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I was here today!! Loved it ^__^ Had seen a small exhibit at the Art Gallery of Ontario a while ago which made me realize I actually LIKED Native American sculptures and art which got me interested and landed me here! Some of my favourite pieces are below:
Watched it on TCM the other day on TCM!
Librarian Prudence Bell, reprimanded for allowing a student to read a classified book on love, quits her job to go to Italy in order to learn about love and romance herself. En route by ship, she meets Roberto Orlandi, a sophisticated Italian whose offers to teach her all she wants to know are rejected. Arriving in Rome, Prudence finds a job in a bookstore and moves into a boardinghouse where American architecture student Don Porter is also staying. Lyda, Don's wealthy and spoiled girl friend, returns to the States, and he consoles himself by dating Prudence. They spend the August holidays together on a tour of Italy, and Prudence falls in love with Don. When they return to Rome, however, the glamorous Lyda is waiting to reclaim her man. Heartsick because she is still too inexperienced to compete, Prudence puts on her most alluring dress and visits Roberto, who declines her advances and advises her not to imitate Lyda. Prudence decides to return to the United States, and when her ship docks in New York, Don is there waiting for her.
I watched this movie 'Black Narcissus' about 7 or so months ago on TCM and when I watched the documentary on cinematographer Jack Cardiff yesterday I got reminded of how outstanding his work truly was in this movie. This movie is dark and beautiful and sure to leave a long lasting visual impact. Plus the story is imagined to be in Darjeeling, India where I grew up which had initially perked my interest - I do not agree with most aspects of the movie but I do respect the ability of the cinematographer and the set designer.
The Cinematography of Black Narcissus by Jack Cardiff won the 1948 Academy Awards for Best Color Cinematography
ProductionOf the three principal Indian roles, only the Young General was played by an ethnic Indian; the roles of Kanchi and the Old General were performed by white actors in makeup. The role of Kanchi was a change indeed for 'the demure Miss Simmons.' Kanchi, 17, is described by Rumer Godden as ' a basket of fruit, piled high and luscious and ready to eat. Though she looks shyly down, there is something steady and unabashed about her; the fruit is there to be eaten, she does not mean it to rot.' On landing the part Simmons told her mother she had been given a part in which she had to have 'oomph'. 'The Indian extras were cast from workers at the docks in Rotherhithe.
The film was made primarily at Pinewood Studios, but some scenes were shot in Leonardslee Gardens, West Sussex, the home of an Indian army retiree which had appropriate trees and plants for the Indian setting. The film makes extensive use of matte paintings and large scale landscape paintings to suggest the mountainous environment of the Himalayas, as well as some scale models for motion shots of the convent. Powell said later, 'Our mountains were painted on glass. We decided to do the whole thing in the studio and that's the way we managed to maintain colour control to the very end. Sometimes in a film its theme or its colour are more important than the plot.'
For the costumes, Junge, the art director, had three main colour schemes. The nuns were always in the white habits that he designed from a medley of medieval types. These white robes of heavy material stressed the nuns' other-worldliness amid the exotic native surroundings. The chief native characters were robed in brilliant colours, particularly the General and his young nephew, in jewels and rich silks. Other native characters brought into the film merely as 'atmosphere' were clad in more sombre colours, with the usual native dress of the Nepalese, Bhutanese and Tibetan peoples toned down to prevent overloading the eye with brilliance.
For more images from the film Black Narcissus: http://evanerichards.com/2010/935
For video/ pictures/ to buy movie> http://www.criterion.com/films/632-black-narcissus
World War II Airmail letter from Lucknow to Philadelphia (1940s)
Lucknow cds of 6 Mar 1941 (R). Victoria / Hong Kong transit cds of 24 Mar 41 (R). Censored in Delhi and closed with brown tape. Triangular passed by censor A14 of Delhi (R) in black. Violet rectangular not opened by censor (R) at Hong Kong. Pale violet AV2 (R). Postage ** 2 R 11½ A (inc airmail for ≤ ½ oz)
Note** From Boyle (p794) the rate paid applied from Jul – 15 Oct 40. From then until mid July 41 the new rate was 3 R 10½ A by the transit route below. With the closure of the Empire route due the Italian entry into the war, only the route via Hong Kong was then available for mail from India.
Transit route
Lucknow to Delhi by rail. BOAC to Rangoon (p788). CNAC to Hong Kong via Lashio, Kunming, Kweiyang & Kweilio (p755) (see map below). AV2 cachet added in Hong Kong. Hong Kong to Manila then FAM-14 to USA with Pan-Am. Finally by train to Philadelphia.
From October 1940 all mail to Hong Kong went by the above route via China, due presumably to Indo-China being Vichy Government controlled and thus safety could not be guaranteed overflying. Also Saigon could not be used as a refuelling stop anymore.
*The study of routes during WW2 is well listed by Thomas Boyle Jnr in Air Mail Operations During World War II, A Study of Routes, Rates and Markings. Routes for items shown only will be discussed.
For more go to: http://www.philatelicdatabase.com/great-britain/onward-air-transmission/
Olympia & York (also spelled as Olympia and York, abbreviated as O&Y) was once a major international property development firm based in Canada. The firm built major financial office complexes like Canary Wharf in London, the World Financial Center in New York City and First Canadian Place in Toronto. It went bankrupt in the early 1990s and was recreated to eventually become Olympia & York Properties.
Portfolio
A list of notable O&Y current and previous ownership properties:
Olympia & York Properties Corporation owns 18 properties in 6 Canadian cities.
Pg. 268
"What was most striking about the Reichmanns' dealings in Olympia & York's embryonic stage was not that they invariably lived up to their end of a bargain but that they did not always hold their clients to the same standard. Often, *their word was not only their bond but an all-purpose warranty. Once Sirlin (Morley Sirlin - O&Y's early architect) was reviewing a plan for Delta Electronics, a local retail chain, with its president who insisted that he had been quoted a price that included a fieldstone lobby. Sirlinm who had designed a conventional lobby, telephoned Paul Reichmann. "I don't remmeber it that way," Reichmann replied, "but if he says I said he could have stone, then give him stone." Similarly, Wos (Frank Wos- O&Y's first construction supervisor) once was dispatched to make repairs to a long-completed building that had been flooded through no fault of Olympia & York's. "I didn't like it because I knew it was caused by the tenant's bad maintenance," Wos recalled. "I told Albert it was not our responsibility. He said, 'No, it's not, but it is my money. So go back and fix it.'"
*"Their edge was their integrity," he said. "They put themselves on the line and they lived on the line." "The Reichmanns very early on developed a lot of business just on that basis. If they shook on a deal, that was it. Their word was their bond."
Starting October 13, visitors to Toronto’s Gardiner Museum will be transported to another time and place through the evocative exhibition, The Tsars’ Cabinet.
The Tsars’ Cabinet presents more than 200 examples of decorative arts, including objects with Fabergé mounts, gilded dinner services, imperial porcelain eggs, and historic court photographs that document the extravagance and sumptuousness of life in palaces and yachts during the Romanov era.
The exhibition follows the history of the tsars and their family, including Peter the Great, Catherine the Great and Nicholas II, the last Tsar of Russia. The Tsars’ Cabinet also features intimate Romanov family photographs from the Toronto-based Di Rocco Wieler Private Collection and personal artifacts once owned by Grand Duchess Olga, the younger sister of Tsar Nicholas II, who spent her final years living in Toronto.
Most of the objects in the exhibition were specifically designed for and used by the tsars and members of the Russian imperial family. The pieces include magnificent examples of works from the Imperial Porcelain Factory, the Imperial Glassworks, and the private firms of Fabergé and Ovichinnikov. Many of the objects are extremely rare and offer one of the best opportunities to see outstanding imperial Russian art outside of Russia.
The Tsars’ Cabinet was developed from the exceptional private collection of Kathleen Durdin, and organized by the Muscarelle Museum of Art at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, in collaboration with International Arts + Artists, Washington D.C.
The Gardiner Museum is the first stop of an international tour.
http://www.gardinermuseum.on.ca/exhibitions/the-tsars-cabinet
courtesy of: http://www.artsandartists.org/exhibitions/thetsars'cabinetinstallations.html
A painting by Louis Comfort Tiffany depicting a market outside of the walls of Tangier. 1873
Gallery: Smithsonian American Art Museum
Picture of Old 1940s Tangier posted in http://www.topix.com/album/detail/tangier-va/7IEO81Q7R39EDRG8
This news is so old but just wanted to congratulate WestJet Airlines & CEO Gregg Staretsky on winning the New York slots! Also included is an interview with WestJet CEO Gregg Staretsky on WestJet's Global Strategy. WestJet's previous CEO Sean Durfy was also a very likeable person, who did much for the company :) Thought I'd end this post with a picture of them together. Great team.
[Thu Nov 24, 2011 6:29am EST]
(Reuters) - WestJet Airlines Ltd (WJA.TO) said on Wednesday it had won eight takeoff and landing slots at New York's LaGuardia Airport, a shot in arm for the carrier's plans to expand its service in the East.
WestJet, Canada's second biggest airline, is locked in a battle for passengers in Eastern Canada and into the United States with No. 1 carrier Air Canada (ACb.TO) and smaller privately-owned rival Porter Airlines.
Westjet is particularly keen to attract more business travelers, and a hub such as LaGuardia should broaden its appeal.
"Our growth plans, in which increased business travel in the East figures prominently, include New York City, Canada's largest international business market," WestJet Chief Executive Gregg Saretsky said in a statement.
Westjet won the slots in an auction held by the U.S. Federal Aviation Authority. Two slot packages were available at LaGuardia and one at Washington's Ronald Reagan National airport.
WestJet did not say what it paid for the slots, nor did it reveal from which cities it will fly from to LaGuardia.
WestJet's Global Strategy
with CEO Gregg Staretsky
Karl Moore: This is Karl Moore of the Desautels Faculty of Management at McGill University, Talking Management for The Globe and Mail. Today I am delighted to be in Calgary at WestJet’s gleaming new head office to talk to their new CEO, Gregg Saretsky.
Good afternoon, Gregg.
Gregg Saretsky: Hi, Karl.
KM: So Gregg, you have recently signed an agreement with KLM, certainly you’ve been, for a couple years now, with Cathay Pacific – where do you see the international partnerships of WestJet going forward? What does the future hold?
GS: It’s a really big part of our strategy; obviously we are continuing to grow. We have 39 new planes on order and the Canadian market isn’t growing as fast as the number of planes arriving in our fleet are, so we are connecting our network, which is strictly within North America, to international networks owned by these large global carriers. We have 15 code-shared and inter-line partners currently.
KM: So, is it that you are providing the North American network for them? Is that the part WestJet is going to play?
