This sculpture is to be found outside a building at the Science Park, adjacent to the National University of Singapore. OK, is it a bunch of vaguely Tibetan clouds? Or is it, as we think, a pyramid of brains? You know, I think that aside from gardening, Singapore’s general sense of aesthetics is pretty completely […]
We stayed in two hotels in Bali: One was a 3-month old penthouse suite overlooking the ocean (in Bali, even we can afford such a thing), and the other was a bungalow in the small city of Ubud, adjacent to the Saraswati Temple there. Both advertised themselves as bungalows, although they were adjoined to one […]
This post is mainly for Daxin, unless there’s another botanically-inclined reader out there. Here are two interesting plants we saw in Bali. The first is in a pot in the Tirta Gangga (Water Palace) near Amlapura: Below is a closeup- or at least as close as I could get in the conditions: It looks like […]
We began our stay in Bali at a beach community on the east coast, which is lined by a 1.5 lane road. Here’s what the ocean looks like from the hotel: Or, if you look from almost any other place on a hill amidst the greenery, like this: It’s blue, it’s clear, it’s fairly warm, […]
We went to Bali last week, which is a mere 2.5 hour plane trip from Singapore. I’ve now been to Indonesia, which for some reason is as far away as you can get on my mental horizon – maybe because of all those primitive carvings on exhibit in museums that only show that aspect of […]
I saw at least four of these this morning on my walk. Apparently they’re migrating south from Thailand – unless they’re locals, but I’d never seen them before. They’re in the area where the dollarbirds were nesting back when I posted about them. Anyway, the feathers on the crests are very cute and floppy. […]
I went to this temple in 1993. It’s still there, but there are a lot more Buddha statues. Now the whole trail up the mountain (some 460 stairs) is lined with life-sized gold-painted Buddhas in astonishing variety: These are the ones you can see from the main pavilion about two thirds of the way up. […]
Singapore is always comparing itself to Hong Kong, and imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Singapore’s train system is the MRT; Hong Kong’s is the MTR. I haven’t been to Hong Kong since 1993. It’s changed a bit. For instance, these buildings used to be on the waterfront. Now, thanks to land reclamation and […]
I like this one. It’s abstract, symmetrical, nicely finished, and a good swirly contrast to the right angles all around it.
This is a nice, if nostalgic, sculpture on the River Walk across from the Asian Civilizations Museum. Thisis what used to happen in this area, before it became tourist eateries and financial buildings. And people love it – they stroke the bullock, they pat the shoulders of the laborers, they’ve rubbed it shiny in lots […]