hongkong, day 08
my trip for day 08 brought me from "central" to "sheun wan",
starting at the "statue square"[02-03]. there they have huge
drums (like the one they have in every temple) put up as part
of the 60th anniversary of the people's republic of china, which
willl be celebrated on the 1st of october. then i was heading
down to the harbour[06-09] where several ferry peers are locat-
ed. right next is the "International Finance Center Two"[10-14]
("IFC II"), which is the second highest building in hong kong.
since it was again raining all day long i tried to get through
malls from sight to sight. thus i ended up in malls for staying
dry rather than for cooling down as in the last few days. on an
entry to a subway i found this little cat[17] that was resting
on this chair while loads of people were walking by. cute kitty.
i finally reached my next stop, namely the "bank of china"[23]
building, which has an observatory on the 47th floor. but it was
closed today. too bad, i really wanted to get an overview in a
building that close to the harbour.
 
next thing i actually found by accident was "st. paul's cathe-
dral"[29-31] where a piano convert was just about to end when i
entered the church. again, too bad. a few hundred meters away i
spotted another church[32], but i don't know the name since it
was not listed in the guide book. since hong kong is built on
hills and islands, i had another steep way to the "HK zoologi-
cal and botanical garden" ("hkzbg"). in the zoo they have le-
murs, apes, turtles, two crocodiles[47] and one snake.
additionally loads of plants spread all over the park. also they
had a stuffed tiger[43], that was a donation from a zoo in
germany, and bred two offsprings. sadly the kitty died last
year.
since all the animals were in cages i did not take pictures of
them but rather took a picture of some wooden animals[48-49]
that are also spread all over the park. also they had nice
benches with all kind of animals like cats[41-42] or apes[55-
57]. lovely zoo in the huge city of hong kong.
 
next stop was an old stone stair[62] and the four last gas
lanterns[63] in hongkong. then the weather got really very very
bad, and i was hasting to "man mo" temple. next stop was "lok ku
road", via the "hollywood road"[64-70]. usually at "lok ku road"
there should be the "cat street market" (meow!), but due to the
really heavy rain no market stalls were opened. additionally i
was soaked to the bone and decided that this is not fun anymore
and was fighting my way to the next MTR station. when i arrived
the station i really felt like i had just taken a bath with my
clothes on. good thing about the rain: it's a little cooling
down. the intensity of the rain showers is called "amber" - in
formation sheets were put up in the hotel elevators. looks
like the weather wont change soon...
 
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hongkong, day 07
went to McDonald's to have my breakfast on day day 07. inside
the restaurant sat an very old woman who soon started to talk to
me (in perfect british english, though she was asian). we were
talking a while, then she started palm-reading of my hand (of
course not for free, but less than a "professional" one would
charge). actually what she told me was all kind of stuff she
could have guessed by just observing me and talking to me for a
few minutes (which she actually did). but a little pushing for
the ego is never a bad idea. so i enjoyed listening to all the
stuff like i'm intelligent, wise (she might be assuming this by
our previous conversation we had), i'm artistically gifted
(though i wonder how she found out this one. maybe because of my
huge camera bag?), and i will marry at an old age (well i am
travelling alone and i'm not 20 anymore), i have a well going
career in my job (yes, at least i can afford a stay in hong kong
for a longer time), and i'm rather observative and introverted
than extroverted (well, yop, she was talking most of the time),
i'm friendly and open minded (yop, again, that's why i want to
visit "exotic" countries and have dread locks). and so on...
but all in all this was a very nice chat with the old lady, who
unfortunately refused my plea to take a picure of her.
when i left McDonald's it had suprisiginly stopped raining. so i
changed my plans, and instead of walking through malls or muse-
ums, i went to see the "po fuk shan" cemetary and the "man fat
sze" temple (aka "the temple of ten thousand buddhas"). to get
there i took the MTR and got of at "sha tin". right above the
station is a huge mall[013-018]. outside the mall there's a
small "snoopy's world"[001-012] park for kids. due to the rain
it was actually empty and most of the fair-things were closed
anyway. cute to see all the peanuts in 3D and this size.
 
