Day 43- July 7th: It's time to go home: When .....

last pic: cave confession room in another corner cave

you start running into people you know on the street or/and when you know the city's mass transit system better than the locals!!!!

Today is my last day in Budapest before leaving for Bratislava, Prague and Vienna. I am excited and sad but I still have a few things I wanted to do before wrapping up my time here. Andreas and I went to an upscale outlet store (just one store) in the middle of nowhere and the prices are still very expensive and no small sizes so I didn't buy anything.

We than went to Gellert hills and it was more like a mountain..... high and a very hard to climb up. It was a lot of hard work but the pay off is just beautiful and the best views of the city is here even better than the palace. I really loved it and there is also an old military base the Russians and other militaries had used since the 1500's. The beautiful statue of liberty (of course its the Hungarian version) holding a giant feather is also on top.

We than visited the cave church because he haven't seen it and it was my second time but for me it was as much fun as the first time. We rushed back to the Pest side and went to the Central market and I got some food items to take home after I am finished with my travels. We rushed back to meet Beata for a short meeting before going to our goodbye dinner! It was delicious and the storm decented on us and once again I had to run back to the hotel....

My Hungarian friends also wanted to see me before I leave and once again we ran over to the meeting place and ran ran ran all night.. ..I hope there will be less running tomorrow and I am a bit scared of going to Bratislava.... the movie Hostel really scared me.

not sure if I will have time or the opportunity to write when traveling but will try...

Break For Art and maybe for Vienna too...

New art work by Benjamin Page: Art opening Aug 2ed, Budapest, Hungary.
additional photos and art work detail can be found on my flickr site.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/25548816@N07/


Dialog of a Modern Landscape


Stately classical buildings in the city, and beautiful historical houses in the country--Hungary is rich in architectural history and styles. The city does lack good cutting-edge modern architecture; and in villages outside of Budapest, modernism doesn't even seem to exist. This work sparks a dialog between geometries, and brings basic conceptual modern architecture elements like folding planes, translucency, and colors, inserting them into any Hungarian landscape.
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The Dolls of Hungary

Where does the water of the Danube came from? Where do the once beloved dolls of Hungarian children go after they have fallen out of favor? This piece provides a dramatized answer and interpretation for these questions. The disregarded dolls of Hungarian children rise from the garbage bins and forgotten toy boxes, and transform themselves into the romantic water of the Danube, thus becoming part of Budapest's organic landscape.

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Baby-kebabs; Deliciously, yummie!!!


In Hungary, puppetry is an important culture identity, and dolls are staples of people's daily lives. Some dolls are elaborately decorated and child-like in every way. They are collected by and played with by people around the world. This art piece is a attempt to dissimulate our feeling of seeing dolls as child-like, and disconnect our emotional attachments with lifeless dolls. The energy and attention is then shifted to the "real" and deprived children of under-privileged countries.

Day 9- May 26: The real Fleas of The Flea Market

I am getting a little uneasy about finding the right material for my art work so today, I must go to the flea market. It was a 30 mins bus ride away from downtown Budapest. The bus was pretty easy to find and the ride there was interesting. This is the real Hungary that must tourist won't see. It's mostly poor and a little it rundown; factories, big box stores, residential buildings and abandoned structures lined the Highway.

It was about 1130am when I arrived there and according to their business hours they are open from 7am-4pm weekdays and weekend with shorter hours. A completely surprised : the place is 90 percent closed with only a few shops opened and even fewer shoppers. I later was told y a shopkeeper that people come early in the morning it was almost a completely wast of time but I did manage to find some bizarre dolls in a basket from a vendor, they are made of rubber, soiled, missing body parts and dusty to the touch.

She wanted a lot of money for such garbage did purchased the dolls after a it bargaining. The final price is 3800Forints about 24 dollars- a complete rip off but only she knew I would have paid even more due to my desperation for the dolls for my art work. The dolls would of cost no more than 5 dollars in most thrift stores in LA. I also got a mink stow for the frame of my art work for 15 USD which is very reasonable. I will have to to back to the flea market this Saturday to search for other materials and hope this time I won't get rip off.

The afternoon was filled with running around to the art stores, the mall and walking around the city and had a very nice dinner alone.