GS: Well, that is exactly right. What happens these days is that these carriers have limited access to Canada; they are flying only to the West Coast, for example from Asia Pacific, or only to Toronto. In many cases the Canadian bilaterals don’t commit more access than that, so they are blocked at the gateway, if you will, and our job is to distribute and give them access to the rest of Canada.
KM: How much of a problem is it that you don’t have business class? A lot of these mainline carriers would have that, is that a relatively small or an obstacle you have had to wrestle with?
GS: Not particularly. I like to say that our whole plane is business class – leather seats, seat-back televisions, 32-inch seat pitch, great friendly service, and we ask carriers like Cathay Pacific, “How does that work if somebody flies on a $10,000 fare from Hong Kong to Calgary?” and they say, “Well they get the lie-flat experience from Hong Kong to Vancouver and for the last leg they get the WestJet experience” and it hasn’t been a barrier to sell.
KM: One World, Star Team, and Air Canada Star Alliance; why don’t you join one of the other big alliances?
GS: It’s a great question, Karl, and the way I look at it is we like to pick and choose the best carriers from each of these respective geographies – some happen to be with one global alliance, some happen to be with the others. As a lot of things that WestJet does, we like to deal with the best, so we have been able to pick and choose and have chosen not to join a global alliance at this point.
KM: Some people see the world as being really three big alliances will be the dominant, in fact we might even see, as we have seen with BA and Iberia, Lufthansa and Swiss and Austrian, increasing mega-carriers – do you see a new world of three mega-mega-carriers than everyone else?
GS: It seems to be evolving a bit that way but I think there is an opportunity still for an alliance of low-cost carriers. I was at an international conference recently in New York and sat with the CEO of Gol, a Brazilian low-cost carrier, and he said, “Yeah, we have been studying WestJet and we think that there is an opportunity to connect the Brazilian low-cost carrier with the Canadian low-cost carrier and maybe together we can hook up with some other low-cost carriers and create this great low-cost network.” So I think the space in international alliances is still evolving.
Article source: Globe and Mail: Report on Business
Sean Durfy, left, president and CEO of WestJet Airlines, hugs his successor Gregg Saretsky.
Click here to read Sean Durfy's interview regarding post-WestJet life. MUST READ.
Finally made it to the exhibit!!!
Struggling Cities from Japanese Urban Projects in the 1960s
by Naohiko Hino, Architect and Supervisor of the exhibition
What is a city? There can be no single answer to this question. For over 5,000 years cities have developed all over the world. In each, a unique material culture and lifestyle has formed to reflect local conditions and history. For example, there was a fortress of a city surrounded with walls in preparation for foreign invasion, a market of a city where various people met on trade routes, a city developed by industry, and a city where all the power of the government was concentrated. Thus, cities have been built in various ways.
In the 20th Century, influenced by modernization, cities changed themselves by rather stylized methods. A mesh of modern urban planning covered cities. As if to replace their local culture, cities were rationalized to fit the modern social system, planned according to an ideal based on an archetypal European city.
In the mid-20th Century, only 25 percent of the world's population lived in cities, in 50 years this figure rose to 50 percent. In light of the fact that it took 5,000 years for the urban population grew in the latter-20th century.
This rapid urbanization caused drastic change to cities and forced governments and cities to adapt to new conditions. Modern urban planning is less effective in larger-scale cities because of the difficulty of maintaining organic consistency while overcoming urban problems caused by modernization. Megacities are at the forefront of this problem.
In the 1960s Tokyo became a megacity. The population reached 20 million and continued growing rapidly. Newspapers were filled with articles about the problems caused by modernization: traffic congestion, pollution, housing shortages and sinking ground. In order to find a way out of these critical situations and to renovate the city, Japan mobilized industrial productivity during a high-growth period of its economy. In response to this increase in momentum, architects announced quite ambitious urban projects through mass media such as TV programs, newspapers and magazines. The project aroused the interests of a public caught in the waning mood of the times, a people that still believed modernization's promise of a brilliant future.
Representative examples are Kenzo Tange's "A Plan for Tokyo - 1960", projects proposed by the Metabolists, a group that included the four architects Kiyonori Kikutake, Masato Ohtaka, Fumihiko Maki and Kisho Kurokawa, and Arata Isozaki's "Cities in the Air". Although they were announced in tandem, in their details these projects have different meanings. Tange made a rational and systematic response to the problems. The Metabolists used fear of crisis as a springboard for proposing progressive images of future cities. Isozaki thought that an essential problem existed in the fact that cities came to refuse urban planning itself. The differences between these projects emphasize the changing consensus from the modern to the contemporary age. The times steadily moved toward skepticism about modernism.
While none of these projects were realized in Japan, globally many urban plans by architects were implemented and modern cities emerged such as Brasilia by Locio Costa, the capital cities of Nigeria and Macedonia by Kenzo Tange, and Chandigarh by Le Corbusier. In most cases the architect's intentions were not fully realized. Part of a given city would be built to plan only to be surrounded by chaotic areas. As such it's ambitious city planning was unstable and failed to keep its consistency. This reality reveals the essential difficulty in modern urban planning, which Isozaki pointed out; it's extremely difficult to set visions for idealized cities and share the visions with people, and then realized them consistently.
Rather than difficult, urban planning may simply be unnecessary. Tokyo serves as a good example. Thinking back to the critical atmosphere of the 1960s, it's significant that today few of its citizens are aware of Tokyo as the largest megacity in the world. They merely feel inconvenience with that huge Tokyo. There is no vision of an ideal shape or consistency for Tokyo, it looks like an impromptu patchwork. The reality of Tokyo shows that expanded megacities can be functional.
So far as these megacities are concerned, why does ideal vision or consistency matter?
In some sense, cities resemble living things. Figuratively speaking, Tokyo is a self-indulgent creature tending towards schizophrenia. Why did this happen? It's hard to tell where Tokyo's unique characteristics end and where general characteristics of megacities begin. As stated above, other megacities continue to grow according to their own characteristic identities. We can at least recognize that like Tokyo, many megacities have a patchy structure in which old cities overlap new ones, and planned areas are adjacent to unplanned.These patchy structures exhibit a flexibility suggesting that development aimed at meeting practical needs is more efficient thatn building cities to strictly rational plans. It may sound strange, but it seems to be a natural fact that megacities themselves are irrational.
It's not easy to plan new city blocks to have true organic relationships which existing urban context. If new blocks are only planned to be in harmony which the rest of the city, cities as a whole would fall into things of the past. To keep cities active, it's necessary to have projects that can continually revitalize the context of a city. In this regard, Tokyo has few good examples to show. Even if we recognize Tokyo as a self-networking system with multiple variables, we are still searching for a way to lead and support the system. Facing the reality that many megacities are shifting to patchwork-like structures, it's clearly nonsense to consider cities as extensions of tree structures. A new vision for cities is needed, one which can connect unrelated things and create a new organism. This is a big and challenging problem for us.
Our understanding of architecture and cities has been depressed by Globalism and Neo-Liberalism. We need a vision that can release us from this depression and allow us to take the next step. We need to build momentum in order to develop cities with identify out from under of these banners of universalism.
The Mandalay Palace (pronounced [máɴdəlé náɴdɔ̀]), located in Mandalay, Myanmar, is the last royal palace of the last Burmese monarchy. The palace was constructed, between 1857 and 1859 as part of King Mindon's founding of new royal capital city of Mandalay. The plan of Mandalay Palace largely follows the traditional Burmese palace design, inside a walled fort surrounded by a moat. The palace itself is at the centre of the citadel and faces east. All buildings of the palace are of one storey in height. The number of spires above a building indicated the importance of the area below.
The Mandalay Palace was the primary royal residence of King Mindon and King Thibaw, the last two kings of the country. The palace ceased being on 28 November 1885 when the British entered the palace and captured the royal family, officially ending the Third Anglo-Burmese War. The British looted the palace, and turned the palace compound into Fort Dufferin. Throughout the British colonial era, the palace was seen by the Burmese as the primary symbol sovereignty and identity. Much of the palace compound was burned down during World War II by allied bombing; only the royal mint and the watch tower survived. A replica of the palace was rebuilt in the 1990s with some modern materials.
Today, the Mandalay Palace is a primary symbol of Mandalay and a major tourist destination.
Photograph of the Nandaw (Royal Palace) at Mandalay in Burma (Myanmar), from the Archaeological Survey of India Collections: Burma Circle, 1903-07.
History
The Mandalay Palace was constructed as part of King Mindon's founding of Mandalay in February 1857. The master plan called for a 144-square block grid patterned city, anchored by a 16 square block royal palace compound at the centre by Mandalay Hill. The 413-hectare royal palace compound was surrounded by four 2 km (6666 ft) long walls and a moat 64 m (210 ft) wide, 4.5 m (15 ft) deep. Along the wall were bastions with gold-tipped spires at intervals of 169 m (555 ft). The walls had three gates on each side, twelve in total, each presenting a zodiac sign. The citadel had five bridges to cross the moat.
In June 1857, the construction of the palace began. After the disastrous Second Anglo-Burmese War of 1852, the shrunken Burmese kingdom had few resources to build a new ostentatious palace. The former royal palace of Amarapura was dismantled and moved by elephants to the new location at the foot of Mandalay Hill. The construction of the palace compound was officially completed on Monday, 23 May 1859.
The British looted the palace in 1887 (see above illustration) and some of the artefacts which were taken away are still on display in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and burned down the royal library. The British renamed the palace compound Fort Dufferin and used it to billet troops. During World War II, the palace citadel was turned into a supply depot by the Japanese and was burnt to the ground by Allied bombing. Only the royal mint and the watch tower survived.
A replica of the palace was built in the 1990s. While the overall design was faithful, the materials such as corrugated sheet metal for roofing were not.
One of the halls was dismantled during the rule of King Thibaw and rebuilt as Shwenandaw Monastery. It is the single remaining major structure of the original wooden palace today.
The Glass Palace
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Left: The Glass Palace in 1903. Right: Design of the Glass Palace
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Hmannandawgyi or Glass Palace, is the largest and considered one of the most beautiful apartments of the Palace. It is believed to be King Mindon's principal living apartment of the palace. Like all the Throne rooms, it is divided by a wooden partition into two rooms.
In the east room is the Bee Throne (Bhamarasana), so called because it was adorned with figures of bees in the small niches at the bottom of the pedestal. This was where the ceremony for the nomination of the Chief Queen and the Royal nuptial were held. It was also where the king and queen celebrated the Burmese New Year, and where the formal ear piercing of young princesses took place. The body of King Mindon was laid out in this room for viewing after his death in 1878.
