Silk thread and real stone

Fabric disks pattern frame

This is a rug frame on the making. Each disk is 1,5 inches diameter. I did not decide yet how to stitch them on the main frame. Maybe with different hand stitches maybe hitting the sawing machine..? Stay tuned for more patterns and finalised frame! 🙂

10 amazing places of some Asian travels

1. Rugs in Singapore: Arab street is one of the most attractive and colorful area of the city. Must stroll along the main road and peak into the stores. Rugs here are awesome. Delivered all over and coming from different countries. Especially the silk hand woven made in Pakistan or Middle East. If you are lucky to find this shop owned by a Malay-Pakistani couple. Located at the end of the main road walking thru North. While accepting fresh fruits from them we enjoyed the company sitting on the rugs, watching the defile of patterns, chatting and finally picking the chosen one.

2. Local duo of pottery and furniture in Jonker Street, Malacca: There are several studios with pottery handmade items downtown Malacca. Try to go for the most original shop. It’s not a real shop, it’s a combination of two floors house with a garden incorporated. Stunning. Wood all around you. Downstairs the wife arranged clay exhibition and the linked lab. Upstairs the husband shows beautiful furniture in strong wood and such amazing design.

3. Vietnam Trade Union Hotel in Hanoi: Most strategically located hotel in town. Walking distance from Le Duan Railway Station and practically merging into the urban downtown landscape you cannot miss. Really affordable, enormous and cool. The perfect place to be for a couple, a family, a business group or a huge event people. Now you know where to head in the fascinating capital of Vietnam.

4. Bowrington road market in Hong Kong: One of the best wet market in the whole town. I love it stays open until late at night and that it’s located just a pleasant stroll from Causeway Bay busy hub. This market is famous for seafood but you can find a good variety of local and malaysian or Indonesian picks in fact of veggies, biscuits and sweet stuff. Also great for local tofu and artisanal noodles. But the highlight is the lamb, for lamb lovers only. Amazing and smiling service.

5. Tibet coffe shop in Beijin: Called “Tibet Cafe”. It was such a wonderful coincidence to sit in this coffe place and sipping authentic Tibetan tea and Momo dumplings. If it was not for a lovely friend who is originally moved from Tibet to Beijing. The bold colors of the wall and the playful presence of copper and wood furniture pieces, cushions and drums directly from those mountains of Lhasa are almost lively talking about traditions and stories. Quite a beautiful experience in the heart of the busy capital, in Nan Luo Gu Alley, Dongcheng. Also with a blog at tibetcafe.blogspot.com

6. Futian Book City in Shengzhen: One among few others of these Cities. Huge and well furnished. Interesting section for language learning, food and recipes and art design. You can spend hours in here and browse the paper material. Or taking a break and window shopping upstairs for some handmade trendy. Or a fast food experience. It;s located in front of the local Library,  at Shao Nian Gong Metro station.

7. Food Alley in Xian: Xia’an is in the heart of China with its Great Mosquee and a mixture of souls descending very probably from traders who were concentrating in this important trading route of the ancient Silky road. The old style trading has vanished and what you can appreciate now it’s for appeasing the stomach. Aka snacks, dumplings, kebabs, noodle soups and much more. Delicious stroll. Or by sitting at a table.

8. Ben Thanh Market in Ho Chi Minh: a place for everyone where you can find really everything, any food, clothes, accessories, paintings, home furniture, bed linen or table runners, cushions, fabric. Yes you guessed it: a massive area located on a couple of floors. A touch of tradition and color for the grey financial hub that is the city today.

9. Ricshaw in Nanning: Never fear a rickshaw, you never know where it is ending. Nanning. Boarder city. Peaceful and crowded at the same. Mount on a rickshaw and get prepared to roam everywhere. From the station to the hotel to the park. If you are staying in the city and want to check more than two places out, the fearless rickshaw is your sure choice! Enjoy the ride.

10. Bintan Island: a resort island at the boarder line, just outside Singapore. To enjoy the dreaming beach and a ayurvedic massage. It’s all about super relax and crystal colors unless the monsoon rain has decided  to show off its refreshing powers! But it is still allowed dreaming and watching at the slender palms while sipping a cocktail under the pagoda roof at Nirwana Beach Club.

Birth of a toy into real global life

Whenever you are involved in a work or process, all the rest does count less. especially when you are really really loving that work…you are just like absorbed. These amazing projects have been amazing since their starting point and it has taken about four years to realize how amazing they still are! They can fly now into the hands of anybody thru Amazon or other marketing oriented websites. But the real thing about them is that yes they were simply amazing to work on. Jiggling on different contents, selecting the most appealing ones. Shaping and fixing the Italian version of each and every sound file. Composing small songs and singing the created tunes: the merge of writing, notes and sounding engineering all in one: It takes a little playfulness to bring a toy into the real life! And especially when it needs to be a ‘talking toy’. A speaking globe for traveling the world! Still very much alive and still traveling around.

Insights from “The silent treatment” ~ book review

Let’s treat ourself with some amazing and deep deep silence! Time is now! Instead of any other common overrated treatment aka a dessert?,  a good book?, a holiday? Because any best treatment would be pretty miserable compared to real silence sourced straight from within. Here is a book i m treating myself with just today  surrounded by the sounds of various birds and cicadas, sipping a fruity smoothy and… longing for insights. Those kind of insights which a book like this just deliver! And without considering that i m writing this post exactly from one of the most un-silent places on earth that is actually host to the largest crowd with the noisiest lifestyle.

Here now with Five great extracts from the book

1. In bright light our pupils contract to protect our eyes, in loud environments our ears slowly produce wax to protect our sensitive drums from damage. So why are we surprised when our mind does the same thing when faced with information overload on many levels?

