Day 5 – Downtown and No Bus!?

I worked on my 3D Project the first part of class, but after dinner in NSCC we went on a school trip to downtown and into some kind of marketplace.

On ground level people mostly sold foods or typical ugly glass jewelry and such, we knew we could go down for more, but as it suggested there just would be more foods and jewelry down there we decided to go out of the marketplace and take a walk around the place.

When we came back and down to the second floor of the building/place we got us a surprise as it was filled with small shops that hold great treasures! We entered what ranged from a candy shop and a magic tricks store right to a shop that sells original old posters and magazines. But we still had the greatest place of all left, a comic-book store which sold figures, comics, books, clothing and even weird candy (like candy which tasted like bacon, it tasted disgusting and gave a weird feel of having a sudden field of smoke in your mouth, but it actually had a taste of bacon which was most frightening).

One of the most mysterious items for sale in that store was:

Green Lantern Promo Ring

Green Lantern Promo Ring (30 dollars, I found a site where they sell this for 15 dollars!)

 

 

The ring glows in the dark. It looks like typical china quality,

Green Lantern Ring

Green Lantern Ring (15 dollars)

but it cost twice as much as the ring on the right which was on the same shelf.

 

 

Green Lantern Colour Rings.

Green Lantern All Rings Set (20 dollars or so)

 

But buying that would also look stupid as you could also buy (on the same shelf) all the different rings (and the green one looked identical in the set version) for only a few more bucks (20 dollars or so)

I really wanted to buy the Promo one just because I could, but I decided to buy something a little more useful (yet not).

Dynamic Anatomy by Burne Hogarth
Dynamic Anatomy by Burne Hogarth (26 dollars)

I don’t know how useful it will be for me, but I must admit that it is probably not very useful right now, I believe I bought it for a more symbolic purpose. I’ve wanted to start drawing for quite some time and I’ve always read and heard from artists that learning to draw anatomicaly correct first is essential to becoming a good artist and to create good art. The book will also help me in the 3D aspect as I’ve also been teached to make the flow follow the muscles for the best result. I’ve taken a look in the book and it’s contents ranges all from head to toe and it all in different poses so I can see and understand how the muscles work and react.

 
I bought it for 26 dollars which is the full price so it wasn’t any great purchase in that aspect.
 
What I’ve planned for the future is to learn to draw and try to get admitted into the Animation Workshop (http://www.animwork.dk/en/) on the Computer Graphics Artist Programme, which requires a big portfolio of different drawings, right now I have no chance of getting in with my drawing skills, but as it also requires what equals to a to a high school diploma /A-levels (in Danish: STX, HTX, HH, HF). I’ll be taking a HF which takes two years and I’ll hopefully have enough time to improve to an acceptable level.
 
Afterwards we had a little time on our hands before having to meet up with the rest and ended up watching an amazing magician, I wish I had a picture to post, I know that Martin got a few shots of him, gotta get those pictures at some point and post it here! But I’ll try to describe him; imagine a man in a chair with glasses on and on the glasses the typical duct tape (or gaffer tape). Now take a spongebob pillowcase and make holes for arms and head and put it on him, that is what I saw!
 
But when he began to do his magic tricks I saw a great magician! He asked us to leave some money, everyone gave some, except me, man I am a devil.
 
When we got back to NSCC Troels, Martin, Magnus and I decided to go to a mall and eat before taking the bus home so we rode a bus to the terminal where a mall was and entered the mall. When you enter such a mall you will see an open area with a lot of chairs and tables and a lot of food vendors, so we are all able to buy from each our own place and still eat together! It ranged from Chinese, Japanese, Thai and all the way to Italien and American.
 
Martin and I tried out the Japanese goods while Magnus took on the Chinese and Troels the Italiens.
 
Martin and I’s meals were perfect and tasted really great!
 
Magnus got a fortune cookie without a fortune with his meal, I guess he has no future.
 
Troels ended up buying a pizza a few sizes bigger than he expected and so was the price. He shared it with us and I took a slice, we agreed on it tasting nothing like a real pizza and trew half a pizza out right after what looked like a homeless had made contact with us with a greeting, he probably went head first into the garbbage can.
 