The west room, which was formerly divided into several smaller ones, was the principal living room of Mindon, and no other persons were allowed to sleep there except the four principal queens, to each of whom was appointed a room near the royal bed-chamber, which consisted of a small room surmounted by a pyatthat, or small spire consisting of seven superposed roofs similar to the Golden Spire over the Lion Throne Room on the cast of the Palace. This pyatthat was of gilt copper. On each side of this spired-room were constantly kept open two white umbrellas. The ladies-in-waiting of the Glass Palace were, by turns, stationed around the west room to wait upon. Their Majesties; they, whether princesses or minor queens, were not allowed to enter this room with slippers on or with their golden umbrellas: they had to leave these at the entrance with their attendants.
Photograph of the Lion Throne in the Royal Palace at Mandalay, probably taken by Felice Beato in c.1890. Mandalay, the second largest city in Burma, was founded in 1857 by King Mindon Min (who shifted his capital here from Amarapura) and became the country's last great royal capital. Thibaw was the last king of Burma and ruled from 1878 until 1885, when Mandalay was annexed by the British Empire and he was exiled to south India together with his queen Supayalat. His throne dominated the Great Audience Hall and was one of eight in the palace. It is a magnificent gilded wooden structure topped with a pediment decorated with flaring ornamental forms known as saing-baung, derived from the haunches of a wild ox. It is decorated with floral designs, glass mosaic work and carved imagery including divine beings, astrological symbols, and lions, from which the throne takes its name. The imagery was designed to express the universality of the monarch and links the throne to the heavenly realm of Thagyamin, the king of the gods, and Mount Meru, the sacred mountain at the centre of the world in Burmese Buddhist cosmology. It dates from 1857-61 and is now in the National Museum at Rangoon (Yangon). The photograph is from an album devoted almost entirely to Lord Elgin's Burma tour of November to December 1898. Victor Alexander Bruce (1849-1917), ninth Earl of Elgin and 13th Earl of Kincardine, served as Viceroy of India between 1894 and 1899.
by Jayaditya Gupta
The fun begins with the drive up from the plains; much of the journey is alongside the Teesta. Vast and flat on first sighting, it turns fast and furious as it skirts the mountains; the actual drive uphill—commencing from the Teesta bridge, where you can halt for the first of many momos—is only a dozen-odd kilometres but the river is a constant companion, just one wrong turn away on the twisting road. Eventually you reach Dambar Chowk; to your right, the police station and the road leading uptown; to your left, downtown Kalimpong, the market, haat et al.
We always took a right turn, and within minutes we’d be home. It would be mid-morning, we’d be ravenous and the smell of lunch cooking would drive us mad. First, though, we had to go through our rituals; kids having a bath, elders inspecting the garden or the house, the housekeeper updating us on the status of her family. Finally, lunch: Rice, dal, a good curry or fried meat, vegetables. For pudding, fruit from the garden, stewed, with cream. Easy to see what we focussed on. Lunch over, it was time to play. My best friend was Padam, the sweeper’s son; he would teach me the latest Hindi film songs, I’d teach him cricket. We were out till dark, unfettered by the demands of urban society, unburdened by holiday homework.
Turn left from Dambar Chowk and you hit the crowds. Himalayan Stores, where Noni and Lola would buy their daily newspapers; the Apollo (Deaf) Tailors; Gompus, where Sai and Gyan ate and drank when not feasting on new love. Take the road up, to your left is the church and college (from where a teacher was dragged out and beheaded during the agitation); opposite, Kashi Nath the booksellers, still stocking the magazines and comics you don’t find in urban bookstores; further up, Lark’s the provision store, which saw a run on its stocks ahead of any bandh, the silversmith (haggling is a must), and on past the cinema, the Tibetan shops, through 10th mile (10 miles from Teesta) and eventually out of town, though a fork delivers you to Dr Graham’s Homes.
It wasn’t all sweetness and light. It was my misfortune to be the only exception to a family of very enthusiastic walkers. Our friends’ houses were scattered around town, and the only way of getting there was walking. One such walk was the Military Round, the “long cut” to town: Uphill for what seemed like an eternity to the military camp, passing the road where live the Afghan princesses and which to Bonami, home to the aunt of the BBC’s Nisha Pillai (not Mon Ami, home to Lola, mother of BBC anchor Piyali Banerjee), then cut across the ridge, past the golf course and the Metal Box guest house (Ringkingpong Farm), where the watchman breakfasted on a fried egg each day, past the tourist lodge where I’d yearn for a halt and maybe a plate of sandwiches, past the house where Tagore stayed, then a sudden steep descent into town. Longer walks, to Father Booty’s Swiss Dairy; steeper climbs, such as the one to Copston, where we used to stay earlier.
Ghosts! They are everywhere, as in any hill town> continue reading 'Kalimpong Calling'
by Col (Retd) Mani K Gahatraj
The wheel of time moves slowly but surely churning events and people across the labyrinth of past, present and future. Ever since the begning of time itself, as minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years and centuries roll on and move continuously, towards infinity, beyond the barriers of space and time, the past keeps moving away further and further, getting dimmer and dimmer from the rusty and faded memories of humans; when finally a point is reached when zillions of single events that would have occurred in some person’s life, alive and kicking at a time and place, would be memories or stories years later, albeit in distorted version. These memories perhaps blink for one last time in the rusty and fading grey cells of old and infirm before it is consigned into the dustbin of life when the life itself is extinguished forever. However, chronicles of events written in the begning of known and unknown civilizations have stayed on defying the vagaries of change and have lived to tell its tale to a future generation unknown and unconceived >> continue reading
A GLIMPSE OF ANOTHER WORLD
by F. BAILEY VANDERHOEF, JR.
There I stood looking out of the window of one of the upper rooms of a house in Kalimpong, a small border town in Northern Bengal. How I came there must wait, for it is more important that I explain why. Perhaps, if I just describe what I saw through that window, it will in some measure explain what had drawn me half way around the world, for to me there were many things beckoning: mystery, beauty, adventure; but there is no point in just saying so. I must describe it all.
I remember it was a large window, running all across one end of the room, and before this window stood a table bearing a shallow bowl of spring flowers. The thin curtains stirred in the fresh night air and billowed inwards. Outside, the world was flooded with moonlight. Twinkling and immeasurably high and calm against the stars was the white peak of Kangchenjunga, between withdrawn ghostly clouds. Beside me, the crystal pennants of a candlestick stirred in the breeze and tinkled against each other, as though to give voice to the cold vision of the snows. Behind that snowy rampart I knew was Tibet, strange and dark with its veil of mystery stretching far into the north across barren plateau and guardian mountains. It seemed the greatest human presumption to think of venturing beyond those snows>> continue reading
| Photographer: | James Burke |
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| Size: | 827 x 1280 pixels (11.5 x 17.8 inches) |
More pictures of Kalimpong published in LIFE MAGAZINE here
The Oriental Village in the upper northwest of Langkawi Island, near Pantai Kok, is the entrance for the cable-car ride, which takes visitors all the way up to Mount Mat Cincang, Langkawi’s second highest peak. Entering the village and passing through the pleasant oriental garden and souvenir shops, visitors make their payment at a counter before stepping onto an escalator which brings them to the cable-car pedestal.
Once in, the cable-car ascends; you’ll begin to notice the temperature dropping and a windy breeze begin flowing into the cabin through ventilation slits at the top. As it gets cooler, the landscape below begins to appear smaller, and at after climbing at a 42° angle for a few hundred feet, you can start snapping pictures of the rainforest below. Look out at the side for a view of the Telaga Tujuh Waterfalls, which cascades down a grey rock face.
After around 600 metres, the cable car reaches the first station, where you disembark to either; take another cable car up to the peak, or lull around the observatory deck and admire the magnificent surroundings. Most will not spend too long here, as the view from the peak is even more amazing. After a short queue, you can grab another cable car and ride up another wire cable which doesn’t rise too sharply, though the initial jolt of the car leaving the second station can feel quite unnerving.
As the car settles to a decent speed after the brief spurt from the station, passengers will be treated to an even higher view of the rainforest and hills below. The car here is at its coolest and in too short a time, you’ll reach the final station which is where most of the excitement is. Passengers leaving the cab will be greeted by a menagerie of stalls selling souvenirs, toys, snacks and drinks.
You’ll want to climb a set of staircases that cuts through a thin forest to reach the observatory deck above. Once on the top, you can finally enjoy the magnificent view of the surrounding horizon; the island’s landscape, skyline and seas beyond. At the side is a steel bridge suspended across Mount Mat Cincang and a neighbouring mountain. Walking across this bridge is a fantastic experience and offers a different viewpoint of the island and sea towards the north.
After immersing yourself in the views, it’ll be time to go, and the entire process of cable-car ascent is repeated in a descending route. Along the way, you can pick up some souvenirs at the final or base station before carrying your adventures elsewhere in the magnificent island of Langkawi.
Opening Hours: 10am - 8pm
Address: Jalan Telaga Tujuh Teluk Burau, Langkawi, Kedah 07000
Tel: (604) 959 4225
Read more: Langkawi Cable Car - Langkawi Attractions http://www.langkawi-info.com/attractions/cable-car.htm#ixzz1e4bFyvev
 The logo used in promotion of the show. |
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| Format | Travel/Adventure Documentary |
|---|---|
| Created by | Scott Wilson Andre Dupuis |
| Starring | Scott Wilson Justin Lukach |
| Country of origin | Canada |
| No. of seasons | 3 |
| No. of episodes | 42 |
Departures (also promoted as departures.) is an adventure travel television series. An original Canadian production, the show aired on OLN from March 17, 2008 to June 19, 2010. The show is hosted by Scott Wilson and Justin Lukach, produced by Jessie Wallace and Steven N. Bray, and directed/shot by Andre Dupuis.
The first two seasons of the show have thirteen episodes each, while the third has sixteen episodes. Lukach has stated that a fourth season will not be made, as Wilson and Dupuis are working on a new show, "Descending", due to air in January 2012.
Episodes
Below is an chronological list of places visited in each season:
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Season 1
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Season 2
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Season 3
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Found My FAVOURITE DRINK ~ Hongcho drinking vinegar at Korea Town in TOronto P.A.T.
The more you drink, the more beautiful you get.
Beautiful international celebrities like Megan Fox and Gwyneth Paltrow credited a ‘vinegar diet’ for helping them maintaining a slim figure, which in turn triggered great interest in vinegar. Vinegar is beneficial not only to losing weight but also to skin and health. Building on this popularity, vinegar beverages are making a sensation in the market and Korea’s vinegar beverages are at its center. Called the Hallyu syndrome in the beverage industry, the Korean vinegar beverages are capturing the palate of people around the world.
N.B.
