Bryan Wong

flying off again to another destination most wanted, which is Turkey. This trip should be a really good one , i hope, as i have never been there before..

If you guys are wondering the absence of pictures for my previous entries to greece and spain, its because as it is a working trip and also the programme is yet to be out, i can only express my own opinions and perhaps a brief diary of my encounters as that seemed to be the only “property” that belongs to me.However, somewhere in september or so, there will be a website that specially caters to this programme whereby i will write in detail, with pictures, of the destinations that i have been to for this programme. So, lets wait and see huh…

In the meantime, take care and be well and lets see if i could do my day to day updates while i am in turkey. The weather over there seems to be on the cold side though..that makes it cold turkey?…………

Date: 01042008 Time 2130hrs weather: 28 degrees i wanted so very much to be able to complete my blog of my trip to China but unfortunately, time is not on my side as i am now already at the airport, departing at 2310, embarking on a 15hr journey to Athens….

As you might know by now, i am starting the very first leg of a new programme that i am doing entittled “Destinations Most Wanted”. I am hosting solo and will have to visit 39 different destinations, which would span over a period of say six months …Actually, very much happy about doing this programme as i have always wanted to see the world..not being able to be an air steward seemed rather bleak when i passed the cut- off age but now..hmmm… i get to fly ! may be, wats lacking would be the chance to do the demonstration drill of putting on the life jacket and asking coffee tea or….hmm.

Will be away for two weeks,back for five days and then flying off to turkey..and off to japan two days after getting back from turkey and many many more to come.. For once, i envy myself! kicked and slapped myself for quite a while just to believe that i am actually doing this!

Thus, it might be quite a while before i get to finish my China entry, much less to say about Athens … Bear with me and wait for me… i will try so very hard to make it happen!

Sometimes..

think of me.

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Date: 02-04-2008 Time 0715hrs weather: 12degrees

Hi Hi again! After a 12 hour long flight i am now in Istanbul airport, in transit, awaiting the 0805 flight to athens. This is the very first time me fly with Turkish air and it was good! Aircraft was a Airbus 340 and was really comfy and food was good!!!Upon arrival, it was still dark so i can’t really see anything but its okay because two weeks later me will be back here for filming. It is really good to reunite with my favourite Cameraman Ah Thong and Soundman Ah Yap( aka Yau yau) for this trip! You guys must still remember ah Thong, the very first celebrity cameraman whom was constantly harassed by me on screen during the days of Channel U, when it was still…..hmmm. Anyway, the time difference should be about 6 hrs so today i would probably have a very very long day!! can’t wait to be in Athens, because i am so into Greek Mythology and can’t wait to see ancient ruins and blue skies white buildings blue doors wa wa wa!!!!!!!!! Am feeling rather delirious and a wee bit oozy!!!Am finally feeling that i am now catching on to the present world as here i am, sitting at the cafe in the airport and typing away on my mac..it just seemed so…hmm.. businesslike..so executive..ha! always wanted also to be a businessman jetsetting around the world, sending emails opn planes, airports,reading financial times…but, i guess, that’s hardly the route that i am taking but however, one could always pretend, isn’t! ha! me so happy now…Life is like a box of chocolates..just open it and eat it!! Till the next update, this is bryan, signing off, Turkey.Istanbul Airport.

Date: 02042008 time:1750hrs(hydra time) weather: 12′

Latest update.have arrived in Hydra after an hour and a half journey from port of Athens. This is paradise. Amazing view of mountains and crystal clear waters! Am now using my communicator tapping into wylan from a restaurant overlooking the bay.. Stacks of serene white buildings with blue doors dotted the hillside..almost all the shops are closed at this moment as this is still spring and slightly drislly now..can’t believe that just a while ago i was walking amongst ancient stones and now i am on an island that is totally out of this world… I am indeed lucky and how i wish i could bring all of these back with me!!! Gotta go now, my food is here! This is bryan, signing off from Hydra, Greece.