then i headed on to the "po fuk shan" cemetary[019-063]. the
cemetary is huge and has several levels[056,060] that spread all
over the hill. at the main hall there was some ceremony[045]
going on, but i have no idea what it was for. then i found the
usual stuff like golden statues[046,051-052,058-059,061-062] in
temples or outside. all those buildings (that could be closed
like garages or shops) contained loads of marble plates[055],
and there were thousand of them. each of them for one or more
relatives.
 
going back downhill all the cemetary to the main entrance again
to get to the next sight, namely "the temple of the ten thousand
buddhas", or "man fat sze"[067-175]. although a steep climb up
to the monastery it was totally worth it. what you get is really
several thousand buddhas. be it life-sized ones on the trail up/
down to/from the monastery[067-092,134-142,173], or miniatures
[121-131] inside the main temple. this was my first real WTF?
experience in hong kong. the temple is really awesome. three
walls all filled up with tiny buddha-statues. then there's a
smaller glass case[130] again with several hundred buddhas
inside. and then there are those three cones[129] with small
buddhas inside too. so adding up all those buddhas that might
really make it to ten thousand. totally impressive and fasci-
nating. please note that all the life sized buddhas were unique.
also most of the ones placed in the walls and in the cone were
unique. i wish someone would have made such a temple with cats.
wooooo, ten thousand cats - i would die in awness instantly.
 
 
the trail is not finished yet at the main temple. instead again
a steep walk up to another temple (or whatever it is/was) again
with life sized and coloured statues to each side of the path
[135-142].
 
at the end i found some abandoned buildings[145-153] again
(yuhu!) and it seems i found the place where they repair the
broken statues. at least some of the ones standing up there were
(partially) damaged or disassembled. i'm still not sure if this
was really ment for the public or if i took a wrong turn some-
where. the place was a mess, but i totally liked it.
but, you might have guessed it, this was still not the end of
the path. again up the hill i ended at a statue garden[161] and
a huge white statue[162-163] with a lovely dragon[164] in front
of a waterfall. totally impressive and nice. but this time, this
was really the highest point one could go.
 
since i left the main temple i was totally alone (and on the way
up to the courtyard i saw only about five people all in all).
i explored the abandoned houses again on my way down, when i no-
ticed it was only 15 minutes left until the temple closes. i
saw gates along the way up. so i hurried to not end up locked in
this place. but... ahm... too late. all gates were already
closed. the only being here besides me was a barking dog. but it
ran some other way (actually i was quite glad about that). so i
was locked in, totally alone, and it got darker every minute.
great. since i've seen a way i have not walked yet when i was
wandering the courtyard i decided to exit there so that at least
i would not miss something important just because i was locked
in. it turned out to be a good choice because the barbwire at
exactly this exit was pretty lose, so i could partially remove
it, and then hop over the fence to land safely about two meters
lower. puh, lucky me. down the way were another few hundred
buddhas[173]. once more totally nice. oh, and i saw another cat
[176].
 
i wanted to go home since i really was tired now from all the
climbing. but the day was not over yet. i got on a MTR train and
thought "oh, this train cabin looks so different. so few people
and... hm... what does this sign say? first class'? aha, inter-
esting.". so i thouht i'm wrong here, and wanted to get off
again when suddenly three MTR-employees were going to each
passenger asking them to put their octopus-card on some card
reader. so did i. then the guy told me i did not pay for first
class. ahm... yop, i never intended to go on first class. well,
we got off the next station and he explained to me that i have
to enable my octopus card for a first class ride before i get on
the train. fines may be up to 500HKD (~50EUR) if you don't do
so. damn. then he asked for an ID. but i had none, since my
wallet got wet the day before so i left it at home so it could
get dry. also this was illegal. fines here could rise even
higher he told me. well... guess i looked so totally exhausted
and tired that this really nice and kind MTR guy said i get a
warning and do not have to pay. guess my apologies and suprised
looks were convincing him that i really did not know better. so
he showed me where to charge my card so i could go on first
class. pretty expensive actually, but i was very willing to pay
only the extra charge instead of the fines. as a sign of good
will on my side (though no one noticed that since the MTR guys
already left the station for some other trains) i travelled the
rest of my way home in second class trains (though it was
charged for first one for this trip).
quite exciting day... if only the fortune teller lady would have
told me that in the morning...
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hongkong, day 06
well, who would have guessed... yesterday i bought sun cream
for my face, since i had a sunburn, and today there's a ty-
phoon warning T1. this means no sun, a lot of rain, high
humidity, and, and that's the good side of it, falling tempera-
tures. so today it had about 26 degrees celsius, which is -
compared to the average 30 to 35 degrees so far - very accept-
able to me. but... no need for sun cream anymore. but unaware of
the typhoon warning T1 is started my trip to "lan tau" island,
thinking the rain would go away soon (as known it from austria).
but it turned out i was wrong. so this day was ok for me, but a
huge threat to my poor camera. my lenses grew damped, the body
was exposed to a lot of water. but it seems it survived this
day. bad thing is... it looks like the typhoon will stay for a
few days. so maybe tomorrow i will make it easier for my camera
and go to a few museums. we'll see...
at the MTR station there's the entrance to the cable car system
called "ngong ping 360"[002-026,161-170], that takes one right
to the "po lin" monastery, the biggest (sitting) bronze buddha
statue in the world, and a bone relict of buddha.
 
