Day 19 | Happy Birthday To You

"Happy Birthday Rui Xian!"

Today was a memorable day with food, drinks and cake as we celebrated one of the field school participants, Rui Xian’s birthday. We all sang “happy birthday to you” in three languages ~ English, Mandarin and Bahasa Melayu. Wonderful to have such a varied group of architecture students from three different countries working together to learn and experience the rich cultural heritage of Kauman.

Apart from the birthday celebration, we continued our work as usual in the pengulon and pinned our final draft measured drawings for final checking.

"Every single red ink mark (read correction) on the drawings will cost you ten dollars!" – Nikhil Joshi (Coordinator of our field school)

The above words were resonating inside our heads, and all participants were working hard to complete our respective drawings. Some of us did not find time even to have lunch! To keep up the energy level of participants, Nikhil, supplied us with crisps, Milo drinks and bread as we all worked hard in Pengulon. We all enjoyed our work with food and snacks although the atmosphere of "nervousness" to complete the drawings before the deadline was still in the air. After snacks and food, everyone got back to work as we would have our last drawings crit later in the evening. For most of us, even after the crit, it was a sleepless night as we were busy preparing for the most interesting field school exhibition on Aug 1. Wishing all the good luck in the world to my fellow participants!