If you take in vinegar or an empty stomach, it may damage the stomach walls. If taken in a large quantity at one time, the body fluid may become strongly acid. One should take only one or two cups of diluted vinegar. If one has stomach ulcer or a bad kidney, one should consult with a doctor before taking vinegar.
Posted by Derek Flack / November 10, 2011
The first thought that came to mind when I arrived at INabstracto for the launch of John Martins-Mantiega's latest book, Métro: Design in Motion, was why hasn't anybody given the TTC such a lovely and thorough treatment? Spread over 450 pages, Mantiega's new book is more that just a love letter to the Montreal subway and the remarkable people who made it possible — it's a tribute to modern design and the pragmatic spaces we often take for granted. I'd love to read — or perhaps even write — something similar about the Toronto subway, even if the story isn't as compelling or Canadian in its design history.
Needless to say, this isn't an easy task. It took over three years for Martins-Mantiega to write Metro. Part of this has to do with the amount of research and documentation that went into the book, but it also has to with funding. It's a challenge to publish books of this nature, and the journey wasn't always a smooth one — but here's the book, and it's fantastic.
So too are the photographs on display. As much as I enjoy viewing (and posting) archival photographs, there's something about seeing larger versions in person that really get me enthusiastic. But perhaps even more cool than the photographs is the model subway train and orange seat in the window of INabstraco. Seeing them displayed this way really drives home the degree to which they're design objects, something that's all too easy to forget.
"That little train is probably the most important piece of industrial design that Canada ever produced," Martins-Manteiga declared at last night's launch. That might be overstating it, but it was still a remarkable accomplishment, particularly given the timelines the designers had to work with. 20 of the original stations were completed in just four years to coincide with Expo 67.
At the media preview for the new TTC streetcars I attended earlier today, it was revealed that full incorporation of the vehicles isn't expected until 2018. And that's just vehicles — no stations. That gives a bit of perspective into just how quickly the Montreal system came together. It's also interesting to note that Toronto's new streetcars will be built by Bombardier, which blossomed into the large-scale company it is today on account of their construction of Montreal's subway cars.
It may not be the Toronto subway book I'm hoping for, but Metro: Design in Motion is well worth the read for design buffs and transit history fans. And even if you don't fall into either of these categories, having a look at the exhibit is still highly recommended.
Metro: Design in Motion will be up at INabstracto until November 27th. The book can be purchased there or at Swipe Books.
Sunnyside Amusement Park (demolished), Toronto
Sunnyside in 1931
Sunnyside Amusement Park was a popular amusement park in Toronto, Ontario, Canada that ran from 1922 to 1955, demolished in 1955 to facilitate the building of the Metro Toronto Gardiner Expressway project. It was located on the Lake Ontario waterfront at the foot of Roncesvalles Avenue, west of downtown Toronto.
The name 'Sunnyside' was the name of a local farm owned by John George Howard, which was situated just to the north, on the location of the current St. Joseph's Medical Centre. Sunnyside Avenue runs north-south from that location north to Howard Park Avenue today. John Howard is also famous as the original landowner of the nearby High Park.
Prior to the construction of the park, the shoreline was a narrow stretch immediately to the south of the 1850s era rail lines. There was enough area for a restaurant and a small fenced off area was provided for changing into swimwear. To the east, the club-house of the Parkdale Canoe Club jutted out into the lake.
A plan was developed in 1913 by the new Toronto Harbour Commission to improve the shore lands from the foot of Bathurst Street to the Humber River. The plan, which included four miles (6 km) of breakwater, infilling of land, and the construction of the Lake Shore Boulevard, cost $13 million, and was paid for by the federal government.
A boardwalk along the south side of Lake Shore Boulevard was built, from the Humber River east to Wilson Park Avenue, 24 feet (7.3 m) in width using white pine planks. This corresponded to the length of shoreline that was extended out into the lake. This boardwalk became the site of annual Easter Parades until 1953. It was rebuilt in 1934 as a make-work project and was paved using asphalt in the 1960s.
The Amusement Park lands themselves were completely created from sand dredged from the bottom of the bay and top soil from a farm in Pickering, Ontario. The original shoreline was extended into the lake by approximately 100 metres, from the foot of Wilson Park Avenue west to the Humber River, a distance of about 1 kilometre. Only a small length of the original shoreline and beach exists today, located between the Boulevard Club and the Canadian Legion building at the intersection of Dowling Avenue and Lake Shore Boulevard.
One of the first new buildings was the Sunnyside Pavilion, a curved structure providing a restaurant with views of the lake. It was located just to the east of Parkside Drive at the shoreline. Following this, the Sunnyside Bathing Pavilion and Dean's Sunnyside Pleasure Boats buildings were constructed. Soon after, concessions were requested and granted to operate amusements on the lands.
Sunnyside Amusement Park opened in 1922. At the time, there was an existing amusement park on Toronto Island at Hanlan's Point. It only operated a few more years until 1927 when a baseball stadium at the foot of Bathurst Street was built, replacing the stadium on the Island. Another amusement park, the Scarborough Beach Amusement Park was built in Scarborough, Ontario, to the east of Toronto.
Sunnyside Pavilion and Tea Gardens, August 3, 1921
Sunnyside Pavilion
Sunnyside Pavilion provided two restaurants and a tea garden facing the lakeshore. It was curved into a crescent with the tea garden positioned within the semicircle. It was designed by the same architects and was in the same style as the Bathing Pavilion, immediately to the west.
It was built in 1917 on the south side of Lakeshore Road. When built, its south side was on the lakeshore. As infill proceeded it ended up about 50 metres from shore, on the north side of the new Lake Shore Boulevard. In 1920, the building was enlarged and a new south entrance was built facing the lake. The restaurant had the Blue Room for 400 diners/175 dancing couples, and the Rose Room for a further 300 diners/150 couples. Dancing followed supper, with music provided by the Joe DeCourcy live orchestra.
In 1936, the Pavilion was renovated and became known as the Club Esquire supper club, with stage shows and dancing.
In 1941, the building was converted into the Top Hat night club. It was demolished in 1956 to make way for the new westbound lanes of Lake Shore Boulevard.
The area today (For more details on this topic, see Sunnyside, Toronto)
The boardwalk was removed and replaced with a boardwalk made of recycled plastic planks. A children's playground was built just east of the Ryder Pool. A recreation trail, part of the Martin Goodman Trail, was built south of Lake Shore Boulevard through the area for cyclists and in-line skaters.
The Lunchtime Tourist: Guildwood Park
Rating (out of 5): 3
BY: David Paterson
Take a European lunch hour (i.e., a long one) and ride the Bloor-Danforth line all the way to Kennedy Station. Then jump on the 116 bus for 20 minutes and you’ll come to Guildwood Park, where Toronto’s beautiful buildings go to die.
Seventy fragments from demolished buildings have been assembled into a sculpture park here, within the formal gardens surrounding the now-closed Guild Inn atop the Scarborough Bluffs. You can find everything from the remains of the Temple Building, once the tallest in the British Empire, to the fireplace salvaged from the Annex home of Sir Frederick Banting, co-discoverer of insulin. Many of the building bits come from fancy old banks, and a casual observer could easily conclude that Toronto once looked like ancient Rome: It’s all Greco-Roman pillars and frescos.
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> another seriously exciting recommedation from THE LUNCHTIME TOURIST (how come I never thought of it!) this is going to be a gift to myself someday!
Arrow, The Ultimate Weapon (Movie - 2011) Also known as "War of The Arrows"
Synopsis
13 years after the King Injo Revolt, the Chosun Dynasty is attacked by the Chung Dynasty of China. A young man named Na-mi leaves his demolished village to find his young sister, Ja-in, and her finance Su-koon, who were to wed on the very day of the attack. While on his mission to rescue her, he is being traced by Jushinta, a fierce Chung Warrior, and his band of malicious men who are out to stop him. Na-mi has but a day to rescue his sister before she is taken away to be a slave. When Na-mi finally finds his sister, Jushinta comes between them and a fierce battle between two of the finest warriors unfolds.
I was there> MUST WATCH MOVIE!!!
Lets go eat PINEAPPLE BUNs in Chinatown!!!!!!!!
A pineapple bun is a kind of sweet pastry popular in Hong Kong, Macau, some other areas in southern China, and in various Chinese communities around the world. They can also be found in bakeries in Taiwan or Toronto. It is known in Cantonese as bo lo baau, in which "bo lo" means "pineapple", and "baau" refers to a kind of bun-like item in Chinese cuisine. It is commonly found in Chinese bakeries, and is mentioned quite frequently on TV, radio and films in Hong Kong.
The following pictures courtsey of TORONTOHISTORY.ORG but for more info on the building itself go here: Queen's Quay Terminal
Queen's Quay Terminal was a cold storage warehouse facility, the Toronto Terminal Warehouse, built in 1926 by Moores & Dunford (NYC) and converted to a condo/mall complex in 1983 (The southwest section was demolished and forms the south end of the parking lot between Queen's Quay Terminal and the EnWave PowerPlant). The renovations by Zeidler Roberts added 4 floors to the original 10 floor structure, for a total of 750,000 square feet (70,000 m2) of space. The New York Times mentioned it as an example of successful revitalization efforts in Toronto during the 1980s.
The Art Deco facility houses a shopping mall that includes a Sobeys grocery store. It is also home to the Premiere Dance Theatre and the Museum of Inuit Art.
Yahoo! Canada and Anheuser-Busch InBev's Canadian unit Labatt both maintain offices in the building.
It is owned by Brookfield Properties.
An abandoned cold storage facility (Central Warehouse Cold Storage at Montgomery Street and Colonie Street) identical to its original appearance exists in Albany, NY.
Source: Wikipedia
It now costs much less to visit the Royal Ontario Museum. Beginning October 27, we significantly reduced admission prices because we believe everyone belongs at the ROM. We’ll still be able to create remarkable exhibitions and events, and support our world renowned curators and research programs, because now more people will be able to visit. By visiting the ROM, you’re helping to sustain one of Ontario’s essential educational and cultural destinations.
We know it’s a difficult economic time, especially for families, and our new, lower admission costs respond to this. We’ve also expanded our student ticket category from 15 to 17 years old, to 15 to 25 years old, with student ID.
In order to offer significant price reductions to all of our visitors, every day of the week, the two-hour free period on Wednesdays has been discontinued. In keeping with the ROM’s commitment to access, we’re greatly expanding ROMCAN – the Museum’s access initiative to support disadvantaged communities throughout the Province – to deliver 75,000 free tickets annually.