when i left the cable car cabin it was raining quite a lot, and
an australian told me this will not change for today. so i star-
ted my tour to the buddha statue[031-033,045-049,053-054,061-
063]. 200 steps[028-031,055-056] lead up to the big statue and
the museum[042-044] inside the statue.
 
inside the museum of course no photography was allowed. and the
bone relic would have only been visible through a magnifying
glass, but it was locked away in a glass case anyway. so the
closest i could get to it, was about four meters. i didn't see
the piece of the bone. too sad.
next to the statue there's a monastery[067-109] with the monks
taking care of the complex. they had vegetarien food[103,107]
only offered at the canteen. so i had some sweet-sour, some
"pork"-flavoured, and some unknown flavoured tofu pieces.
totally delicious and very cheap.
 
next thing i wanted to go to was "the path of wisdom". but i
soon found out i was the only one willing to go this path. so i
was walking through a dark and foggy forest, while it was rain-
ing heavily down on me. but what i found was worth it. no, not
the path of wisdom yet, but an abandoned house[111-132], sur-
rounded by scarecrows[111-113]. pretty spooky scary, but awe-
some for taking pictures. i just love abandoned buildings.
 
after exploring the ground floor of the ruin (the stairways to
the first floor and basement unfortunately were obstructed) i
went on with the seek for my wisdom. "the path of wisdom"[135-
142] turns out to be about 38 wood beams, each of them several
meters of height. quite impressive in the fog. but again, a
little spooky, as i was still all alone. so what does this tell
me? i'm all alone in the fog and rain on my path of wisdom? i
have no idea.
 
 
on my way back[143-146] from enlightenment and wisdom i came by
another few abandoned houses[147-158]. again very beautiful, but
unfortunatela unaccessable.
when going back again to the MTR station via the cable car it
was really foggy and windy. the cabin[161-170] was shaking and
sometimes visibility was limited to about 15 meters. another
spooky event, since once more i was alone, this time in the
cabin.
but... i found a McDonald's near my hotel. so, tomorrow i will
have breakfast there. yippieh!
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hongkong, day 05
i think i had a sunstroke yesterday. i really felt miserable
today in the morning. so i spent all day resting, sleeping,
and drinking gallons of water (as every day). in the evening
i felt much better again, so i decided to watch the "symphony
of light". it's a lightshow that is the largest permanent light
show in the world and thus is listed in the guiness book of
records. 44 buildings on both sides of victoria harbour are
included in this multimedia spectacle. additionally there's
sound involved which can be heard either via radio or at the
area around the "HK cultural centre" (cf. day 02, [047-066]).
impressive lightshow since all lasers and (search)lights are
coordinated with the music.
 
 
independent of this event, a lot of buildings have animated
light fronts. really amazing to watch. i really love the sea-
front in victoria harbour. be it day or night. good night.
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hongkong, day 04
today, day 04, i went to "wan chai"/"causeway bay". they nice
old trams there[001-002], and the area is not plain. instead
all the skyscrapers are built all over the hills, and quite
often there's also unused green wood areas.
right next to the MTR (the metro) is the "tin hau" temple[008-
023]. there were no "no photography" signs, and since there was
another tourist in there taking pictures i thought that's a good
chance of finally getting picutres of the inside of a temple.
this one was quite typical and (for my eyes) looked exactly the
same as the other ones i have already visited. the only differ-
ence is size.
 
