Maximillian & Us

Thanks to my best friend, I came to know about Banksy’s new movie, ‘Exit Through The Gift Shop’. I was quite annoyed when I couldn’t get tickets to its premier screening in a make shift cinema in Leake Street Tunnel (underneath Waterloo Station). Luckily I didn’t give up and tried to get tickets the next morning before heading to work. I have to say, persistent paid off!! Managed to get 2 tickets to the movie (costs £7.50 each).

We got to the tunnel early as I know there are several entrances to the tunnel. The last time I was there was for the Punchdrunk’s Tunnel 228 installation. We got there about 30 mins early and couldn’t find the ‘Cinema’ sign or entrances. Then we asked a guy and he pointed us to the ‘door’ and said that the ‘door’ will not open until 3pm, which is the ticket entrance time. So we just walked around, taking pictures of graffiti artist making graffiti art in the tunnel.

In order to get in, we have to show the ticket and also the card used to pay for the tickets. Then we have to had our bags checked and ushered into another tunnel to collect another version of the ticket and another empty space with a few of Banksy’s arts. We bought our popcorns and waited to be ushered into another tunnel where it has been turned into a cinema.

The movie / documentary is about how graffiti artists operates in USA and UK and how one unknown guy became a world famous graffiti artist just like that and even went on to design the cover of Madonna’s latest album cover. It is quite a funny documentary and a good insight into their modus operandi. Dav and I enjoyed it quite a lot.

You can still catch his movie in the normal cinema. Visit this site to see which cinema it’s being shown.

Here’s some pictures I took.

Our tickets.

The ‘Cinema’ sign. Look on the left side of the photo, lots of graffiti artists working on making their art.

The fake red carpet. For this movie, they actually spray paint a red carpet leading into the entrance of the cinema.

The queue is getting longer and longer…

First art we saw is the Queen and Prince Phillip opening the movie.

The famous lion statue, except this time it has a microphone in its mouth.

I didn’t detect this CCTV until Dav pointed it out! That’s Banksy alright… always like to ’surprise’ the audience.

The movie started with this logo. Quite amusing.

Burnt Paratha
Originally uploaded by StephNgoi

We have been buying frozen paratha from See Woo lately. Really love it and it’s sooo easy to cook them. All you have to do is just heat it on a wok.

It is soooooo easy to cook and yet I still burnt them! Not only did I burnt one, I burnt 2 parathas….

This incident totally confirms why I don’t like to cook!

This is an amazing exhibition, currently being shown in the Natural History Museum until 11 April 2010.

NB went last year and highly recommended it. So when my office social club decided to sponsor tickets to this exhibition, there is no need to decide. I will definitely go if I’m in the country.

A group of us from work went and was totally inspired ! It is also so much better to view the photos up near in big screen. Definitely worth a visit!

Here’s  a few of my favourites.

p/s: You can view all the photos online at the online gallery.

This year we didn’t do much for CNY. So last Sunday we decided to invite our friends and colleagues over to have a small gathering. Amazingly a few of our non-Asian colleagues did turn up and experience some Asian cooking.

DK and LP also brought their 2 months old baby along, which became my model. Here’s some nice shots of Baby Matthias.

Last Saturday, the weather was great. The sun was out (quite unusual since it was raining the whole week). So we decided to head out to Hampstead Heath (up north) and walk around the huge area/park. After doing some research online, I found out that this place has lots of ponds and a circular walking path which we can follow.

I knew about this place when I went to Kenwood House for the Simply Red concert. I remember walking past a lookout which has superb view of the city. So I’ve always wanted to go back and walk around the area.

Here’s the planned walking route.

When we got there, we didn’t follow the planned route. It was too troublesome trying to find the right place to walk to. We just turn when we want and walk towards to things we wanted to see. This makes it a little bit more interesting and spontaneous. We even found a public ‘Women’s only’ swimming pool. The pool is actually a pond. Although we’re technically still in the middle of winter, there were several ladies swimming in the pond that day.

Here’s some pictures I took on that day. You’ll notice there’s lots of pictures of trees and clouds. Well, that’s the scenery we saw that day. For better quality pictures, please view them on my Flickr account.