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Ticket Types | General Admission | Maya + General Admission |
|---|---|---|
| Adult | $15 (previously $24) | $25 (previously $31) |
| Senior (65+ years) | $13.50 (previously $21) | $22.50 (previously $28) |
| Student (15 - 25 years, with student ID) | $13.50 (previously $21) | $22.50 (previously $28) |
| Child (4 - 14 years) | $12 (previously $16) | $17 previously $19.50) |
| Infant (3 years & under) | Free | Free |
| Members | Free | Free |
| Ticket Types | General Admission | |
|---|---|---|
| Adult | $9 (previously $12) | Additional surcharge applies to see Maya: Secrets of their Ancient World |
| Senior | $8 (previously $10.50) | |
| Student | $8 (previously $10.50) | |
| Child | $6 (previously $8) |
ROM Friday Nights are presented by SunLife Financial.
世界初就航NH7871便 香港行き初フライト
ANA All Nippon Airways Boeing 787-881 Dreamliner JA801A
Boeing 787 Special charter flight Narita - Hong Kong
Oct 26. 2011
TODAY!!
LANDING IN HONG KONG!
TOMORROW in Japan time> First Official Flight in
19hrs 42mins
- taken from page 33-...
During a period when the innovation was restricted to the wealthy, it was usually only opera houses and high-tone restaurants that boasted electric light. Indeed, when Thomas Edison, the quintessential American hero of the Gilded Age, inaugurated his first central-station electrical system is 1882, he placed his generator on Wall Street.
Peterborough was a pioneer of Canada's industrial revolution because its fast-flowing Otonabee River offered ample supplies of the novelty that was hydroelectric power at Niagara was just starting to spark a controversy over who would control the stories falls, the Peterborough Light and Power Company had already installed a generator on the Otonabee's Dickson "raceway." The company secured the municipal street lighting franchise and lit up George Street. Peterborough's surplus power meant that by 1907 it was generating more manufactured goods than any city in Ontario on a per worker basis. Cereal from Quaker Oats (founded 1900) and canoes from what would become Peterborough Canoe became national brands.
Peterborough was even further ahead of its time when it came to luring new businesses. At the end of the twentieth century cities and provinces were falling all over themselves with offers of low taxes and cheap land to lure this or that employer to set up shop. Well before the end of the nineteenth century, Peterborough had accomplished just that. In 1890 the city fathers told the Edison General Electric Company that the town was in a position to come across with land valued at $18,372, municipal services worth $12,138, and a ten-year tax holiday. The U.S. company had initially built its works in Sherbrooke, Quebec, but immediately decamped when it got an offer it couldn't refuse. The men of property who constituted Peterborough's ratepayers were similarly enthusiastic. They authorized the deal by a vote of 656 to 11.
Peterborough had more than cheap land. The city sat on the Otonabee River at the foot of a series of fast-moving channels. The millraces on the river had already made the town an ideal location for the water-powered sawmills that processed timber from the dense forests of the Kawartha Lakes district. When Edison arrived, the company received fresh tax incentives to build two new power houses on the river. The company that would become Canadian General Electric emerged as one of the country's leading manufacturers of electrical apparatus. Well over a hundred years later its huge Peterborough plant remains a large industrial employer, though it has downsized in recent decades. It once produced everything from locomotives to refrigerators, from insulated wire and cable to huge hydroelectric generators. It also emerged as a key supplier to the nuclear industry, making refuelling machines and the fuel bundles that form the guts of nuclear power plants. Today its products are more limited (though the nuclear section with its fuel bundles remains a mainstay), but in the spring 2004 the plant was completing the first of six generators - each the size of a railway car- to be use in portable stations in Iraq.
Also check tomorrow's post on Peterborough Utilities Inc.
Lethbridge is a city in the province of Alberta, Canada, and the largest city in southern Alberta. It is Alberta's fourth-largest city by population after Calgary, Edmonton and Red Deer, and the third-largest by area after Calgary and Edmonton. The nearby Canadian Rockies contribute to the city's cool summers, mild winters, and windy climate. Lethbridge lies southeast of Calgary on the Oldman River.
Lethbridge is the commercial, financial, transportation and industrial centre of southern Alberta. The city's economy developed from drift mining for coal in the late 19th century and agriculture in the early 20th century. Half of the workforce is employed in the health, education, retail and hospitality sectors, and the top five employers are government-based. The only university in Alberta south of Calgary is in Lethbridge, and two of the three colleges in southern Alberta have campuses in the city. Cultural venues in the city include performing art theatres, museums and sports centres.
| Author |
Galt Museum & Archives |
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Sir Alexander Galt (English-Canadian politician, and a father of Canadian Confederation) and his son Elliott Torrance Galt co-founded the Town of Lethbridge, Alberta in 1883, when he established a mine on the banks of the Oldman River in the southwest portion of the District of Alberta, Northwest Territories. The Canadian Post Office refused to accept the name Lethbridge for the community until 1885 because there was another town with the same name in the Dominion of Canada. Sir Alexander Galt laid out the street plan of Lethbridge's present location in 1885 after his settlement was moved to the prairie level from the river valley. Canada's Governor General, the Marquis of Landsdowne, demonstrated the Dominion government's support of the Galt enterprises, by opening the Galts' railway in September 1885 in Lethbridge.
Galt's company, the North Western Coal and Navigation Company went through a variety of name changes as it moved into railways, and irrigation enterprises. A public park and a museum (formerly a hospital) in Lethbridge are named after him.
Lethbridge is southern Alberta's commercial, distribution, financial and industrial centre (although Medicine Hat plays a similar role in southeastern Alberta). It has a trading area population of 275,000, including parts of British Columbia and Montana, and provides jobs for up to 80,000 people who commute to the city from a radius of 100 kilometres (62 mi).
Lethbridge's economy has traditionally been agriculture-based; however, it has diversified in recent years. Half of the workforce is employed in the health, education, retail and hospitality sectors, and the top five employers are government-based. Several national companies are based in Lethbridge. From its founding in 1935, Canadian Freightways based its head office there until moving operations to Calgary in 1948, though its call centre remains in Lethbridge.[27] Taco Time Canada was based in the city from 1978–1995 before moving to Calgary. Minute Muffler, which began in 1969, is based in Lethbridge. International shipping company H & R Transport has been based in the city since 1955. Braman Furniture, which has locations in Manitoba and Ontario, was headquartered in Lethbridge from 1991–2008.
Lethbridge serves as a hub for commercial activity in the region by providing services and amenities. Many transportation services, including Greyhound buses, four provincial highways, rail service and an airport, are concentrated in or near the city. In 2004, the police services of Lethbridge and Coaldale combined to form the Lethbridge Regional Police Service. Lethbridge provides municipal water to Coaldale, Coalhurst, Diamond City, Iron Springs, Monarch, Shaughnessy and Turin.
In 2002, the municipal government organized Economic Development Lethbridge, a body responsible for promoting and developing the city's commercial interests. Two years later, the city joined in a partnership with 24 other local communities to create an economic development alliance called SouthGrow, representing a population of over 140,000. In 2006, Economic Development Lethbridge partnered with SouthGrow Regional Initiative and Alberta SouthWest Regional Alliance to create the Southern Alberta Alternative Energy Partnership. This partnership promotes business related to alternative energy, including wind power, solar power and biofuel, in the region. Economic Development Lethbridge won first place at the Economic Developers Association of Canada 2007 Marketing Canada Awards for its "County of Lethbridge Business Investment Profile 2007–2008". In 2007, Site Selection magazine ranked Economic Development Lethbridge as fourth among Canadian economic development groups for volume of capital investment and job creation.
The Lethbridge Viaduct, commonly known as the High Level Bridge, is the longest and highest steel trestle bridge in North America. It was constructed between 1907–1909 at Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada at a cost of $1,334,525.
Specifications
This massive steel trestle over the Oldman River was designed by the Canadian Pacific Railway's bridge department in Montreal. The field work was directed by CPR's Assistant Chief Engineer John Edward Schwitzer. The steel work was manufactured by the Canadian Bridge Company of Walkerville, Ontario. A 100 man gang worked on the erection of the steel. Although there were some initial problems with settlement, the bridge has proved to be an enduring engineering work and is still in use today.
It was built as part of a major diversion of the Crowsnest Pass route between Lethbridge and Fort Macleod. The river crossing was previously over a wooden trestle measuring 894 m (2,933 ft) long and 20 m (66 ft) high; an impressive structure in its own right.
Above is a picture of the High Level bridge I took the last time I was in Lethbridge! Sorry not the best picture but atleast I have one of my own.
Chewang Norphel, Director of the Leh Nutrition Project.
Rain is scarce in these snow-peaked Himalayas of northern India, and summers bring dust storms that whip across craggy brown slopes and sun-chapped faces. Glaciers are the sole source of fresh water for the Buddhist farmers who make up more than 70% of the population in this rugged range between Pakistan and China. But rising temperatures have seen the icy snow retreat by dozens of feet each year — to find evidence of global warming, the farmers simply have to glance up from their fields and see the rising patches of brown where, once, all was white. Knowing no alternative, they pray harder for rain and snow.
But Chewang Norphel has gone beyond prayer. The 73-year-old civil engineer has come up with a solution that won't exactly save the ancient glaciers, but it could stave off a looming irrigation crisis. Norphel has created artificial glaciers, frozen pools of glacier run-off perched above the farmers' fields, which thaw just in time for the start of growing season in April — two months before water from the distant natural glaciers is expected to arrive. The slanted pools melt into irrigation channels over the next six weeks, watering crops for villages of roughly 500 families and, as a bonus, recharging the valley's natural springs.
Norphel is known locally as "Ice Man," and cuts a rebellious figure with slick raven hair and a black leather jacket. His innovation has been hailed as an elegantly simple and cheap solution to a devastating problem. One artificial glacier costs just $7,000, compared to $34,000 for a cement water reservoir. Only local materials are needed, and the villagers themselves can build and maintain them. The seven glaciers he's built as head of a local non-profit managing the watershed program for the state of Jammu and Kashmir have won him widespread attention, as engineers from other mountainous regions in India and Afghanistan have visited to learn his methods.
But funding from the government and cooperation from villagers have proved fleeting, and his plan to put artificial glaciers in over 100 villages of his native highlands now faces Everest-sized obstacles.
One of the villages targeted by Norphel is the Buddhist hamlet of Sakti, tucked in the mountains of the Ladakh Range that stretch above the Indus River. Village head Tsering Kundan recalled the rush of optimism when Norphel's glacier was first built in 2001. People grabbed up more land to cultivate, planting groves of willow and poplar saplings between the fields. But now they're letting their man-made glacier fall into disrepair, says Kundan. Villagers accuse one another of secretly diverting its water, and the local watershed committee is neglecting to spend government funds on maintenance. "They're more interested in spending it on buying cows," said the 54-year-old farmer, his eyes glistening red from sun and wind.
