Working through the Weekend

The Facade of IFL Building E including the area that we're making a detail model of

So this weekend wasn't too exciting because we had to work on Saturday and Sunday to make up for the long weekend we took when we went to Siem Reap last week. I was working on the south elevations of the VM house but am waiting for the plans to finish them. We've also started work on a small detailed section model of the IFL (Institute for Foreign Languages) Building E. We're making it out of basswood and it's pretty challenging to cut everything by hand (oh laser cutter how I miss thee!) and I had to remake a piece like 4 times. It's good for my craft skills and nice to be able to concentrate on producing a well-crafted model without feeling a lot of pressure to finish like I did back in studio at school.


Another shot of IFL Building E with the pond to collect runoff rainwater and to help keep the area cooler

On Saturday Nancy and I went with Sokly to two of his friends' birthday parties. While waiting for him to get ready at his house, his mom showed us the photo album from Sokly's sister's wedding. It was really thick and kind of funny to look at all the pictures of the bride and groom in at least 5 different outfits. The groom never smiled in any of the pictures, but the bride always did. There were also pictures of some kind of ritual involving passing fruit between the two families. Another popular memento seemed to be portraits of the bride and groom in prom-like poses in front of various backgrounds including in front of a Little Mermaid-esque underwater castle, in an ideal home complete with a portrait of another of their wedding pictures on the shelf with a portrait of the bride in the background of that portrait, and in many of the shots the happy couple was standing on a 101 Dalmatians rug. The wedding was right when the grad students arrived earlier in July so they had the chance to experience that cultural extravaganza complete with Cambodian party dancing.

I also met Sokly's little nephew who is adorable and about 2 years old, I think. He was studying Chinese for his Chinese school, which is apparently very popular for the large population of Chinese living in Phnom Penh. We even drove through the area of town where the Chinese live (a kind of China Town) complete with a Chinese temple. I'm not sure, but it seems like there is some tension between the ethnic Chinese and Khmer but it isn't really something that is talked about much. The Chinese were apparently harshly oppressed under the Khmer Rouge and Vietnamese rule. According to Wikipedia, Chinese New Year was only celebrated again for the first time in 1991 since before the Khmer Rouge in 1975.

Last night after work in the office, Lekina and her brother took Nancy and I to a "Suki Soup" place. Suki Soup is basically the Cambodian version of Hot Pot and derives apparently from the Japanese "sukiyaki". The place we went to was called City Suki Soup and it was really really delicious. Unlike traditional sukiyaki, a common suki soup ingredient are various types of meatballs with fish, shellfish, chicken, and combination. They even had a special type called "millionaire balls" with mushroom, shrimp, and either chicken or fish. They also cook the beef slices by placing them in a ladle with holes in it and letting it boil in the water. I guess it's to stop the meat from getting lost and over cooked in the hot pot. Hopefully we'll get to go there again because it was a really nice place and the whole meal was only $22 to feed 4 people a huge and filling meal!