København

A little more than two weeks ago I visited Copenhagen with my floormate over the weekend. Most of the photos of the trip are up in my Facebook already but I thought I wanted to only show some of the more interesting ones here. Well, they were photos I took over at Amalienborg Palace, where the Danish royal family are residing I think. 

Frankly speaking, we weren't suppose to take photos inside, unless given special consent. I only knew this when I was happily snapping away and the second guard I talked to told me no photos were allowed. The first guard I talked to saw that I was taking photos and didn't tell me anything about the no photograph policy. In fact, he even helped me in getting my photos right (due to the constant change of natural lighting) and shared that he takes photos as well and would always want his shots right too. 

Many photos were taken but I'll select my favourite ones of my visit to Amalienborg Slot (Palace). They were taken in one of the buildings at the palatial compound, which was open as a museum for exhibition to the public.

Images below are personal items that belonged to the current Danish Queen, Queen Margarethe II, and rooms that she used to live in as a child/ young lady. This exhibition was specially held as a celebration of the queen's 70th this year. This palace was where she was born and it was an amazing feeling to be standing in rooms that real kings and queens, whom you'd only read on books or Wikipedia, used to live in.

I think this was a room that Queen Margarethe used to spend time in. The toddler dress on the right could have been belonged to her

Crafts of the young queen then. She is considered a creative queen as she loves handicrafts, apparently

How many pipes does one need or can one actually smoke in a day?

 Photos of the royal family

 They'd do well if this was a test. I wouldn't be able to go pass 3 generations before me

 Interesting tradition. I guess you could guess Crown Prince Frederik 9 and our lovely Aussie Princess Mary's son's name, if you haven't heard of him already

 

 Uniform belonged to the Queen in younger days

Imagine if your dad told you these are photos of your great-great grandma/ grand aunts and cousins. Woah.

Sorry if the photos are a little dark, as I was in a hurry on the day of the trip and these are unedited. And I can't be bothered to edit as the main reason for this post is only to share the experience.

Hope you all enjoyed it and have a sense of awe as I did over the amazingly maintained items and above all, the carefully recorded history of the lives of this family and their forefathers.

The history was simply amazing. Another castle that's definitely worth visiting is Frederiksborg Slot. THAT one was the highlight of my trip to Denmark. That would be my favourite castle to date (only to visit, not live in it). Pictures are on my Facebook page.

You should visit Denmark if you've the chance!!

Colour Theory

Sorry for the lack of post!

Have been really busy with uni and travelling around. Have taken loads of photos in the time between the previous post and this one. 

Actually, that was an excuse. I've just been lazy to blog :P But I did take loads of photos. Many really interesting ones that I will share soon, including our class's excursion to Textile Museum of Borås and my trip to Copenhagen over the weekend. So this time I've gotta catch up on my work after my travel  Plus, the textile students and lecturers are going for a textile conference in Stockholm  this weekend and my parents are coming for a visit the weekend after. So...lots to be done!

Here's what I was doing just yesterday at class.

Colour Theory with Elisabeth. So fun! I truly felt like a kid again, looking at all these colours and doing all the gluing and pasting!

I've done many similar exercises that Elisabeth is teaching now back in Melbourne but we've never really gone that much depth into colours as we do now. It's really interesting.

We are usually more familiar with Pantone fans and colour identification, for those who know what that is. Here we were using the Swedish colour system called NCS (Natural Colour System).

So totally love the machine cut, 2x 2cm colour chips that come nicely in small self-seal bags with the exercises :) Real neat.

Le Love

Was going through some of my favourite bookmarks over the weekend and totally forgot that I've tagged this blog. Le Love is a blog about love, entries submitted by people all around the world.

Photography is such a powerful media. It captures and immortalizes moments of intimacy, love and tenderness, as portrayed there.

I absolutely love how the photos encapsulate the many different types of emotions that a person falling in love, already in or out of love feels. The surprise, disappointments, worries, frustrations, sheer passion, vulnerability, loneliness, adoration, hurt, pain, dedication, innocence, fear, longing, yearning, regret, hope, love. 

Some photos seem like they are living, as the feeling of pain, hurt or love are quite tangible. They really make you feel with the subjects in the photos.

Here are some of my favourite photos from Le Love. 

"Way too attached"

"Stealing Kisses"

"Afraid you'll forget me"

"Great complexity"

"Marianne Taylor Photography- That's what I want"

"We both know"

"Like an eternity"

"There are no rules"

"Nothing new"

"I love(d) you"

"Soak up every second"

"Imagine"

"This year"

"I don't know what's going to happen"

"But he didn't hit me"

"You are..."

Emalyne's Takoyaki

This very much delayed post is specially dedicated to my eldest sister, Emalyne! 

Not only did she spend copious amount of time, effort and money, this darn food cost her much anguish, days of disappointments, heartache, sweat and perhaps tears. If it were me, I might have probably given up long before she did, including those that perhaps had laughed at her mishaps, which was such a terrible thing to do! People can laugh all they want but she can improve :)...I mean, WE, can improve, hey? :) My cooking's no better hah!

But you know what? These wonderful suckers morsels, which she ended up having a love-hate relationship with, turned out B.E.A.U.T.I.F.U.L.L.Y! Many of the ingredients, including the takoyaki pan, were shipped all the way from Japan. So that's 100% authenticity guaranteed! 

So this one's for you, Da Jie! And thanks for making this exquisite delicacy for the family! Great idea as an entrée in a Japanese-themed or finger food party.

Take care and much love from Scandinavia,

Mei

Pieces of octopus placed in positions after being cooked in slightly salted boiling water

Pour in the magic flour mix

...okay you gotta ask her on this one

Dunk in the chives!

...and the preserved radish!

flip it ya'll

A pinch of that Japanese greenish seasoning

A zig-zaggaty squirt of the dark and sweet okonomiyaki sauce and Japanese mayonaise

Perhaps a more generous dose of kastuobushi shavings on the hot morsels. See how these shavings gracefully 'dance' in the heat!

Itada Kimasu!!!!!

Lagerhouse

Was exploring the places around my student accomodation/ uni just beginning of this week. I walked past the huge ICA (huge grocery store like Safeway and Coles) that my student host brought me to and behold, I found Knalleland! One of the stores that they have there is Lagerhouse. Once inside the shop I didn't really get out of it till at least 45 mins after. So much to see! Totally LOOOVED the prints, designs and the prices were reasonable. The Swedes seem to put much thought in their designs and they're so adorable!

I couldn't help myself but to take a few snaps from the shop whilst people weren't noticing. Really wanted to share it over here with you guys! :)

Rubber duckies for 99kr, around AUD$15. Okay these ones are steep.

Cute Aprons! Good present for mum :) If you look carefully, notice this apron is a slip-on!

Tin cans

Crochet and woven blankets

This would by far be the cutest marshmallows EVER! Look, even the marshmallows are cloud shaped!

Teeth in your drink. Yum.

Candies and chocolates! The green jelly beans on the right said "Eat your greens or else you won't have your candy"

More candies...

A Hello Kitty lolly that also spells fat. Cute to see but I wouldn't eat it.

Couldn't resist myself. I felt like I had to get this place when I saw it there. Approx AUD$6 for the plate. The red plastic one was from here too.

The pillow case that reminded me much of Sam's band, Bus Company. These are VWs and caravans, close enough to a bus haha

My AUD$3 pillow case!! That's around 20kr or SEK

Another 2 items I bought were the green/ dark blue printed cushion (shown in previous post) and an umbrella with the same prints as the VWs and caravans. 

These little prints, colours and designs make me real happy :)