, as the stone tablet mould is a national treasure, and back in China, it is never used, but there are computer printouts (which are nothing near the real thing). It was allowed to be used in sg, as a token of friendship and goodwill between the two nations.

A photomosaic of the four of us. Dynamically generated, thus it's quite good already, don't complain. It changes as we move about, caught by a camera in front. It's the only pic with me cos I was cameraman of the day. -_-

Clarisse and sisters.

Testimony of the day from Tingting: It's a pity that China, which was one of the world's most technologically advanced nations in the old world, fell prey to political turmoil and internal conflict in the Qing and Ming dynasties. That's why it's still chasing after the rest of the world after so many years.

And that's another great trip concluded. Just one more location to go - Ubin!