Date:05042008 Time:0900hrs(Hydra) Weather: 11 degrees

Been a couple of days since my last entry.reasons being well, not quite able to access to any hot spots, only to discover thyat we are able to use the computer at the little reception at the exquisite little hotel |Miranda… Was blessed with beautiful weather fot the past two days of filming. PPl here are wonderful, warm and extremely friendly, in fact, it is like a big family out here, where nobody is a stranger..In fact, yesterday evening, when we have wrapped filming at Hydra, we had a brief r&r and we walked towards the bay, hunting for a cozy place to eat, we bumped into many familiar faces who gtreeted us as though we have known each other for ages.It is indeed a world without strangers over here. This is paradise over here..for i have always wanted to be at one of the islands scattered within the agean sea.. my dear friends, i almost wept when i took in the sights of houses with whitewashed walls, blue windows, blue doors, walls littered witrh grey stones…i felt like i have fulfilled this void in me that has always been unfulfilled..life is good and life is beautiful..In a few hours time, we are leaving this island, making our way to |Athens, where we will spend the night and tomorrow, we shall conquer Madrid/sevilla, where the bulls and the metadors are waiting..

this is bryan, signing off from the unbelievable island of Hydra.Greece.

Date:05042008  Weather: wet 9 degrees

 It rained cats and dogs since we left the island and now, we are finally back in athens in hotel stanley.Went for din din and enjoyed using the metro and now trying to upload the china pics before i could do an entry on it. Gotta wake up early tomorrow but first, have to fully utilise the 200 ins of internet time that i purchased with 10 euros.So, signing off once again from hotel stanley,athens.Btw,this is bryan wong.

Date: 06042008 Time:1335hrs Weather 20degrees

Am now at the lounge of Madrid airport,awaiting the 1530 flight to Sevellia.The flight from athens to madrid was uneventful however, from check in at the athens to the opnflight services offered by Olympic airways left much to be desired.Ground staff at the airport seemed rather grumpy and not very helpful!Air crew on board the B737 were okay but for a three hour forty five min international flight you would expect them to walk down the aisle with water service at least more than once and not spending most of their time in the little kitchen area reading newspaper or having their friends/colleagues off work  also having a mini party at the same area exchanging current news.. Perhaps a wet towel would be good, at least before meals..amazingly, minutes after take off they rush into feeding you with little navy blue trays that has seen better trays. Amazed to see the breakfast tray reminiscent of those used by airlines some twenty years ago… Well, at least the leg room is rather generous..and well..that´s about the only credit they are getting.. Hope that the flight to Sevellia is gonna be good..keep fingers and toes crossed. this is bryan, signing off Madrid airport,Spain

And now, the end is near, and so we face, the final curtain.

My friends, I”ll say it clear, I’ll state my case, for which I’m certain..

That this, is indeed, the final episode of Home Decor three! For Sixteen weeks we have been cracking our brains, sweated and toiled over fifteen homes and as the chinese New year draws near and we are down to the very last episode, which is oriental chic. For this episode, we were happy to have terence and wive on board with us and it was all fun and pathos as we painted, sawed and drilled for the very last time. The last before looked like this:

what you see is the original state of a five room flat in Toh guan

As the area is rather huge, we decided to do a switch of position the tv as the traffic flow in the living room would be smoother.. and the somewhat plain built in cabinets to be redressed in red vinyl stick on.

we decided on a wall mural, a rather modern chic interpretation of an oriental dragon on the wall..

And also diy our very own screen to separate the dininf room and the living room..

And with the oriental pieces which we got from ” Just Anthony”, which uncle Lim was very kind to coat the two single chair in white, we created our Oriental chic home..

As always, we were very much happy with what we did and even though we lost, dear terence and wife was very gracious about us losing.

With the final scores of both team came to a draw, auspiously 8:8, we came to the end of the rather controversial season finale of Home Decor 3.

On this note, our team would very much like to thank everyone for their participation, support and encouragement throughout the lengthy sixteen weeks.