Norphel found his state funds cut in 2006 as part of the fallout from an unrelated political dispute between government officials and Ladakh's notoriously crowded field of NGOs. Still, the quixotic Ice Man remains determined to prove the power of his invention. His biggest and most successful glacier is also the most remote, meaning that few officials are willing to make the seven-mile hike to see it. One nearer to town has been reduced to a series of dirt pits from neglect and a major flood. Unperturbed, Norphel sees this as a chance to rebuild the perfect showpiece.
Shimmying down the slopes toward the dry pools, he described the improvements he would make if he just had the money. The headworks at the natural glacier would direct water with more precision and efficiency. Stone channels would be widened so the water wouldn't freeze on its way down. Pipes leading to the pools would be deep underground, and made of concrete, to withstand floods. Water would cascade onto fields in April, and global warming would lose its grip, for a while.
Then people would see.
"I just need one village," said Norphel. "Then I can show everyone.
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1717149,00.html#ixzz1Zg7NzrPc
The Busan to Geoje fixed link project was an ambitious scheme to reduce journey times between Korea's south coast city of Busan and the island of Geoje - a tourist hot-spot and home to the country's biggest shipbuilding yards.
This world class project provides an 8.2km highway link between the southern city of Busan and the island of Geoje in South Korea. The overall link comprises two major cable stayed bridges, with main spans of 230m and 475m respectively, and a 3.4km long immersed tunnel. The tunnel, which carries traffic at a depth of up to 48m below sea level to avoid large container ships, is one of the deepest in the world.
Halcrow TEC JV were appointed Technical Advisers to Daewoo Engineering & Construction Co. Ltd, who led the consortium to design, construct and operate this vital US$1100m transport link, completed in 2010.
Halcrow–TEC JV provided advice to Daewoo on many aspects of the design and construction of the link, together with advice on contracts and contract strategy (including design contracts) and project organization.
The link slashes journey times from three and a half hours to just 40 minutes opening up the region to a wealth of previously untapped business and tourism opportunities thus boosting the economy.
http://www.halcrow.com/Our-projects/Project-details/Busan-Geoje-Fixed-Link-Korea/
BUSAN-GEOJE bridge under construction
| About |
CNBC World TV series that celebrates the art of business travel
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| Description |
Going Global is a CNBC World TV series that focuses on business travel and the best of international journeys. It's about first class travel experiences and identifying exciting business opportunities.
Business is a journey: Travel well |
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| Schedule |
Saturday 7:30 & 10:30 PM ET, Sunday 7:30 AM ET in the United States
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| Directed By |
Kevin Fox
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| Website |
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Going Global | Series Overview from Re:Source Media on Vimeo.
What a coincidence! I finished reading 'The Pig and the Python' this morning and picked a new book to read, TORONTO No Mean City, as I stepped out for work. And as I was reading I discovered this! Today, 23 September 2011, 224 years ago the purchase for Toronto was made! (pg. 10; Chapter 2- 'As it was in the beginning...')
This week, the City of Toronto's Executive Committee approved a report from the City Manager to close "museums with the least attendance, and revenues compared to costs." Another proposal asks the City Manager to report on further extensive cuts to culture programs.
These proposals indicate a misunderstanding of what museums are. In any city, museums are about identity, linking the past to the present. In Toronto, the world's most multicultural city, museums are even more crucial to social cohesion.
Toronto's historic museums - Montgomery's Inn, Spadina House, McKenzie House, Colborne Lodge, Market Gallery, Gibson House, Zion Schoolhouse, Scarborough Historic Museum and Fort York - are the repository of our collective heritage. Destroy them and you destroy the DNA of who we are and how we got here. Each of these sites, whether they be in downtown Toronto, Scarborough, North York or Etobicoke, reflect not only our past, but are also neighbourhood hubs for sharing and learning about our modern diverse communities.
Clearly there is room for improving the attendance and the financial performance of these museums. However, closures are not the answer. The museum closings will be before City Council on Monday September 26th. I urge you to write to the Mayor and members of City Council to raise your voice in opposition to this proposal. For contact information for the Mayor and Councillors.
http://app.toronto.ca/im/council/councillors.jsp
Also, there is a Facebook group you can join to support our City's museums:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/History-is-Not-Gravy-Save-Torontos-Historic-Sites/267553499943022
Dwarika’s Storyhttp://www.dwarikas.com/heritage/dwarikas-story.html
The history of the Dwarika’s hotel is intertwined with the life and times of its founder, Dwarika Das Shrestha. Dwarika Das Shrestha was an extraordinary human being – a true visionary who was acutely aware of his own identity, the changing world around him and his responsibility towards it. His story is one of inspiration borne out of struggle and torment, the relentless pursuit of an aesthetic ideal, and one man’s determination to make a difference.
Early beginnings
Being born into a relatively affluent Newar family, Dwarika Das Shrestha was sent to school in India at the tender age of six. With less than one percent of the Nepali population being literate, in the early 1950s, as Nepal took its first steps towards democracy, it was ill equipped to face the challenges of modernisation. It stood at a position where it could neither fully embrace the dramatic changes that modernity brought, nor fully comprehend the value and potential of its ancient cultural heritage.
Dwarika Das Shrestha completed his education with a degree in law and commerce in the early 1950s, and returned to Nepal with the dream of helping Nepal regain its past glory. His first business was the establishment of the first hotel in Nepal, Paras Hotel, in 1952, at a time when Nepal was yet to establish itself as a tourist destination. The hotel’s primary patrons were Indian and Nepali pilgrims who came to visit the Pashupati Temple. Back then, charging religious pilgrims for shelter was considered sacrilegious and earned Dwarika Das the wrath of his family.
In the late 1950s, Dwarika Das Shrestha bought the land upon which The Dwarika’s Hotel is now located and built on it a small family home, incorporating into the design some of the ancient windows he had collected. The first window that he used can be seen even today in the Fusion Bar. This was a revolution in building style and many people discouraged him from using the old window frames, seeing it as a reflection of poverty rather than an appreciation of cultural wealth. But Dwarika Das stood his ground; by then he had already started his collection of wood work and was beginning to understand the true value of Nepal’s rich cultural heritage, and the role it could play in building a prosperous Nepal.
An Unusual Passion Emerges
This vision was born in Basantapur on a cold morning in 1952. Change was entering Nepal, and all around, century-old mud, brick, and wood houses were making way for the concrete structures of modernity. Dwarika Das Shrestha was jogging past the ruins of an old building in front of the ancient palatial complex of Kathmandu’s Newar kings, when he saw, huddled in front of a small fire, two carpenters sawing off the intricate carvings on an old wooden pillar and using it to keep the fire going.
The reduction of his heritage into firewood stopped him in his tracks. The weight of his heritage fell upon his shoulders and knew he had to act. The carpenters explained that they were extracting the “good wood” from the carved pillar to make a door frame; the rest was good only as firewood. Shocked, he bought the ancient old wooden pillars from the carpenters. This impulsive decision turned into a calling that was to define Dwarika Das Shrestha’s life and initiate the revival of Nepal’s pride in its Newari cultural heritage.
The magnitude of that impulse in 1952 was not even fully understood by Dwarika Das Shrestha himself. Yet, over the years, he persevered with this passion and continued to collect wood works. Whenever an old building was brought down, he would buy as much of the carved windows, doors and pillars as he could afford. As his collection grew, he reflected:
"There [his home] they lay wounded for years, but I saw them every day. They communicated with me. They compelled me to visit monuments and temples in an attempt to understand them."
Dwarika Das would later give his shares in Paras Hotel to his brothers, and join the government service. This, however, did not stop him from dreaming and continuing to collect wooden masterpieces. As his collection grew, he was able to understand these works of art with a greater degree of appreciation. He realised that these wood works were not individual artistic endeavours but a product of a larger cultural tradition. These works were not made in isolation but made in collaboration and communion with a variety of different craftsmen. Dwarika Das came to see that in order to preserve his heritage, just collecting these pieces would not be sufficient. To some degree, a renaissance of the cultural context within which these works were produced was necessary, which included most essentially, the revival of traditional skills. The guiding philosophy of the Dwarika’s Hotel comes from this realisation.
Restoration Workshop
As his collection grew, Dwarika Das Shrestha knew that he had to find a way to finance such an expensive collection and ensure the wood works were properly restored, preserved and displayed. In 1964, he constructed a small apartment above the family cowshed using some of the pieces from his collection. The rental income allowed him to continue expanding his collection, but more importantly, it gave him the resources to hire three master carvers who still recalled the ancient knowledge and techniques of traditional Newari wood carving. With the master carvers, he started a heritage workshop to restore his collection of wood work to their former glory.
By the 1960s, few of the traditional wood carving families of the valley still continued their ancient profession, and thus the knowledge that his master carvers possessed was in danger of being lost. He hired young apprentices to work and learn under the three senior carvers and ensure their knowledge was passed down to a new generation of craftsmen. The workshop continues until today and over the years, scores of master carvers have emerged from its grounds.
As he was establishing the heritage workshop, he rented out rooms in his home and channelled this income into the restoration process. Because of his keen interest in his heritage, the workshop became a place to study the iconography, rituals and lore of the valley. Through this, Dwarika Das and his carvers learnt how the wood carvings and art works reflected the beliefs and cultural norms of a sophisticated civilisation.
Dwarika Das Shrestha’s interest in heritage extended beyond his collection of wood works and extended into all facets of traditional Newari art. He re-introduced the production of Dachi apas, tapered glazed bricks, which was a traditional practice that had died out in the valley. As he worked with his craftsmen, Dwarika Das realised that the old system, through which this artistic tradition had continued for centuries, was no longer in place. The days when emperors and kings were the patrons of the art and commissioned such works were long over. Dwarika Das also realised that the only way that the artistic traditions of yesteryear could be revived would be if they could be economically viable.
Breaking New Ground
His ability to see a role for the past in the present and to act upon an idea is what made Dwarika Das Shrestha a real visionary and an inspiring individual. With the help of his wife, Ambica Shrestha, he started exploring entrepreneurial avenues to assist in the development of Nepal’s tourism and finance his passion for conservation. They knew that many people would be interested in coming to Nepal, to tour its heritage sites, and to experience its natural beauty. Towards this end, in 1969, Dwarika Das Shrestha went on to establish one of the first travel agencies in Nepal, Kathmandu Travels and Tours.
Seeking to break the monopoly that Indian travel agents had over tours to Nepal, Dwarika Das Shrestha spent six months in Japan trying to establish himself in the market. Although he was unsuccessful, Dwarika Das was not a person who gave up easily. He then established his travel agency in Delhi and secured tours to Nepal through it. His persistence paid off and soon Kathmandu Tours and Travels was a successful business. The first seeds for The Dwarika’s hotel grew out of this success during the coronation ceremony of King Birendra in 1972.
