Temasek Design Show 2010

Venue: Temasek Convention Centre, Temasek Polytechnic

25 March (Thu), 6.30pm | Show Opening & Reception
26 March (Fri), 10am – 9pm
27 March (Sat), 10am – 5pm | Alumni Forum & Network Reception @ 2.30pm

Graduate works for 2010: http://www.go4imd.com/graduation10/

Ah, today’s brainstorming session for LG Secret was held at the second storey of Coffee Bean. So refreshing to be in somewhere other than the office =) Well, after lunching at the wanton shop, Sean and I dropped by next door at Feng Yu 丰裕 (Sin En’s favourite restaurant) to join the both of them. Even though we sat ourselves right beside them, they didn’t notice us until quite some time later. Sneaky :D

We took a bit of time to roam around Red Town some more and took some photos of the outdoor and indoor sculptures. The red brick car that Jolene stood beside was made of real bricks cemented together and not a form that was painted onto. They’ve a lot more interesting sculptures indoors too, like the cardboard (which wasn’t) box that stood so much taller than us actually.

The design bookstore that we love to visit,

and even more installations and galleries along that stretch.

Sean’s desktop at the moment.

Dinner at 丰裕 after we knocked off, the beef in oyster sauce and rice I ordered was only soso; it made my urge to want to eat at the wanton shop even stronger!

Sin En’s agenda for the evening was to visit a bookstore at Times Square, and we joined her, planning to take a bus down at first but soon we realized that particular bus was only in service after midnight…

Times Square 时代广场 felt exactly like Paragon, with the very high-end stores and brilliant window displays. The bookstore, rather small, was at the basement and sold mainly imported books in English. I took a walk around, and immediately noticed several books on Audrey Hepburn and an irritating couple hanky pankying at the sofa beside the bookshelves. Thus we all stood there, talked in English and made lots of noise on purpose 8D

On M群 today (M群 is a mass convo system on MSN that includes everytime everyone who’s been added in it, i.e. all the colleagues) someone posted a joke he/she found on the net about the Olympics. Especially the one on Japan! Omg, I LOL so hard when I read it: in Japanese terms 3p refers to threesome, as for the rest, go figure hehe. Peace~ XD

菲尔普斯夺得8金以后，各国对游泳比赛蛙泳、仰泳、蝶泳、自由泳×100、200、400、1500导致金牌过多感到非常不满，纷纷要求增加自己优势项目的金牌数目。

巴西提出： 足球应该分为3人、5人、7人、11人×沙滩、室内、草地。
中国提出： 乒乓球应该分为直板、横板、直板双打、直板单打、直板横板混双。
英国提出： 马术应该分成黑马马术、白马马术、红马马术、褐马马术、皇马马术、斑马马术。
肯尼亚提出： 长跑应该分为10000米、11000米、12000米、13000米。。。
日本提出： 所有男女混合项目应该增加3p、4p、5p、6p、7p。。。群p。。。500p。
泰国提出： 除了男子和女子项目外，所有应该加上人妖组

[ Expenses ] :
9 rmb (yoghurt, macha milk, 鸡蛋饼), 7 rmb (beef wanton soup), 12 rmb (beef rice)

In order not to oversleep, I set 5 alarms on my handphone: 7.45, 7.50, 7.55, 8 and 8.05. It’s the day we’re starting our actual internship, which makes life pretty exciting, just for that day. Although we are not expected to wear formal clothing to work everyday, Sean and I decided that we should go to work looking really formal since most of the clothes we brought here are meant for that.

Sin Yew kindly offered to wait near our apartment and showed us the way to AKQA. We began walking at 8.50am and saw more of the neighbourhood through the residential areas, the bustling morning streets, across the roads weaving among dangerous vehicles (lol). It’s a long long walk under the hot weather, and we reached Red Town in about 15 minutes.

Based on my impression of the word “Red Town”, I had thought it to be a high-tech and happening kind of town in a very developed part of Shanghai. On entering the gates, past the security guard, is lovely place that I would also describe as an eye-opener. One noticeable feature and probably the reason for the name is the countless red bricks that made up most of the buildings’ walls.

