Friday, October 27, 2006
10 Aug: Last night in Venice...
Long before the trip, I've decided that I should at least get one nice memorabilia to remember the trip by. And I don't mean those cheap Leaning Tower paperweight or Colosseum fridge magnet. Not something expensive which I can never afford but at least something of quality.
And I decided on a papier-mâché mask. So I spent some time hunting around for a good one. There are a couple of well known shops in Venice selling these masks. There is even one who made the mask in Stanley Kubrick's 'Eyes Wide Shut' starring nut-job Cruise and his ex wife Nicole Kidman. But for every one of these kinda true-to-the-skool mask shops, there are about a thousand of those touristy ones which sells machine pressed ones. It is kinda hard to differentiate between hand made and machine made ones but if you stick to those shops that only sells the masks, you're prolly on the right track.
And I decided on a papier-mâché mask. So I spent some time hunting around for a good one. There are a couple of well known shops in Venice selling these masks. There is even one who made the mask in Stanley Kubrick's 'Eyes Wide Shut' starring nut-job Cruise and his ex wife Nicole Kidman. But for every one of these kinda true-to-the-skool mask shops, there are about a thousand of those touristy ones which sells machine pressed ones. It is kinda hard to differentiate between hand made and machine made ones but if you stick to those shops that only sells the masks, you're prolly on the right track.
Get the mask from shops like this? You tourist! It also sells 'Murano' glass, 'Burano' lace, cheap fridge magnets and stuff you might have missed in Rome, Florence, Siena, Pisa etc.
Beside the classic type of mask are the animal types and anything-goes type. Before the trip, I was hoping that they make a SogeKing mask from One Piece. But apparently they don't watch anime. The Water7 arc in One Piece is obviously referring to Venice: from the Aqua Laguna down to the mask.
There are the few basic ones, which are mostly characters from the theater. The most common one is the bauta which is the most basic. It is Casanova who done it proud by donning the mask and go sian all the ladies in Venice: da man. So, many of the bauta are displayed with a 3 point hat (Casanova's official hat) on top.
Then there is the nasone. I was informed (in broken English with lotsa Italian thrown in) that it is the theatrical symbol of a military man. I think Mr Karate (Takuma Sakazaki) wears this one. Ok I checked wiki and he actually wears a tengu mask.
And there is the medico which are worn by doctors. The medico mask's long nose (kinda like the horn bill's beak) are to be stuffed with spices to kill germs and remind the doctors that they should keep a distance from their patients to avoid infection. .
I am basically torn between these 3 types of mask as I only want to get classical ones. They are traditionally all white or black according to a law back then that decided that the individuality thing is over and everyone should wear uniform masks.
Eventually I decided on getting the most standard one of the 3, the bauta. Even though the classic one is the pure white one, I fancied the slightly off-white ones. The bauta mask in those traditional shops are surprisingly disappointing. So we scouted around until we saw this shop.
I found one to my liking but I found some cracks and imperfection to the paint and requested it to be repainted. The owners are a young couple and they told us to go back before 5 to collect it.
They are silly enough to let us leave without a deposit. Hello. You're dealing with Singaporeans here ok. We walked around and finally found this shop with the mask I wanted. To made the most of my buck, I
1. asked her to tell us stories about the mask
2. sign my mask
3. pose for a picture
4. bargain for a discount
Value for money!
About that couple who were repainted the mask and waiting for me to return? Well, forgot about them and get with the program already! I never could find my way back to that shop anyway. Neither could I find Punto Pizza. It is quite confusing in Venice. The map is not helpful too.
While getting lost in Venice, we saw this
This little doggie is obviously abandoned. It walks with an awkward limp and is wandering around aimlessly. As usual, Shuyi says that we should save it because if we don't it will definately die. I agreed with her about the dying part but I really cannot smuggle it home nor do I know where to deposit it. So I wished the little doggie the best of luck and dragged Shuyi out of there. The only indication of direction in Venice are little signs nailed to the corner of buildings. They basically point to 3 directions
- train station
- Rialto Bridge
- St Marks
We wanted to look for Punto Pizza for lunch again but failed to locate it. So we sat down in this restaurant and ordered Negro Spaghetti and parma ham + melon. The service was as usual, fucky. Parma ham + melon is an interesting combination we see in many menus throughout the trip, always selling at a premium price. The melon was exceptionally sweeeeet and the ham, porky. The spaghetti was pretty ok too. After lunch, we found Punto Pizza: right behind that restaurant we had lunch in. Oh well, at least it turned out fine.