When we were getting ready to leave I turned my back to them a few seconds to trow out my drink and ended up losing them, weird enough my reaction was to calmly walk out of the mall and down to the bus terminal and wait for the next bus home to arrive.
 
They came to the terminal at the same time as bus 41 came which was one of the busses that I could ride homewards, I had to make a choice, wait for Troels and miss the bus so I had to wait for the 75 or take the 41 by myself!
 
I’m a good friend so I waited of course on Troels or rather; I’m a coward and would obviously have ended up lost on the road without him so I chose the safer route.
 
We got on the 75 after a long wait and we got off at the right spot! Troels checked the bus plan to see when the 214 would come and it turned out the last one had already driven by, we knew the way home and could just take a long walk, but Troels got the great idea to take a risk instead, that is to take the next 330 which we weren’t one-hundred percent sure lead all the way home, but we could always get off if it turned away and walk back and afterwards walk the rest of the way.
 
Now we though the bus would arrive after twenty minutes of waiting, but when we checked the plan again we realized it was the morning plan Troels had looked at and there were no more busses! So we had wasted ages on waiting for the bus that never was! So it ended up with a long walk home in the cold. But we/I actually enjoyed it, we joked along the way and it didn’t feel cold at all as we walked, the only negativity was that our feet hurt because we had walked around all day.

Day 6 - Visit to Monolith Development and Dinner with our Hostess at Kidd Valley

 Monolith Development is the creators of a collection of my favorite games and games I’ve played: Blood 1+2, Gruntz, Aliens vs. Predator 2 (they only made the second), No One Lives Forever and F.E.A.R. 1+2.

As soon as we got inside and up on second floor we went to play-test one of their titles, sadly I can’t say anything about the game, I can’t even say if I liked it or not, but I can say that I have no interest in buying any future titles of Monolith.

We also got a little tour around the place, Monolith is owned under Warner Bros. Games which also owns a few more studios so the place was really big! We saw all from concept art to yet a few glimpse of yet another title. There were a room or section we didn’t have permission to see which hold yet another title which they wanted to hold secret.

I was pretty sad to see posters, pictures and front-covers of magazines with Blood, Aliens vs. Predator 2, No One Lives Forever and F.E.A.R., but not a single mention of Gruntz! Yet I would reeeaaally like the Blood stuff.

When we got back to the NSCC we came right when the dinner was at the end and the only foods for sale at the NSCC canteen were noodles, bakery and chips, Magnus and I ate some noodles, but we were pretty pissed as before we went to Monolith we got told we were going to eat dinner when we got back to the NSCC, but no one told us we were going to eat what everyone left behind!

Our host family took us out to eat at Kidd Valley which is all about being an adult which still feels like a kid. The food was great and Marysol paid, we also went to a Bowling place, lucky for me the place was filled up, even though there were fifty lanes! And the waiting time was forty five minutes!

We ended up going to a store to rent movies from RedBox which let’s you rent a movie for one dollar a day, you can return it at any Red Box in the whole country! You can also rent games for consoles there for two dollars a day. Troels ended up getting himself some Chocolate donuts, I’ll be hijacking those tonight while he sleeps in.

A Thanks to the Host Family

I would like to thank the host family to be as open as they are, as we can eat when we want and what we want (which also can be a bad thing since I have no idea what it is I am eating at times) and they are servicing us all the time, with all from driving us around to making breakfast, they are really kind and social compared to their dogs.

The dog Lulu always barfs and at times marks it’s territory indoor, Vincent says that the reason for that is because the owners of house had dogs too. We already have first-hand experience with it’s excrements as it took a dump on the sixth day, right in the one room where we sleep in. We got a hunch that it was aimed at us and it wants us to leave the house, BUT NOW THE WAR IS ON! And We’ll be peeing and shitting everywhere, our first target is it’s bowl!

I’ve not been very social with them myself and I don’t like speaking English, it’s hard for me to bring the whole sentences in my head to life, I always end up spewhing out a few words in a confused state. If my host-family at some point ends up reading this they’ll probably be surprised by my English skill level and begin to ask me to speak up more often.

 

 

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