New Valencia Stadium, Spain
Reid Architecture’s Spanish arm, Reid Fenwick Asociados, is behind the design for Valencia FC’s new home. The 75,000-seat stadium should be ready for the 2009-2010 football season, and could even be a future venue for a Champions League final. It stands on one of the main routes into the city, and should prove a useful means of orientation. Its external skin comprises large, perforated aluminium segments, which act as a scale plan of Valencia, depicting each neighbourhood. But this is not just about aesthetics — the skin also doubles as a ventilation system.
Bari, South of Italy- A City to Remember
For much of the journey, the high speed cars ran along with our bus. After mountains and undulating valleys of unknown, which had been my introduction to this part of Italy, it appeared a more tamed landscapes than i thought.
There were clusters of small villages on the hilltops, isolated houses with windows shuttered had been a wonderful landscapes along the way to Bari. Long journey is always shutted me away from reality then has encouraged me to bring along with me , a novel to finish, which accelerating my mental process for the day. Almost 9 hours sitting on a bus, it was not easy to keep the blood flowing to the whole body without any physical movement. Somehow, it has always been a great moment enjoying sightseeing countrysides and off course, there is no excuses to skip the opportuntity to absord these experiences of a long journey.
I read the names of the towns as the bus passed - Napoli, Roma etc and in my mind, each promises the secret of cobbled streets and history buried in pale stone walls of each town. Spoken with a chat-friend of mine, Italy is obviously different with other european countries in terms of its history. Each villages of Italy established its own history and hidden thousands memories of ruins or standstill buildings.
The journey started from Nuovo Pignone office which was around 8.30am and we reached Bari almost 6.30pm. I can see that every face shown a tireness and dreaming a bed. Lucia had arranged a special dinner for us, which was i think more to like feeding goats with grass. For me, i don't do eating vegetables with nothing and it was obviously no ones refused to put a side as a protes. Positively, enjoyed with classmates was more than just a dinner.
On next day, as per sechedule we had visited Nuovo Pignone Workshop ( Pump and Control Valve), and as usual we finished the tour and class around 5pm. And then the day was started. I believe that everybody seemed happy with the early finish of class and the city tour was a next program after the visit to NP. 
The night before, i spent more hours to read something about Bari, how St Nicholas arrived in Bari in early 13th Century and how was the town established to be a capital city of Meridetrien sea. I was quickly learning that the region defined itself as much by its past as its present. Not just Napoli, Pompeil, and Bari Itself, all the great cities of the South living in the shadow of events that had taken place nearly eight hundred years ago. Books, sourvenirs, postcards, an entire tourist industry had grown up on the back of it. Like Bari, the old days building is still comprehensively preserved for next generations. I have learned that ( from Lucia), the governement just clean all areas from Mafia or road gengster in order to attract more tourists to Bari. As i can see that, the city was shining and live!.. and small industries grown as they were welcomed every tourist to their city. 
The next day, we departed from Bari to Florence around 8.30am.
Confort Zone
So, why am I still adherently comfortable over here then? Is it because of the knowledge that should I suddenly feel disappointed with the system one day, I possess the means and the choice of leaving and taking everything I have with me? Or is it because I see in my generation some resolve to continue to be as we were before?
Things are getting more transparent nowadays, and the newspapers are proof of that (and I still believe this although a couple of them were reluctant to print this article on the basis of it being rather controversial!) Going are the days when some crime by someone in power is initially reported, then suddenly fades away into oblivion. We now have the public demanding a follow-up of cases conveniently buried and people are even discussing political and racial issues openly without much fear of prosecution, a far cry from neighbouring countries where one would not even dare harbour thoughts of any negative sentiments pertaining to the ruling government.
And then, there are countries where their original inhabitants live in fear of saying the wrong thing, lest they be labeled as being ‘racists’. A good example was Channel 4 program in UK, where the racists were a big issue concerned in society. And what happens over here? We are able to crack jokes and enjoy humourous anecdotes of cultural differences, increasingly apparent in plays that are enjoyed by many, that catalyse the tolerance of multi-cultural societies such as ours.
You are comfortable with yourself only when you can laugh at yourself! We wear what we want and move in circles we choose to move in and yet, continue to respect the religious protocols of the others’ beliefs. And the majority of us will not bow down and agree that questioning the unquestionable is not an option. So, are we blessed or what? My parents, very proud of their Malay heritage, still have the Malaysian flag out on display with all its glory during the Merdeka week and this has been like a tradition at home for as long as I can remember. I, conversely, do not even bother to install the car flags and this goes to show how differently generations here perceive the manner of celebrating our Day of Independence. Yes, we are all proud of how much Malaysia has achieved in the past 49 years but there are certain aspects that we could have done without, much to the amusement of foreigners.
In particular, I wonder why we strive to have the biggest, longest, most unique this and that, which barely serve their purpose and eventually end up as ‘white elephants’. Why do we need to waste millions on unnecessary projects that fuel our already over-inflated egos and false sense of accomplishment when there are many other deserving bodies that could benefit from a fraction of that money?
Think about that then....