my guide book said there shuold be another temple near "tin hau"
temple, but actually i didn't find it. too bad. so i went on to
"victoria park"[027-035], a big park with loads of green areas,
a separate jogging lane, and other stuff like a model boat
area[043].
after taking the exit on "gloucester street"[044-051] and walk-
ing around some side streets i was searching for the "noon day
gun". the gun is located right on the seaside, but between me
and the gun there was "gloucester street" and no pedestrian
crossing. since my guide said there's a subway somewhere i was
searching for the usual subway signs. but this subway was very
different. the entrance was totally hidden (i had to ask twice
where it is, since i didn't find it, though i was standing only
a few meters away when i asked the second time). so first step
is to go partially through the underground car park[052], then
following long hallways with sea-water pipes[053-054] until you
finally reach the other side. quite strange, but i did it. the
gun[056] itself was a little disappointing then actually (for
all the effort i had to take).
 
next thing i wanted to see was the "HK convention and exhibition
centre" (aka "HKCEC"), the huge building i saw on day 02 ([067])
from the other side of the harbour. on my way there i came by
the "chinese ressource centre" that has some nice dragon things
like a fountain[070-072,078-080] and a wall[081-084] on the
ground floor. very impressive and totally nice.
 
and so finally i arrived at the "HKCEC"[086-107] that somehow
reminded me of the opera house in sidney. at the centre there
was still the jewellery and gems fair that is now ongoing for
days. i often see people running around with access passes and
jewellery related catalogues or shopping bags.
 
to get back to "tsim sha tsui" i took the ferry[108-110]. it
took me about eight minutes to get back there. quite fast, quite
cheap, and definitely nice.
so i went home, took a shower, changed cloths and was heading
for "mongkok" (been already there on day 03) to meet with
Monique and a friend of hers, Winnie. Monique is a pen friend of
jake's girlfriend Andrea. Andrea wrote her an email and asked if
i could get a guide for one day, and she agreed. later Monique's
husband Derrick joined us. we were strolling around went to a
soja restaurant. they had all kind of tofu stuff there. like a
sweet soja bean thing that reminded me of pudding somehow. then
some deep-fried tofu, and some other deep-fried tofu thing with
a fish paste layer on top of it. all very delicious and very
healthy i guess.
 
next thing they showed me was "temple street"[115-126]. though
i've already been there, this time all the shops were opened and
the market was full of life. they had all kind of stuff there.
from clothes to electronic things and hello kitty stuff for the
kids. strange, yet fascinating mixture. oh, and here i saw the
first cat on hongkong! actually i saw four all in all.
 
then we decided to go to the "HK jockey arts club"[127-128,138-
143], a place that houses studios of loads of artists. one of
them was specialised in glass production[129-137]. and we had
the chance to watch him doing his art.
it was time for dinner. so my very friendly asian guides asked
me where i want to go, and i decided (of course) for traditional
local restaurant. so they brought me to some area where there
was no other caucasian being besides me. at the restaurant[144-
145] Derrick ordered something for all of us. they brought goose
with sweet-sour sauce[147], rice mixed with dried shrimps[148],
vegetables with garlic sauce[149], chicken with onions[150], and
this pot[153] full of weird things. in there was pig liver, pig
hindgut, and frog-legs. though i knew how liver tastes the rest
was new to me. the hindgut was not my thing, but the frog-legs
were quite delicious.
 
after we finished eating and drinking we drove back to "nathan
street", once more passed by the "temple street market"[152-168]
and finally split up at "nathan road". this was a very nice and
enlightening evening with three inhabitants of hong kong. thanks
very much to them.
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hongkong, day 03
day 03 of my trip to an exceptional city of china. on my plan:
"kwoloon park" (which i didn't visit yesterday although it's
just around the corner of my hotel), "yau ma tei" and "mong
kok", and "wong tai sin". good thing: i found a MacDonald's in
kowloon park. bad thing:
they don't have croissants. just "choco-pies". oh well... one
day i will find my perfect breakfast here in hongkong. i hope.
kowloon park was full of life. it was full of old people doing
all kind of activities, such as "qi gong", "tai ji quan", or...
honestly, i have no idea what they actually did. but it's the
cliche of china: old people doing exercises in parks. that's
exactly what i got. and it was fun watching them. some where
really elegant, smooth, and such[019], others where... quite the
opposite. but, everybody was physically active, and that's what
counts i guess. some in groups[022-023], some alone[044], but
everyone with total devotion. some even had swords[024-026],
some had fans[028-029,032-033]. others played instruments[005-
006] and/or sang[009] (both can be weapons too).
 
