Heh, heh we went to a few places for this episode including the airport because Arrch was going back to Australia. Nonetheless, the activities brought as to another country and universe without even a passport! Hur, hur.
Co-starring: Avariel, Joelyn Alexandra, Mintea and Raven Silvers. Obviously guest starring Arrch!
Ok, so technically Royal Selangor is at River Valley near Clarke Quay. You didn’t have to go to Malaysia for it. We were going for the School of Hard Knocks as we wanted to send Arrch off with a bang! I know, we’re punny, I know. For those interested in it, they’re open to walk-ins. If you have a large group of friends though, best you email them or call them up to inform them just in case. They have a LARGE work room though so it shouldn’t be a problem.
Anywho, we sent Raven off on a mission the day before to get us some pamphlets at the museum. You know those tourist guides around Singapore? Some of them have discount coupons for various activities. For this one you got $2 off the price for the School of Hard Knocks. The actual price was $30 (at the time of this post anywho) and so woooh, we got to pay $28.
For a fancy place like Royal Selangor, yes, it’s pretty cheap!
Heh, heh. The school is actually a short workshop where you get to make your own pewter bowl from scratch. Well not from TOTAL scratch, you’d have to go mining and all to make the metal. Instead, you get to do it from the basics with a flat circular disc!
Before you can start however, you need to wear an apron.
We didn’t know how to wear aprons.
IT IS NOT THAT EASY, OK?
We’re not that lame not to know how to wear aprons. Apparently these aprons weren’t the usual type that you use for baking or for some of you who underwent secondary school here, Design and Technology class. It’s pretty cool how the strings go and then once you wear your aprons, you’re ready to go! Just… listen to the instructor on how to wear them. They’re not complex but it’s just not your typical baking apron.
They are however, somehow sexier than normal aprons.
I thought they were anyway.
The tools are all there provided for you including said apron. You don’t have to bring a hammer or anything like that from home if you have. The instructor for our session was a nice Chinese man and he showed us which was the front and back of the bowl to be.
No.
I have no idea why I knocked in my url on the INSIDE of the bowl. I was just, “OH YAY, we can write anything we want here!” before I realized, “Wait, why did I do this on the inside? OH WHATEVER. People can see it’s mine when they look in it!”. Also, I realized why there was no “9” stencil. You can rotate the 6 into a 9, duh.
And so we knocked and banged away according to the instructor. It was pretty easy. The average time to finish the workshop was around 30minutes. Longer if you’re hitting it slowly but ideally you should finish within 45 minutes or you might get too tired.
If you don’t like banging things away and loud noises, this isn’t for you.
You could pretend you’re Thor, Iron Man or pretty much any character that bangs away with metal with a hammer. I got mine all nice and bowl shaped! HURRAH. The instructor was all glee when he saw I could make mine nice and showed that these bowls can be used as a candle holder too since there was a display case behind us with examples of how the finished product is like.
Pewter bowl is dependent on you! Raven Silver’s one was… interesting. In any case, besides candle holders we figured it can be used like some Lady Gaga boob armour protector for just one side or something.
I finished knocking mine into shape and washing it first which was ideal so I could take pictures of the rest before they finished. You need to wash it in a circular sliding way as demonstrated by the instructor so that you can get those lines on the bowl and to make it shiny! If you do it, you’ll see what I mean by lines. Or if you have some pewter works or researching them, you’ll notice how their surfaces look!
So yay! With that done, we could keep our bowls (obviously), aprons and get a certificate! I knew that from Royal Selangor’s website but I didn’t know we’d get something else too! The instructor gave us a bag each to put a bowl and certificate in. There was one last item that was in the bag that was a cool souvenir. Hahah, check Mintea’s post to see the specific items since I won’t wanna spoil the surprise.
After all that, we even got a little drink of Sprite served in a handmade pewter cup! That was such a lovely service/gesture after all the knocking too. Royal Selangor staff are classy people.
We wandered around the gallery after paying for the workshop and oooh, I like this. Get me the banana. I like bananas. There were also miniature pewter works that would look good for ball jointed doll props! $18 per miniature though. It was very well crafted, I’d get it if I was into BJD photoshoots or something.
So yay! We completed it within an hour and then off we had a little pitstop to eat. Fast forward time, Arrch went off to get his baggage so he could go to the airport later on while the rest of us went to the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy exhibition at BLOODGROUP+ Space!
As per normal, we went in the wrong direction at first and then turned back to get on the right track! We didn’t know where the entrance to the second floor was so we asked the person on the first floor that apparently was a hair salon place. It looked really indie in a designerish way though.
Up the stairs we went. There was a side door through the gates to get upstairs apparently. To another universe!
The first thing we saw as we got in and turned to the right was this! It was a dimly lit room just so you know why the quality of the pictures are darker here. I didn’t want to up contrast since it’ll look too cheery then.
This one caught our eye too because it was similar to a theme we wrote about the future in a book coming up later in the year which yes, has dolphins and bikini babes inside it.
Besides art, they also sold a soundtrack to the theme of the exhibition and posters too!
Some of the exhibits there weren’t static and you could interact with them! This machine was interesting. You could roll the ball and click on things. It was like your retro arcade game but instead, it had digital art inside.
Some others could move or were LED lights and all that.
It wasn’t a small exhibition but it wasn’t terribly large that you’d get lost in it. It was just right as Goldilocks would say. You could focus on each piece as you leisurely walked around the room.
After looking around, just as we were about to leave, the people there asked if we wanted a free Kult magazine!
Of course we said yes! It’s about Aids or rather anti-Aids stuff campaigns on awareness and stuff since that was the theme for their magazine in this issue. We noticed that some of the artists in the book were the ones who also did some of the exhibits there so that’s cool! We could find out more about the specific artists by searching them up then.
To those wondering why it looked “quiet” is cause that we braved through the rain to get there. One reason why it was also darkish in the place, I guess.
For a full report on that exhibition, you can check it out here since TOYSREVIL were at the opening and all too. You get to see more of the artwork feature on that post!
I look fat in that third last picture. 🙁
we went to the h2g2 exhibit as well, a couple weeks ago. i’m pretty sure the only reason we made it to the hall on the first try was because the guy in charge ran into us as we were looking around completely lost on the street outside. 🙂