2. We can keep things simple or delve into our personality and behavior in ways that will astonish and delight. We can literally improve ourselves through the power of introspection and spiritual contemplation, and at a pace that suits our personal temperament.

3. But overall this new sense of self-improvement helps us realize that we still have the ability to enjoy life, with all its different modes, shades, challenges and peculiarities.

4. We dont waste our thinking, fritter it away, but instead we cherish it and listen to the still voice that can guide us to where we need to be.

5. The more we relax the easier it gets.

Vande mataram

Most amazing thing about this Boundless inspiration (after some time) is: people here enjoy Music ALOT! It’s been years now that the most clicked posts are those about music. Music rules and has got all the powers within. She is everywhere. She is in the silence too. At this point I won’t doubt one second to post another hyper talented musical video. It might be close to the India lovers but it can be easily close to the fresh and genuine music lovers. 

 

 

 

Earth is glowing here

Builders.

Stumbling upon a deeply true statement  from an American author and journalist, about either the evident and the subtle distruction in front of our eyes within and without:  “WE now live in a nation where doctors destroys health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, governments destroy freedom, the press destroys information, religion destroys moral and our banks destroy the economy.” Somebody asked “who is going to build then?”

Top 7 epic classical songs.

1.Jana Gana Mana

2.Bolero

3.Cinema Paradiso

4.Totoro

5.Nabucodonosor

6.Jin ling shi san chai

7.Carmina Burana

 

Three May pictures

While planning vocational movements i m posting for you a sample of random visual searches. This is in China but in somewhere unknown to me at the moment. I used this image to promote a peaceful and spiritual event happened last night far away on the other southern corner of Eurasia, in Italy.

That event was hosted more less in the area dotted with white houses beyond the sea horizon, on the far left corner of this happy image, where children are playing free on a beach during an afternoon of end of Summer last year. I captured them while going back home after a wonderful sea swim. It reminded me of my childhood and how beautiful it is to take advantage of the nature when we have Her so close. We shall never take Nature for granted and enjoy each and every drop of what she openly dispense wherever we live.

Just like this bear is cautiously doing!

 

Greek & Chinese Art

The Prophet said, “There are some who see me by the same light in which I am seeing them. Our natures are one. Without any reference to any strands of lineage, without reference to texts or traditions, we drink the life-water together.”

Here is a story about that hidden mystery: The Chinese and the Greeks were arguing as to who were the better artists.
The king said, “we’ll settle this matter with a debate.” The Chinese began talking, but the Greeks wouldn’t say anything. They left.
The Chinese suggested then that they each be given a room to work on with their artistry, two rooms facing each other and divided by a curtain. The Chinese asked the king for a hundred colors, all the variations, and each morning they came to where the dyes were kept and took them all. The Greeks took no colors. “they are not part of our work.”
They went to their room and began cleaning and polishing the walls. All day everyday they made those walls as pure and clear as an open sky.

There is a way that leads from all-colors to colorlessness. Know that the magnificent variety of the clouds and the weather comes from the total simplicity of the sun and the moon.

The Chinese finished, and they were so happy. They beat the drums in the joy of completion. The king entered their room, astonished by the gorgeous color and detail.
The Greeks then pulled the curtain dividing the rooms. The Chinese figures and images shimmeringly reflected on the clear Greek walls. They lived there, even more beautifully, and always changing in the light.

The Greek art is the sufi way.
They don’t study books of philosophical thought.

They make their loving clearer and clearer.
No wantings, no anger. In that purity they receive and reflect the images of every moment, from here, from the stars, from the void.

They take them in
as though they were seeing
with the lighted clarity
that sees them.

(by Rumi, Selected poems)

New lyric: Worship my confusion.

Nothing is clear or goes straight

Maybe posing a little while before turning left.

Clouds of my confusion looking puffy and soft,

Any wind could blow them away

But watching them moving like many cars on the freeway.

Sometimes confusion linking to illusions

U want to know its source

Mind telling ‘it’s just a myth’, there is no confusion already on a real course.

Simply be in love, once worshipped is your confusion

courage will not be deceived by disillusion.

Without nightmares without dreams.

Watch the people, they are all sitting at McDonald.
Watch the sky: it’s watching the people underneath.

Enlightenment

The enlightened possess understanding
So profound they can not be understood.
Because they cannot be understood
I can only describe their appearance:

Cautious as one crossing thin ice,
Undecided as one surrounded by danger,
Modest as one who is a guest,
Unbounded as melting ice,
Genuine as unshaped wood,
Broad as a valley,
Seamless as muddy water.

Who stills the water that the mud may settle,
Who seeks to stop that he may travel on,
Who desires less than may transpire,
Decays, but will not renew. [Lao Tzu]

The Help: an American book review

This book is born out of the feelings of affection that the author was nurturing during her childhood towards her African American nanny. More African and stranger than American lets say.
“My siblings deny it, but I was closer to Demetrie than the other kids were. Nobody got cross with me if Demetrie was nearby. She would stand me in front of the mirror and say ‘you are beautiful, you are a beautiful girl’ when clearly I was not. …. My mother was out of town a lot. Susan and Rob were tired of me hanging around, and I felt left over. Demetrie knew it and took my hand and told me I was fine.”

It s 1962, Mississippi, when the story of The Help begins. It’s a fiction at large.
The robust maids are great love givers. They perfectly supply the need of care for the American kids of that time. Skeeter is one little girl growing up with a different courage inside. The courage to become a true friend to two maids and help them to tell their stories to the whole community. Funny, brave, feminine, emphatic. Flowing read.