We reached Rialto Bridge, also known as Ponte di Rialto. 'Ponte' means bridge as you might already have figured out from Ponte Vicchio in Florence. It is supposed to be quite iconic and shit. Anyway, on the bridge, we came across this lighthearted scene.
The mother keep complaining that she is not feeling well and ask his son to help her. Her son whipped out a toy medical kit and started listening to her with the stereoscope. Next he injected her with the toy syringe and gave her medicine. So cute.
For the past 2 days, we have been contemplating on the gondola ride. People say 'when in Rome...'. But this is Venice and it involves a 45 min ride that cost SGD160 bucks. But I remembering a guidebook's introduction on Venice mention that tourist there should have the mentality that they will be in Venice only once. Holding on to that thought, we went for it. There is no bargaining with those gondoliers. You can actually find 4 other tourist to form 6 a group to share the price of the ride. But 4's a crowd and 6's wayyy too much. If you're gonna do it once, well at least do it good right. It was getting pretty late and so we hopped on the nearest one we saw. Thats what you get from thinking too long. So here is our gondolier.
Quite yandao hor.He explain to us we can choose to either cruise the inner long kangs or the Grand Canal, the big long kang. Venice is basically in the shape of a fish with a huge meandering river through it, the Grand Canal. He heard us wrongly and started the ride in the small long kang.
The inner canals are pretty narrow and Mr Gondolier has to do all sorts of stunts to get by.
Then we saw this... A couple on a gondola with an opera singer and some other dude who plays music. That must have cost a bomb man.
I do not understand what the singer is singing but it sounded pretty darn good.
Here we are, entering into the Grand Canal. The front of the gondola is slanted to one side to counter the force of the gondolier rowing on one side. The gondola is quite a finely tuned boat with counterweights to account for the weight of the gondolier in front too.
Here is Shuyi expressing displease over the gondolier who is NOT singing.
But who can stay mad for long with a man with red/white stripe tee, gold watch and shades? Not Shuyi.
Apparently singing was too much to ask of him. But thats not all.
After a while, he whipped out a cig and started to smoke. Then his phone rang and he started talking on the phone AND smoking. So hiew lan, it hurts.
It was near evening so the weather is amazing and there are streaks of colors in the evening sky. Lovely.
We ended right at the mouth of the river and we saw Harry's Bar. This is THE original Harry's Bar and is known to be quite popular with the celebs. It is there that we saw (or at least I thought ) the bulky dude from the Matrix.
We wandered over to St Marks which is just around the corner and saw the Yakuza Man. Picture this. It is evening and starting to get a bit chilly. The restaurant in the Piazza is getting ready for the dinner crowd. This Japanese man with a crew cut is sitting alone at the table wearing a BATHROBE, round shades, wooden slippers and holding on to his ciggy and a paper fan. That is xialan personified. RESPECT. He give the i-dun-give-a-shit aura and is prepared to stab anyone who dares look at him. I'm sure his body is full of them yakuza tattoos.
We tried to take a picture of him but it is dark and I value my life so forgive the picture quality. If I've used flash, I wouldn't be here today. Notice the tables around him are empty. Chance? Don't think so. Look at that silhouette. That pose. Fierce.For the last dinner in Venice, we opted for something special. We ended up in a restaurant beside the Rialto and I found a duck dish which I was craving for. As Shuyi said that she was not feeling hungry I ordered a main dish (duck) and a side one, only to be told by the rude waiter that we must order 2 main dish at least. I try reasoning with him but he said 'we are a restaurant, not a eatery'. I closed the menu, held Shuyi's hand and stormed off. Fuckers. An American couple did the same thing before us when they were told that wine's lowest denomination there is by the bottle, not by the cup. Who the fuck drinks that much for dinner anyway?
We ended up in this touristy restaurant that has lots of melted candle all over the place and we ordered a set meal each. By then Shuyi hungry already. That turned out to be the WORST meal ever. The kopitiam near my house can provide a better meal than this. It is almost like they go all out to make the worst food they can imagine. But the lighting is lovely for a picture.
Tomorrow, we head to Milan!
Posted by weelian at 1:47 PM
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