Leipzig secret Museum of Graffiti

In the City of Leipzig in eastern Germany there used to be a large publishing/printing company. It has long since been abandoned, and the locals have turned it into a wonderful secret Museum of Graffiti/street art.

I found it entirely by accident, a large empty building caught my eye while riding a around on a bike.

The building itself is Is easy to miss, there are lots of trees and blocking it from the front and the back is connected to a construction site. If you look carefully though you can actually see some of the graffiti from the outside. If you want to visit it, it is located in Liepzig, Germany on the corner of Dresdener Strase and Salmonstrase.

Ill show some of my favourite pieces here,

From graffiti museum

From graffiti museum

From graffiti museum

From graffiti museum

You can find the rest on my picassa.

Also, if you want to see pictures of what it used to look like, you can find them here.
http://www.frankvoi.de/frank/historisches_interdruck.htm

P.S. Ice Cream and mean homeless man and Accordians on the street

I was walking around Düsseldorf feeling hot, sweaty a bit lonely when I see a sign that reads "Bier Ice cream 1€. I ordered, and to my surprise its really really good. It tastes like Kvass more then beer,but its quite good none the less. Its rather bitter sweet, and its carbonized so you get a little sparkly feeling. Its very refreshing and suprisingly good stuff. I definetly reccomend it if you find yourself in Düsseldorf in the summer.

I was looking for either the Central station in Dusseldorf, or a net cafe. I asked a man if he spoke english, and he gave me an accentless "Yes, I do". I asked him for directions, and he answered me again in accentless english

"I am very sorry, but I will not help you. Whenever I ask people they never help me out, so sorry for your poor luck, but I refuse to help you"

He proceeded to cross the street and dig for empty bottles in the trash.


Also there are lots of really good accordian musicians scattered around germany, here is one.

Düsseldorf and the Flight

After a two hour delay due to bad weather, I boarded the plane. I was lucky enough to sit next to the girl I had been talking to for 2 hours already; I didn't have to go through all the pleasentrie and introductions again. Talking and laughing and eating and very unclear maps made 6 hours go by pretty fast. I arrived in Dusseldorf around 10 in the morning, and after some coffee I bid farwell to Marcelline, and set out to explore the city. She had to catch another train to take cross country to her home.

I headed to city central. I wanted to go see the Rein river. When I got off the train I found myself quite tired and a bit lost, so I decided to have some snack before I continued. A nice looking greek cafe did the trick. I had Turkish Coffee and some large cheesy flaky pastry. They seemed to make a big deal out of the fact that they gave me water with my coffee, later i found out that they generally serve bottled water in germany, so you have to pay for it. Actually you have to pay for the bottle when you bu water or cola, and then sell it back. In the states basicly we do the same thing, but in Germany its a seperate charge, and sometimes bottles are rather expensive, as much as 50 cents.

Düsseldorf was a very impressive city, it was full of old style buildings, alleyways, parks, musuems and also a lot of rich people. There was a very sudden and noticeable class difference. If you weren´t dressed in designer clothing you were begging for money, or a german "punk" more on punks later.

Later I went to explore a bit around the Rein river. Mostly I just saw people enjoying cold drink looking out on the water trying to survive the heat. It was a good 100 degrees that day. I wandered around until I found an art musuem. It was a rather large and diverse collection of art. They had a room with some of Napolean's belongings and portriats as well as a photo project of different ethnicities and some art satirizing the Nazi party as well. I was the only person in the museum, so I was able to enjoy it all my own.

Then I spent the next hour or two trying to get to Köln.

Visiting Quebec

lso at the end of February, my friend Roman and I took a short trip to visit Quebec. Of course we visited the Quebec go club while there.

On the way up to quebec we very briefly stopped by a teahouse in Montreal. They happened to have a go set there, but it was a little strange...

The funny board

In Quebec we stayed with my friend Pascal Tremblay 5d (we were roommates in the IBA) His roommates were a girl that liked to smoke, and worked as a newspaper delivery person. And a guy who was much too sick, and loved music and beer. He was actually a very interesting person, he had little talent for the guitar or ukulele, or probably any other instrument for that matter, but still every night I was there late into the night he would play. He also had a little impromptu art studio in the living room, fully equipped with a tape deck. His CD player and DVD players didn't work. Most of his work consisted of manipulating found objects. Also he was an ice climber, and a history buff.

In the living room

After two days of much relaxing we went to to the university go club with Pascal. We met the members at a food court of a mall, and after eating we proceeded to the University. We ended up in the section of the school reserved for grade schoolers. The club room itself was the art room that the kids used. The tables were your regular school tables made of some indiscernible material coated with something similar to linoleum. We had two large bottles of soda and a bag of chips. The playing boards were of bamboo, and we used Chinese style stones to play. It was during the Olympics, so while we were playing go, the women were playing hockey on the computer screen. Through the windows, took up most of the wall, we could see a forest covered in snow, there was a surreal yellow-y light reflecting up out of the snow.

Well that was what the club looked like if you can imagine it from my description.


There were about 10 of us. I played a game with the Vice president, unfortunately I lost by 2 points or so. Roman had much better results. I think he won 3 of his games there. He seems to have improved a lot for no reason. Recently he came back from a 6 month travel around Europe, and for no discernible reason he grew from 11kyu to about 8 or 7 kyu.

Ice Wall

Photos Courtesy of Roman Kudryashov

Graduation at Myongj University

Myongji University.

MU is a school in Korea, it is unique in that it is the only school in the world that offers a Masters and a Bachelors degree in Baduk Studies (Go studies)

The Baduk department was started in 1997, and has provided many yonguseng (Korean Insei) an opportunity to get a college degree. (Generally yonguseng don't have a chance to study in high school, as they devote all of their time to Baduk. When it comes time to get into University it is difficult) Myongji's classes teach them "how" to teach. Also about how to teach abroad. For weaker players they offer theory and technique classes. Most of the students are quite strong though (7d) This school accepts players of all strengths 18 kyu- 9 dan Pro.

I was considering to go to this school before I found out about the IBA. I still would like to go, but I have to learn Korean better. We came late to my friends graduation (she almost missed it) but it all turned out OK. We walked in just as it was ending, we got to miss all the boring stuff.



Diana Koszegi

Diana (Dia) is a professional Baduk player. She is one of the few westerners to ever make it pro. She grew up in Hungary, and learned Baduk from her father (2d) and helped him teach at his go classes. Last year after making it to 2nd class yonguseng (out of 5) the Hanguk Kiwon promoted her to Pro. This was not undeserved, as she proceeded to defeat her first opponent (8p)

Anyway this Wednesday she graduated from Myongji University, I followed her around as a photographer sort of... Anyway here are some pictures.

Apidet (Mod) and Dia not noticing the Camera

Dia and Mod posing looking happy

I gave her that hammer as a Graduation Gift

Dia, and Mod receiving their diplomas

Professor Chihyung Nam. This was my first time meeting her. She gave me the impression that she is very nice. She also seems to be a very strong woman. I got some free Baduk books from her, *yay* ^__^

Hey Look Simon and I graduated Myongji... Anyway just a bunch of people that came to say thank you to Professor nam

Lee DoYun (right with the peace sign) Lee Chang Ho's girlfriend graduated last Wednesday too Unfortunately he was not there, so I could not meet him.

Ji Young another one of my teachers, she came to celebrate Dia too. Nandor is a Serbian 1d, he is a cool guy currently studies at Myongji Professor Nam

Simon Sleeping on the ride back from Myongji