 
besides old and/or active people there are loads of birds and
turtles (and other animals such as dragonflies and parrots and
pidgeons in cages) in and around the ponds.
 
quite close to the park was "tin hau" temple[056-065], a very
small temple, where taking pictures was prohibited (as usual
inside the temples). the way back[066-067] to the closest un-
derground station brought me through the skyscraper valleys back
to the main street of "tsim sha tsui", namely "nathan road". i
will from now on try to reduce skyscraper photography as you
might, by now, have already found out that they are... huge.
and everywhere. and ugly. most of them. some are nice[049] and
modern[050] though.
 
the metro brought me straight to "wong tai sin" station, where
one can find the "sik sik yuen wong tai sin" temple[072-140] - a
huge temple complex. since japan has taught me i dig temples
(and shrines), this was my little heaven in hongkong (and a
rather time consuming one). but before i went to the temple i
cooled down a little in a the closeby mall called "wong tai sin
mall"[068-071,141-147].
i started my temple tour in front of the main temple(s) where
there are two floors full of soothsayers's booths[073]. loads of
them were occupied, most of them with couples. quite interesting
actually. next stop was a huge garden called the "good wish gar-
den"[074-127]. again turtles, dragonflies, and huge fish were
all over the place. very peaceful, very quiet, almost no people
there - absolutey wonderful and impressive.
 
 
now it was finally time to enter the main temple. inside the
temple buddhisms, taoisms, and confucianisms is practiced. thus
there were quite a lot of people, having tons of incense sticks
lit. inside the temple buildings there's always so much smoke of
them, i always get a little dizzy when being in there for a lon-
ger time. i guess the people working there are on those incense
stick drugs all day long. must be the reason they all were so
very friendly to me all the time.
 
to get some water and onigiris (didn't know they have them here
too) i went back to the mall. in there i found a small market,
where they sold things like fish-slices, chicken-something and
salted raw, fried and deep-fried fish. same with beef, where
they had dark-red slices of meat. looked strange and unknown to
me. also they had beef tripe on a stick. very... not declicious.
 
i think i will get a tshirt saying "want no suit, got appart-
ment". whenever i'm on "nathan road" (on which my hotel is) all
kind of guys ask me whether i want a suit (tailormade of course)
or if i need an appartment. honestly, do i look like a guy that
needs or even wants a suit? and if i would need an appartment,
shouldn't i somehow have some luggage with me? unfortunately
this is really annoying. but i guess that's the price for the
low budget hotel. worth to pay actually.
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hongkong, day 02
having plenty of sleep i felt totally fit on day 02. so,
according to the tradition when i was in japan, i was searching
for a MacDonald's restaurant to have black coffee and crois-
sants. unfortunately i haven't found one. instead i ended up at
a starbuck's cafe, full of americans (or english?). so i had a
tall americano (following the tradition i started on my america
trip) and a blueberry muffin for breakfast.
i decided to explore my neighbourhood today, called "tsim sha
tsui". first stop was "1881 heriage"[001-015], a former marine
police headquarter, which is an old victorian building. today
there are all kind of luxury shops in there. first time i got
strange looks today because i definitely didn't fit in there.
near by was a construction site, and skyscapers. but skyscrapers
are actually everywhere. almost all of them are old, ugly, and
huge, but somehow that's something typical for hongkong i guess.
 
next i took a walk along the waterfront[016-046], where one
really has an awesome view on the skyline of hongkong. during
the day i always went to shopping malls from time to time to
enjoy the cool air inside, since outside it's really hot.
though there's always strong wind it still is hot. inside the
"harbour city"[022] mall there were all kind of luxury stores
again. second time i got strange looks today.
 
some special things (amongst the really fabulous view on the
other islands) along the waterfront are the old clocktower[049]
(unfortunately not open to public), stuff at or in the "HK
cultural centre"[047-089], and the "Avenue of stars"[090-120],
where all kind of chinese movie-stars have their names and some-
times their hand prints on the ground, just as in los angeles.
notice the construction site using bamboo for building scaf-
folds[115-117,126].
 
