The Old Manila International Air Terminal

This lovely building situated in the centre of the central business district of Makati used to house the first and former airport terminal in the Philippines. From outside, you will not notice it as it just look like an ordinary building. The old sign that say "Manila International Terminal" can only be seen from behind and when you are along Makati avenue, you will think that it is just a house or restaurant.

This building used to be called Nielsen Tower and still uses that name for its building although it is popularly known now called Black Bird. The building was erected in 1937 and was used for commercial and international flights until the end of World War 2. Before it became a restaurant, it previously housed the former library owned by the Ayalas. It is still owned by the Ayalas though. Im just glad that the building have survived and remained a symbol in Ayala triangle. This is such a great example of well preserved heritage building. I wish we could see more of this.

Candi Muarajambi, Abandoned Beauty

We arrived at 8:00 in the morning at Sultan Thaha Airport, the main airport of Jambi City, West Sumatra. The city center is about 20 minute-drive to the city center. But we first went to Candi Murajambi, an archaeological site, believed to be built in early 15^th century, which is situated in the forested area of the town of Muarajambi. These are Hindu temples which are made of similar bricks found at Hindu temples of India. Candi Muarajambi is about 25 kms drive from the airport. O the way, you will find palm tree plantation on the right and rubber tree plantations on the left. There are 9 temples all over the complex. They are quite simple with the highest peak reaching to about 3 floors. These temples, is incomparable to the astonishing Angkor Complex or the majestic Borobudur Complex which were all discovered accidentally by foreign explorers but there is yet beauty in the simplicity of Candi Muarajambi. First thing I noticed was the lack of tourist made the place clean, no traffic and peaceful. You will always find an alone time when you wander around the temples. When you look around all the temples, I could say it was abandoned by the people who built it. But for the reason why they abandoned, no one can answer. The locals may also not have any clue and can only rely on hearsay. Getting around the whole complex took us 3 hours on a bike. An unexpected ride back to main entrance got us toasted under the glaring heat of the Sumatran summer.

As I mentioned, the whole place is not as grandiose as the famed Hindu complex of the neighboring countries but the beauty of being untouched and left in ruins made it more appealing than the other temples I have seen so far. More importantly, since Hinduism never propagated in this area, which is generally Muslim, we can understand why people never really took time to use these places for worship yet they never tore it down.

The Little Prince Handmade Stamps

This is a new project I have been planning to do for quite sometime. I have bought these materials since last year. I only got the time to do this now since I am on a week-long school break. The rubber stamps were handcarved from a Korean-made rubber stamps. I tried to follow the artworks of The Little Prince book and gave it a bit of a twist using different ink pads.

I look forward to doing more of this.

Owls in a Tree

Here are my latest sketches of owls hanging out in trees. I have to say this style of sketching is where I am really comfortable doing.

Aku Diponegoro, Galeri Nasional Indonesia

Sang Pangeran Dalam Ingatan Bangsa. Prince Diponegoro, Indonesia's national hero, who fought for the freedom of Indonesia, whose remaining owned artefacts and contributed artworks by various artist is currently on exhibit at the Galeri Nasional Indonesia. It's a quick walk to see the battle and arrest of Diponegoro during the 19th century with these contributed paintings by different local and foreign artist. Its a must visit for all Indonesians and others.

Exhibit Opening
6 February – 8 March 2015
10 am – 7 pm
(Open for public and entrance is free)

For more information:

Website: www.akudiponegoro.com
Facebook : Goethe-Institut Indonesien
Twitter : AkuDiponegoro

Instagram : akudiponegoro

Le Petit Prince: Illustrations by Philip Giordano

There have been many books published about the different languages and illustration for the Le Petit Prince. As a beginning collector and art enthusiast with about less than 50 books in my collection, I feel the sense of finding differently published books of Le Petit Prince especially those with great illustrations. I definitely like the first illustration did by Antoine De Saint-Exupery, no doubt about that but there are recent works like the Korean Edition and Bilingual Comics (Bahasa Indonesia) where they gave a different touch on the original work of Exupery. (See link to access the other books) I have also tried some sketches myself although not as a complete version of the entire book.

But just recently, I found out about this Italian Illustrator Philip Giordano who created a different yet great artworks of the book. I have not found the actual book and only found the pictures so I am uploading it here. I'm going to have to make an online-wide research to be able to get my hands on this amazing illustrations.

These are some of the original artwork of Philip Giordano for Le Petit Prince:

Makassar, South Sulawesi

I arrived in Makassar on a gloomy day after a flight from Jakarta which took 2 hours. It was a smooth flight considering that it was days after that devastating disappearance of an Airasia flight in Java sea due to bad weather condition. The whole country was mourning as the whole world watches. But despite of the scary thing that happened, everything still goes on so I continued to my destination even with a little apprehension. After arriving, I was greeted by non-stop drizzling on my way to my first destination. I stopped by at Taman Nasional Bantimurung just at the same time when the drizzling stopped. I had sometime to walk around the park and look at the stream that leads to a sort of rapids down to were the part of the stream were people could swim. There was a small museum about butterflies and two other butterfly sanctuaries where you can walk in to see caterpillars and butterflies.

Hello from 38,000 feet aboard Garuda Indonesia