(more…)

This week, our second last episode, we are dealt with a tropical theme again..However, on second thoughts, not exactly tropical as some of the asian countries are blessed with winters… Generally, when we think of asia, we tend to think more of our close countries, if not then it would be like bangkok, hong kong, korea….somehow, we felt that India is really exotic and a fusion of China and India might just bring out the exotic nature of today’s theme. This week both teams got a four room corridor unit and they are just a block apart..My contestant is a really strong lady with a very good friend,who happened to be her neighbour as well.It touched me to know that the person who auditioned for this show was actually her eldest daughter, who passed away late last year.Putting her sorrow aside, this mother went ahead to participate in our show just to complete her daughter’s dream. This made us really wanting to put our best leg forward and if possible, to win this round.Not for glory, but to celebrate a mother’s love…

The original condition of the flat is pretty okay i guess, rather pale white walls and slightly cluttered.. lots of room for improvement..

Transformation began and eventually, it looked like this..

Thought that a drawing of this indian lady will add a touch of india to the tv sideboard i made..

Did a diy enhancement to the sliding doors to the kitchen by using a base board covered with wood slices trimmings which was varnished after mounted onto the board with glue.

Simply adored this rectangle dinning table in clean simple chinese design with great tuckshop like long benches. Matched with two intricate metal crafted chair from India. Just loved this combi!

The choice of furnitures and colours in this episode seemed to take everyone by surprise. We were very much pleased by the transformation and we marvel at the fact that we were able to change the colour of the wall in a mere 20 mins time frame.This taught us something, whenever there is a will, there is a way.

We were very much inspired by the two ladies Doris and hua jie..

Thank you for letting us learn….

For the very first time,we were given a topic which includes the word freestyle.Which is good as we can explore all possibilties but yet, scary too as we do not know its boundaries. But with the nod of approval from our contestant in view of our hip hop idea, we went crazy with Hip Hop freestyle!

Before we started with anything, we went over to their place and this is wat we saw

The place looked pretty raw i think..and the job scope seems pretty intense.However, since we have already lost 3 episodes, we thought why not just relax and have fun with wat we were doing and just enjoy the day!

Since we are doing hip hop style, how could we not have a wall graffiti? So we did this rather abstract three faced thingy on the wall and it came out looking like this..

Lee Teng came up with this fabulous idea of having a collage of hip hoppy prints on the wall and meticulously, he created this.

Methinks this is the best idea from him ever and having the ottoman and the lamp and the recycled exhaust pipe all tucked in one corner, it is definitely an alternative cosy corner.. We decided on a grunge looking dining area and boon transformed the plain white walls into this

First win of the year. We were happy with the eventual results of 2 versus 1 as we took a big risk doing something so radically different plus the fact that the judge who voted against us votes against our favour all the time when he is on.What really surprised us was that what we had accomplished within that short span of time!

To us, that ROCKS!

Tonight is the debut night of Folks Jump Over The Wall!!!

This is a project that i hold very close to my heart.For the past two months, i have been working non stop and almost filming this dramedy everyday.In fact, this project seems to have quite a couple of “First Times” for me.

This is the first time that Kym and I work on a drama

This is the first time that i work on a drama with boku films

This is the first time that i work with Henry heng

Marcus chin

Tanghu

Henry thia

and wenhai in a drama

This is the first time that i play the role of a nurse

This is the first time that my co-actors in majority is older than me..

We had so much fun while filming this project. Initially, i wondered if there would be a gap between us ..however, amazingly, we gelled pretty good.They are not as old as they looked and i am not as young as i thought..Our favourite pastime when in between filming would be talking about good old times and taking afternoon naps together, since there are quite a couple of beds hanging around.

I really hope that you guys have a great time watching this show as much as we enjoyed making it.

The team really put in alot of effort and very much dedicated to this project.

On this debut night, some of us are still filming episode ten ..Another 10 days to go before we wrap up the production.

This has been a wonderful adventure….