 
next i came by the HK polytechnic university[130-137], a very
huge campus with loads of buidings and loads of students. a to-
tally busy and crowded place.
 
on my search for a temple i had to leave the usual tourist
roads, and thus ended up in areas where i was the only non-
asian person there. still i felt totally safe. was nice seeing a
little bit of the non official hongkong. the buildings got even
more decayed, the pavements got narrower. that was the third time
i got strange looks today. the temple itself was quite strange
(compared to the ones i know from japan) and taking pictures was
not allowed. too sad, as it was quite a nice one (though very
compact, as it was only one room.
last stop for today was "whampoa plaza"[149-157], which actually
is located in the area called "hunghom". "whampoa plaza" is a
shopping mall that is built inside a ship. so within narrow
streets, ugly skyscrapers stands a ship, far away from the
water. pretty weird, but nice shops inside. chinese people seem
to share a lot of stuff they like with japanese people, like the
moomins, hello kitty, relakkuma, doraemon, and loads of other
stuff i know from japan.
in a bookstore i found another book of "chi's sweet home" from
which i bought one book in japan, one in america (in an japanese
bookstore), and this one here in hongkong (though i think it's
translated and not original japanese anymore. not sure though).
some more trips and i have them all.
 
there are ads all over the city that say something about a
"dress special day", which will be held on the 30th of septem-
ber. too bad i don't have special clothes. i wonder what this
day will look like...
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hongkong, day 01
HK. no, this time not "hello kitty", but rather hong kong, the
first day. long journey to get here. linz to munich, munich to
hongkong. all in all an 16 hour trip with about 13 hours of
flight. unfortunately no free wifi on the airports in linz nor
munich. the legroom on the plane from munich to hongkong was
suprisingly ok, still i did not get a lot of sleep. instead i
watched movies like "star trek XI", "angels and demons", "night
at the museum: battle of the smithsonian", and "monsters vs.
aliens". the rest of the flight i spent eating, drinking, or
sleeping. at the airport people were very friendly and nice. i
got my "octopuss card" which is an convenient way of getting
around. you charge the card with a certain amount and then
don't have to worry about coins, but just hold the octopuss card
to some card reader, and you're done. recharging can be done at
any station or grocery store (at least the lady who sold it to
me said so).
hongkong (so far) is so totally different from tokyo. here i
really get the impression that it's a mega-city. narrow streets
and all of them are totally crowded - there are people every-
where. but that's only my first impression so far, since my
hotel is located in one of the busiest districts in hongkong,
namely "tsim sha tsui". the hotel itself actually is also
quite... let's call it unique. i'd suggest you read the wiki-
pedia site for the building to get an impression.
now i'm tired and having headache. but i try to stay awake a
few more hours to get back into the normal day-night-cycle.
tap water has chlorine smell, still i will take a shower now and
then go to bed.
 
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ars electronica festival, day 03
a performance at the brucknerhaus by prix ars winner lawrence
malstaf was my first thing to see on day 03 he and two girls
get vacuum packed between layers of transparent PVC. the result
is quite strange and fascinating at the same time. people hang-
ing and being forced into a certain pose.
 
next attraction of the day was the presentation of the creatures
for the klangwolke to the public on the main square. loads of
animals, loads of people, and as usually loads of press and me-
dia people there. yet a very nice spectacle, since all the peo-
ple of linz seemed to be involved by this huge project. really
nice to see the creators of the animals make their puppets move
and behave almost as the real animals would do. there were the
snails crossing a big street with heavy traffic at a very slow
speed, whereas leopards are running around quite fast making
huge leaps, scaring off children.
 
once all the animals were spread all over the town i went to the
university of arts again to take a closer look at the exhibits
again. a girl was really giving a great performance at the head-
banger-hero game. was great fun watching. also i examined the MIT
stuff a little closer.
 
next stop was the lentos museum that has a newly opened exhibi-
tion called "see this sound". very weird stuff (actually too
weird for me sometimes) in there. will have to go there again
one day because they closed the museum and i could not manage to
see all the stuff in there. funny thing: all museums were for
free with the festival-pass, even the hoehenrausch exhibition in
the OK which usually costs around seven euros even with the
insider-ticket for linz09). but not this exhibition. it would
have cost four euros with the festival-pass, but it's for free
with the linz09 insider ticket. pretty confusing pricing poli-
cies they have.
 
finally, at 21:00 the klangwolke started and all the animals had
their big appearance. unfortunately i did not have the best point
of view so i was mainly listening to the music and watching the
fireworks. nonetheless a magnificent spectacle and a great idea
to involve the citizens that much with the creatures.
 