Red Town, covering a relatively huge area, is dedicated to the Arts and is a new ‘world’ itself. Bars, cafes, design companies, art shops and such are located within the premises, with the most prominent being the Shanghai Sculpture Space.

Along the outdoor paths and a grassy area, we found a variety of sculptures, some in a series while others are a piece of art on their own. Sin Yew also walked us through the indoor sculpture space, where so many more sculptures created by a huge range of artists stand.

We’ve been to the very grand Grand Gateway, in the concentrated CBD, where Sam and Macson will go to work (wearing really formal clothes haha) everyday but so far if I’m not wrong, I haven’t been to anywhere like this. Red Town sends off an entirely different vibe; its quiet, modest and down-to-earth feel is reflected mostly in the architecture. Rather than solid concrete whitewashed walls, we found even more bricked walls as we further walked through the alleys and maze-like paths. I like the buildings because being not so modern, they somehow evoke a certain kind of feel, as though they’re from a different time altogether.

From now on, we’ll have to climb four storeys to reach our company, in addition to all the walking from the point we step out of our apartment.

Three of us were the first to arrive, Sean and I got our company pass from the receptionist, a young lady. Afterwhich, we went upstairs to the office area and got our own workspace. The first thing I noticed was that hey, the company isn’t as big as I had imagined it to be, but more like twice or trice the size of our IMD studio. On this level, they’ve sections for the creative team, the media, projects management, accounts etc and downstairs, the meeting rooms, washrooms, reception area, refridgerator and more office cubicles. Sin Yew gave us our usernames and passwords for the individual accounts to use on our computers. I’m surprised they use PCs not Macs; I was 101% sure (and mentally prepared) that they’ll be using the latter.. but I feel good, being able to still use PC :)

We had a brief introduction with our boss; a lean bespectacled designerish man who looked and sounded like a Taiwanese with a heavy American slang. And he talked way too fast, whether in English or Mandarin, all the time. Soon, other colleagues began coming in, then at a corner of the office they held a short meeting they call the WIP, held every Monday morning, to update everyone on the progress and updates for each project. I tried matching their names to their positions, but failed terribly after the informal meeting when everyone went back to their seats =.= Oh, if you are wondering, they speak Mandarin during the meeting.

We then got our first task – to design a new Olympics-related screensaver for LG. Not to say that we were fully assigned the project, but just so to have another concept to present to the client. I wondered and wondered about how our lunch break was going to be like: an hour of freetime? half an hour? Then the answer finally came! We were handed a sheet of paper, on which was printed the menu of Kuai Ke Lunchboxes (快客便当) with a variety to choose from. I ordered a beef tendon rice lunchbox that only cost 15 rmb while Sean got his fish fillet rice lunchbox. The serving was so huge, but I ate most of it anyway.

For some time, Sean had been observing this colleague Ryan whom he claims looks like Jay Chou, so he’s keen in ‘making friends with him’. (LOL don’t be disappointed, you imd guys) Towards the end of the day, Ryan came over and asked for our msn contacts. I remember in a conversation that night, he asked us in Mandarin, “How come you guys didn’t go on msn at all?” Well, how should we know? It’s the first day of work ;)

Our official working hours are from 9.30-6pm, and were too happy to knock off exactly at 6. Tired and hungry, we cabbed down to Raffles City in search of GOOD FOOD. The basement was similar to Plaza Sing’s, with lots of food stalls and restaurants, especially packed during the peak hour period. We went upstairs to find a food court and settled for teppanyaki. The entire meal tasted so salty, just like how we were forewarned about how the Chinese add alot more salt and seasoning to the food they cook, but tasty nevertheless.

On closer examination of the serviette, it says ‘Food Republic’! Kinda cool.

All that salt was making my mouth dry, and before that I already planned to get dessert after the meal. There was a stall selling crepes downstairs, since I haven’t tried one before I made Sean try too lol. The crepe, on the other hand, tasted like tasteless flattened dough with icecream and whipped cream for its filling. It sure tasted like crap, but for some reason I kept on chewing at it, maybe I found it addictive like gum or something.

Our first day working in a foreign country, kinda rocked =) Though there’s still a long way to go.

[ Expenses ] :
59 yuan (teppanyaki), 15 yuan (lunch), 18 yuan (crepes), 23 yuan (cab) = 96 yuan