During the coronation period, all the hotels in Nepal were booked to capacity, and there were not enough hotel rooms for all the official visitors to Nepal. To accommodate their own guests, the Shrestha family moved into a rented house and converted their own home, along with the apartments, into a make-shift guest house. The overwhelming feedback they received from guests inspired them to build a hotel in the same authentic style.
The Dwarika’s Hotel was registered in 1977. The idea behind the hotel was to revive the architectural splendour of the valley. All the terracotta work was made in the valley, using local clay and skills. The couple also incorporated elements of Nepal’s diverse cultural heritage, including those from beyond the valley, when designing the rooms. The furniture was crafted by families of traditional carpenters, and the linen, textiles and embroideries were hand woven and used Nepali patterns. In all purposes, Dwarika Das Shrestha took the best of Nepali culture and presented it in a way that had not been done before. In explaining his vision, he once stated:
"My project is to recreate a 15th-17th century environment where tourist and Nepali alike would have a sensation of the original. The hotel as a commercial enterprise is merely a vehicle to finance and carry my dream forward."
The Dwarika’s Hotel was awarded the prestigious 1980 Pacific Area Travel Association’s (PATA) Heritage Award, and Dwarika Das himself was recognised for his remarkable contribution to heritage conservation. The following year, the central Lumbini building was built, utilising pieces that had been restored in the heritage workshop. The entire building was built in the Newari architectural style but combined modern comforts with traditional aesthetics. With ten rooms, the hotel was an instant success with tourists who had a genuine interest in Nepal’s artistic customs.
In 1990, Dwarika Das Shrestha completed the Ram Palace, a sixteen room wing with the same stylistic elements he had used to make the Lumbini building. The hotel now had thirty rooms and he noted that people in Nepal were beginning to appreciate the value of their heritage. Sadly, Dwarika Das Shrestha passed away in 1992 before he could complete his vision for the hotel, but his legacy and dream still lives on.
Dwarika’s Today
Continuing his vision and utilising the sketches through which he had conceived the hotel, his wife and daughter, Sangita Shrestha Einhaus, completed the front building (where the reception is now housed) in 1998. In order to complete the building’s façade, they worked closely with a local potter named Hirakaji for close to a year, trying to replicate the horizontally carved designs with terracotta. Using a mold of the carvings from the horizontal reliefs on the door frame that is in front of the Lumbini building, they revived traditional terracotta designs that were used in the valley around the 15th century. These terracotta designs were more economical than wood, but created a similar aesthetic feel to a building’s façade. The revival of this tradition has proven to be highly popular, with such designs now being replicated throughout the valley.
The hotel is still managed by the Shrestha family - Ambica, Sangita and Dwarika Das’ grandson, Rene Vijay Shrestha Einhaus - and now possesses one of the biggest private woodwork collections in the world. However, the family no longer buys old wood works unless they are significantly damaged and require restoration at the heritage workshop in the hotel. Where possible, the hotel instead encourages people to incorporate the pieces into their homes and appreciate their cultural heritage. The influence of Dwarika Das Shrestha’s vision can be observed to clearly in the old cities of Patan and Bhaktapur, where public and private initiatives are gradually restoring the city to its past glory. The Dwarika’s Hotel retains Dwarika Das Shrestha’s guiding philosophy and remains a beacon on the importance of heritage conservation in Nepal.
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· for more reviews go to: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/19400.The_Decline_and_Fall_of_the_Roman_Empire
http://www.archives.gov.on.ca/
The Archives of Ontario (Archives publiques de l'Ontario in French) is the provincial archives for the province of Ontario, Canada. Founded in 1903, the archives is located in Toronto.
The Bureau of Archives, as it was originally known, was first located at the Ontario Legislature. The Archives moved to the Canadiana Building on the University of Toronto campus in 1951, at which time it was known as the Department of Archives. Relocated to 77 Grenville Street in 1972 its name was also changed to the Archives of Ontario. The reading room at the Grenville building closed on March 26, 2009.
The official groundbreaking ceremony for the new Archives of Ontario building on the York University grounds, which also houses the York University Research Tower, was on April 30, 2007. The groundbreaking was attended by former Minister of Government Services Gerry Phillips and former York University President and Vice-Chancellor Lorna Marsden. The building was opened to the public on April 2, 2009 and is expected to be the site of the Archives for at least the next thirty-five years.
In addition to the records of the Ontario government, the Archives also acquires records of private individuals and organizations that reflect Ontario's history. Notable private records include Eaton's fonds, Conn Smythe fonds and Moriyama and Teshima Architects Ltd. fonds.
The head of the Archives has been known as the Archivist of Ontario since 1923. Eleven people have held this position.
My First VIA RAIL TRIP! an expensive one :P
I WAS HERE - Now touring ...
The Frontenac County Court House
The Frontenac County Court House was built 1855-1858 and was designed by architect Edward Horsey in a Neoclassical style. After the 1874 fire, architect John Power redesigned the central dome on a drum lit by 16 arched windows with construction being undertaken by contractor George Newlands. The Court House sits at the top of a gentle incline and overlooks a wide expanse of park to the shoreline of Lake Ontario. It is located in a downtown residential area of 19th-century homes and adjacent to Queen's University. A fountain was built in front of the Court House in 1903 to the memory of Sir George Airey Kirkpatrick.
Ownership of Frontenac County Court House was transferred to the City of Kingston in 1998 as part of the City's amalgamation. The Frontenac County Court House has a number of different heritage designations/protections including: a National Historic Site designation (1980); an easement held by the Ontario Heritage Trust (1989); and a Part IV Ontario Heritage Act Designation (1975). The property is also located in the proposed Old Sydenham Heritage Conservation District.
http://www.cityofkingston.ca/residents/culture/heritage/courthouse.asp
My sister's first day in LAW school! ... yes, I'm in Kingston with her!
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Queen's University, Faculty of Law |
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| Motto | Soit Droit Fait (Let Right Be Done) |
| Established | 1957 |
| Type | Public |
| Dean | Bill Flanagan |
| Academic staff | 70 |
| Students | 500 |
| Location | Kingston, Ontario, Canada |
| Website | http://law.queensu.ca |
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The Queen's University Faculty of Law is a professional faculty of Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada and is regarded as one of the most prestigious institutions of legal education in Canada.
While the tradition of legal education at Queen's University heralds back nearly 150 years, the law school as it currently exists was officially established in 1957. Faculty members from Queen's have been honoured with major teaching and research awards, and are recognized nationally and internationally as leading experts in their fields. Past and current professors at Queen's such as William Lederman, Toni Pickard, Gary Trotter, Allan Manson, Nick Bala and Don Stuart are routinely cited in Supreme Court of Canada and other appellate decisions. As consultants, advisors, and project directors, Queen's Law professors have made substantial contributions to various provincial and national law commissions, as well as national and international organizations.
Queen's Law School is housed in Sir John A. Macdonald Hall, which was inaugurated by Prime Minister John G. Diefenbaker in 1960, and was completely renovated in 2003. It houses the William R. Lederman Law Library, named after the former dean and respected scholar, which contains over 150,000 legal volumes.
Most accepted applicants have completed a four year university program. The preference is to accept those applicants who have an honours undergraduate degree, and many admitted students have attained graduate degrees as well. Acceptance into Queen's Law is highly competitive, with a few thousand applicants vying for around 160 positions. The average LSAT score of accepted applicants is 161 and the average undergraduate average (for the last two years) is 83%.
The Faculty Board and Queen's University Senate voted to change the LL.B. degree to a Juris Doctor (J.D.) designation to reflect the fact that the vast majority of Queen's Faculty of Law's graduates enter the program with at least one university degree.
Post-war Toronto was creative and dynamic. It was a hotbed of industrial and artistic activity. Toronto had attitude, it was brash and confident. It not only reinvented art and architecture but re-engineered it.
It all came together like one beautiful storm, brewing an intoxicating wind of change, a system that would remake and retool Canadian industry and establish Canada's manufacturing infracture, thereby creating bot a middle class and an artistic class that would redesign the city, realising some of the very best and most uncompromising examples of art and architecture this country has ever seen.
The end of the war was seen as a new beginning. We built the Victory Soya Mills on the Toronto waterfront, a colossal structure of concrete silos with "VICTORY" written in bright red sans-serif across its superstructure to annpounce Canada's triumph in Europe and reiterate Canada's modern aesthetic heritage all in one bold stroke.
In the days after the war, young men and women in Canada, with dreams in their veins pubped up by victory, believed anything was possible. Immigrants disembarking in Halifax and Montreal had left behind the devastation of the Old World and were determined to build a new one, one which would lead to lives and new careers.
And into the midst of this came architect Peter Dickinson, fresh off the boat in Halifax and building up a storm in a manner most Dickinson. John C. Parkin and Macklin L. Hancock, newly graduated from Harvard, were full of piss and vinegar, looking to roll up their sleeves and execute the never-before-imagined.
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From the igloo to concrete silos to prairie grain elevators to Canadian Pacific's Empress liner series to wartime housing - Canada's aesthetic is simple, clean and functional. Modern is our national form and our inherent design language.
Toronto was a city like no other. We were Hogtown, and loving it! We had a style and a forward, get-out-of-my-way attitude. At the same time, we were a city of outstanding cultural depth and vision. Ours was a modern city that carried weight and gravity in art, design and architecture. We believed in our young, we nurtured them and we believed the future was bright.
Toronto was [at] the most, a cultural and industrial revolution, an artistic explosion. It was breathtaking. Toronto. We are the citizens of no mean city.
*taken from the Introduction pages of Mean City: From Architecture to Design: How Toronto Went Boom by John Martins Manteiga
Just coming out of mourning for Jack Layton and I believe this should be a starting off point for all Torontonians who have been inspired to work for this city. I think I am back in the game. This is me pledging my involvement in City Politics after my 2 year hibernation!!! I am totally psyched! I love Toronto. Toronto IS my city and I hope to see you rise again.
Brookfield Place is a landmark address deeply rooted in the commercial, cultural and social fabric of Toronto. Home to some of the world’s most prestigious financial and legal firms, and the corporate headquarters of many preeminent Canadian corporations, the 2.6 million square foot complex fosters business and commerce of global significance. Brookfield Place also stands as a prized example of Toronto’s cultural development and community spirit. Its public spaces have received international acclaim for their architectural excellence, including the award winning Allen Lambert Galleria, a favourite backdrop for some of North America’s most prominent exhibitions and special events. Visited by millions of people each year, Brookfield Place is also home to the Hockey Hall of Fame and some of Toronto’s most popular dining, shopping and lifestyle destinations.
http://brookfieldplacenewsandevents.com/
One of the things I miss about SEOUL~ Haechi, their mascot! I love him! Haechi first began appearing in Silla era (57 BC – AD 935). a mythical creature as a guardian of justice which representing also safety and luck. in Jeoseon kingdom (1392 – 1910) statues of The Haechi were placed in palaces and homes to protect them from harm and misfortune. Haechi was chosen as a symbol of Seoul in May 2008. With the move, Seoul City has developed various products featuring Haechi to make it one of world’s best city brands.