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ars electronica festival, day 02
day 02 of the ars electronica festival started at at the AEC for
me, since hiroshi ishiguro was at the museum. a good chance to
see the gemini roboter and the creator at the same time. the ro-
boter is quite scary and creepy actually, but also very fasci-
nating at the same time.
 
on the main square was a huge sphere showing all kind of japa-
nese games. i decided to go there and take a look at the games.
this exhibition actually was a little disappointing since i was
expecting top-notch games or would be able to get a glimpse on
new technologies, trends, or developments. but this was not the
case. all games one could try out there were current games that
you could buy at any electronic market nowadays. but at least
there were quite a lot of japanese people there, among them a
tv-crew that interviewed people there (strange enough the inter-
views were in german).
 
afterwards i was heading to the brucknerhaus again to take a
closer look at the exhibits there since i was quite in a rush on
the first day and only had a quick glimps on them. nice thing
about the brucknerhaus was that they had a free wireless network
there too (as almost every location of the ars electronica
festival.
 
since the ars electronica gala was about to start at 18:30 i was
staying at the brucknerhaus, met some old friends and had a few
coffees. thanks to michele i had a ticket for the gala. the gala
was like every year (i guess), but one gets a good overview of
all the submissions, nominations, and winners. afterwards an
excellent buffet and free drinks. nomnom and kampai!
 
when i left the brucknerhaus heading back to the AEC quarter the
fassadenfestival already started. artists had the opportunity to
take over the front of the AEC building. the FM4 radio crew had
already started with their performance called "FM4 signs & si-
gnals". the sound came from the speakers used for the klangwolke
that were placed at the riverbanks of the danube. excellent
sound and nice visuals - finally the LED-front of the AEC was
used properly.
 
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ars electronica festival, day 01
yow, again it's the time of the year where linz gets flooded
with all kind of more or less weird people - artists, that is -
as it's ars electronica festival time again. i started day 01 in
the brucknerhaus to fetch my festival pass. there were already
a lot of artists with their projects and exhibits. besides urine
treatment to make it drinkable water again, strange fossil crea-
tures, and a shoe made of flesh and skin there was loads of oth-
er weird and awesome stuff.
next stop was the opening of the exhibition on the second floor
of the ars electronica center with a focus on japanese artists.
again loads of strange and fascinating stuff and a lot of media
and press people. since it was quite crowded in there i decided
to go on to the AEC quarter, which is located outside on the
huge concrete area next to the AEC.
 
next i rushed to the opening at the kunstuniversitaet. they had
an area with works from the MIT lab and another area with works
from local artists. the opening itself was like a baroque ball
with people with masks and beautiful dresses and suits. unfortu-
nately most of the MIT stuff was behind glass-cubes and not
interactive at all. too sad, too bad. funny things one could see
there was a headbanger-hero and a hello-kitty game.
 
on the third and fourth floor (but actually not allowed for the
public, but i sneaked in) of the kunstuniversitaet were the self-
made animals for the klangwolke ("die flut") which will take
place in a few days. rooms full with boars, snails, sharks, leo-
pards, lions, gorillas, crows, unicorns... no wait, no unicorns,
but dinosaurs were up there. very impressive what people made
there (they were already working on those animals since may).
 
next opening took place at the OK. to get there it usually takes
about five minutes by bike. but it starting raining cats (meow)
and dogs just when i got out of the art university. so this tour
took me a little longer and i was totally wet. i got soaked to
the skin. but the shower was worth it - another bunch of awesome
exhibits on the reopened first floor of the OK. most impressive
stuff to me was a plotter that was (ab)used to write the bible
with a calligraphic pen. it took the machine four lines to draw
a simple "a", for example. another nice thing to watch was the
"nemo observatorium", a transparent PVC cylinder with styrofoam
beads in it that get blown around and form random patterns in-
side the cylinder.
 
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