Haechi, a mythical animal, has been reborn as a character representing Seoul. Seoul Metropolitan Government held a ceremony March 25 (2009) at the City Hall Seosomun Annex unveiling Haechi brand identity and character.
Haechi was selected as a Seoul symbol last May after it was pointed out there is no core image that represents Seoul. The Haechi BI(Brand Image) and character were developed through a survey of Seoulites and consultations with experts.
The basic shape of Haechi BI derives from the Haechi statue in Gwanghwamun. Glancing slightly upward with his head turned a little to the side, Haechi exudes a dynamic image. Seoul sky color representing the animal’s characteristics and the cleanliness and integrity was used as the basic color. The Haechi BI will be used in the City Hall documents, promotional materials, mugs, cars, badges and business cards.
A Haechi character that is children-friendly and can communicate with the public has been created as well. The basic colors are ginko yello and brick brown-colors which were shown in a survey to be preferred by Seoulites. The character will be used in music videos, flash animation and at Hi Seoul Festival programs and events.
“The city will conduct an integrated Haechi marketing program in a consistent manner to develop it as the foremost Seoul icon,”said a city official.
http://english.seoul.go.kr/gtk/news/news_view.php?idx=878
Birth of the Haechi
So, why the Haechi?
Yi* says the selection of the mystical beastie as the symbol of Seoul was based on much research. "We asked Seoul citizens and visiting foreigners what they considered to be symbols of Seoul. The symbols were separated into three categories - traditional symbols, environmental symbols and cultural symbols. In the end, the top three responses were Gyeongbokgung Palace in the traditional category, Hangang River in the environmental category, and N Seoul Tower in the cultural category."
When these results were analyzed, Gyeongbokgung Palace was the favorite in terms of both symbolism and usability. Still, there was a problem. "Gyeongbokgung Palace is too big, so it's hard to use as a symbol," Yi said. "We looked at what aspects of the palace we could use, and we decided on the Haechi."
There was more going for the Haechi, too. "If we'd chosen a religious symbol, this could spark a religious controversy. Plus, we needed something with a connection to the city. For example, we could use a lion, but lions have no connection to Seoul." China and Japan have Haechi, too, but they differ quite a bit from Korea's. "The Korean Haechi is rather happy and cute, perhaps a bit silly looking. It has Korean aesthetic features. And Seoul has more Haechi statues than anywhere else in Korea - some 90% of Haechi are located in the city."
*Yi Byeonghan, the Director of the Design Planning Division of Seoul Metropolitan Government
http://english.seoul.go.kr/gtk/news/reports_view.php?idx=1270
Architect Allyn E. Morris' gorgeous and compact Silver Lake home and studio, which is situated on the architecturally impressive Silver Ridge Street, is for sale.
Morris, who was an apprentice of Frank Lloyd Wright, fused his own aesthetic from training as an engineer with the more organic principles of his famous teacher. He also worked with Calvin C. Straub, as well as Frank Lloyd Wright, Jr., decades after he had become famous in his own right, according to Crosby Doe Associates, who is listing the Silver Lake property. While Morris did not receive as much attention as some of his peers during his lifetime, he is still recognized as an extremely talented architect, as evidenced by this article in The Architect's Newspaper. His Silver Lake home has been published in six different journals, books, and magazines, including Architectural Digest and An Architectural Guidebook to Los Angeles.*
The Silver Lake property, built in 1958, has been lovingly preserved by its current owner in order to maintain the architect's original vision. The one-bedroom, one-and-three-fourths-bath studio home has numerous large windows that offer beautiful views of Mount Baldy and the San Gabriel Mountains. The lush foliage of these surrounding hills delicately balances out the warm hues of the brick structure. The house has an airy two-story living room and open kitchen and dining area, as well as a lower ground-floor office.
The 1,026 square-foot home is currently listed for $668,000 on Redfin. You can learn more about the home at its website, designed by Scott Mayoral.
Photos provided courtesy of Michael D. Phillips of Crosby Doe Associates.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/15/architect-allyn-morris-mo_n_876393.html#s291466
*I was gifted a coffee table book on my return from Korea and this house by Allyn Morris was in it. It caught my eye and thought of researching it online and I can't believe it has just been put on the market. According to the book it is owned by film-maker Stephen Chin, originally from Toronto, and is featured in pages 18-23 of the book:
Watched the CASA LOMA DVD today! Had it borrowed from Runnymede TPL.
Casa Loma-Video or DVD. The 27 minute video recording (also available on DVD)is a comprehensive visual tour of Casa Loma and it’s 5 acres of beautiful estate gardens. Produced by Chadwick Brothers Film Company Ltd.
I LOVE YOU, SEOUL!!!
I miss you and I am jet lagged!
Infinetely Yours,예샤!
I left Soeul for Toronto today: Incheon> San Francisco (2hr delay!)> Toronto
> Walked from our hostel to Hongdae Station and caught the Incheon Airport Subway line then met my friend HyoJin for lunch at the Airport
My final meal with my cousin, who goes off to Calgary after SFO, and my friend HyoJin at an Incheon Airport restaurant.
Bulgogi and Beef Stew!
63 Building/ 63 City
With 63 floors measuring a height of 264m, the 63 Building is Korea’s tallest and most recognized building. The 63 Building boasts spectacular views of the Hangang River and the surrounding mountains of Bugaksan Namsan and Gwanaksan.
63 Building has undergone considerable renovation and the basement floor boasts convenient facilities including 63 Sea World, 63 IMAX theater, Korea’s greatest buffet restaurant “Buffet Pavilion,” and a host of other restaurants.
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| Activity Information |
| * 63 Sea World Basement first floor 16,119 square feet, basement second floor 16,724 square feet, and basement third floor (technology room) 5,515 square feet, totaling 38,358 square feet. Within this large-scale space, there are 54 regular aquarium displays, 26 special organism breeding aquariums, and other aquariums adding up to 80. In addition, specially created aquarium is 2m 10cm in height, 42m in circumference, water capacity of 200tons, and 11cm of transparent acryl. Other than aquarium displays which consist of 400 different kinds of over 20,000 of water organisms, there are also reptiles exhibitions and event hall is separately located in 63 Sea World in order to present unique ocean scenes. Ocean Family Show (seal, fur seal, diver show) can only be enjoyed at 63 Sea World. It is very unique and extraordinary which interests the audience presenting interesting scenes. * 63 Sky Deck 63 Sky Deck, many visitors come every year, is 264m above the sea level, and 249m above the ground level is providing feelings as if floating above the clouds. Together with Han River’s water flow and view of the city lead it to be Korea’s representative tourist route. In addition, Sky Deck’s recreation facilities provide unique experience for the visitors and its various special exhibitions provide educational and cultural learning. *63 IMAX theater 63 IMAX theater is Korea’s the first IMAX theater which opened in July, 1985 with 504 seats. There are eight special seats for handicapped audiences and simultaneous interpretation services are available in four different languages. Surround sound system is used; there are six vast speakers in the front and two in the back for the best quality of sound. 63 IMAX theater is international standard size of six floor building and its film is ten times the regular movie, 35mm, providing three times the 70mm movie. |
http://english.visitkorea.or.kr/enu/SI/SI_EN_3_1_1_1.jsp?cid=264122
The Korean Demilitarized Zone (Hangul: 한반도 비무장지대; Hanja: 韓半島非武裝地帶) is a strip of land running across the Korean Peninsula that serves as a buffer zone between North and South Korea. The DMZ cuts the Korean Peninsula roughly in half, crossing the 38th parallel on an angle, with the west end of the DMZ lying south of the parallel and the east end lying north of it. It is 250 kilometres (160 miles) long, approximately 4 km (2.5 mi) wide and is the most heavily militarized border in the world. The Northern Limit Line, or NLL, is the de facto maritime boundary between North and South Korea in the Yellow Sea and the coastline and islands on both sides of the NLL are also heavily militarized.
History
The 38th parallel north—which divides the Korean Peninsula roughly in half—was the original boundary between the United States-occupied and Soviet-occupied areas of Korea at the end of World War II. Upon the creation of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK, informally North Korea) and the Republic of Korea (ROK, informally South Korea) in 1948, it became a de facto international border and one of the most tense fronts in the Cold War.
Both the North and the South remained heavily dependent on their sponsor states from 1948 to the outbreak of the Korean War. The conflict, which claimed over three million lives and divided the Korean Peninsula along ideological lines, commenced on June 25, 1950, with a Soviet-sponsored DPRK invasion across the 38th parallel, and ended in 1953 after international intervention pushed the front of the war back to near the 38th parallel. In the Armistice Agreement of July 27, 1953, the DMZ was created as each side agreed to move their troops back 2,000 m (2,200 yards) from the front line, creating a buffer zone 4 km (2.5 mi) wide. The Military Demarcation Line (MDL) goes down the center of the DMZ and indicates exactly where the front was when the agreement was signed.
Since the Armistice was signed, it has been monitored by members of the Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission (NNSC). Since 1953, members of the Swiss and Swedish Armed Forces have been members of the NNSC stationed near the DMZ.
Owing to this theoretical stalemate, and genuine hostility between the North and the South, large numbers of troops are still stationed along both sides of the line, each side guarding against potential aggression from the other side. The armistice agreement explains exactly how many military personnel and what kind of weapons are allowed in the DMZ. Soldiers from both sides may patrol inside the DMZ, but they may not cross the MDL. Sporadic outbreaks of violence due to North Korean hostilities killed over 500 South Korean soldiers and 50 U.S. soldiers along the DMZ between 1953 and 1999.
Tae Sung Dong and Kijong-dong were the only villages allowed by the armistice committee to remain within the boundaries of the DMZ. Residents of Tae Sung Dong are governed and protected by the United Nations Command and are generally required to spend at least 240 nights per year in the village to maintain their residency. In 2008, the village had a population of 218 people. The villagers of Tae Sung Dong are direct descendants of people who owned the land before the 1950–53 Korean War.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Demilitarized_Zone
2nd August/ Today's schedule
Morning @ 7:30> Hotel President
Afternoon> DMZ + 3rd Tunnel + Dorasan Station
Evening> ITAEWON
Late Evening> 63 Building
Night> Yeoido Park
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