From Art Aquarium's official page

Kids watching tiny goldfish

Fish and Japanese sake

Art Aquarium Okinawa

Royal Park Hotel The Shiodome

Bunka Hostel Tokyo

Sotetsu Fresa Inn Nihombashi

Ryokan Asakusa Shigetsu Hotel

• All blogposts from Tokyo

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Anette

A poster outside of Washi no Sato proclaiming the UNESCO intangible heritage status

Melbourne's Federation Square is centered in the heart of Melbourne by the old Flinder Street Station. Its usages are many, and it can serve as a meeting place, a cultural attraction, a place to come for interesting experiences or for people who just want to chill out.

The characteristic Australian Centre for the Moving Image

When the Federation Square was redesigned in 1997 many of the citizens complained about the controversial design, but over the years the complaints have become less and less. Whether you like the modern design or not, the Federation Square definitely is worth the visit if you want to get a taste of the city's atmosphere.

A booth displaying cars from the 2014 Formula 1 Australia Grand Prix

Various events are held at the square, and it is a place where you can experience everything from beer tasting to rally cars and awareness-raising modern art.
When we were visiting the square they were displaying statues of running rhinos to rase awareness about the poaching of the magnificent animals. The exhibition was held outside, free for visitors 24/7. You can read more about this campaign here.

Run for your life

I was really impressed by how this public place used art to educate the visitors about the critical situation for these animals! I think it is crucial that more people get to learn about the rhinos and take a strong stance against the poaching (Did you know that a rhino's horn is made up of the same stuff as your fingernails?? Who would ever buy someones fingernails…).

Sitting on the rhino statues

One of the rhino statues up close

Writings on the ground

Another picture of the Fed Square

Art

Fed Square live

Sumi-e (墨絵) is a traditional ink wash painting style introduced to Japan in the Muromachi-period (1338-1573) through Korea. Although sumi-e originally was developed in China during the Tang-dynasty (618-907) it gained its own characteristic style in Japan by masters like Sesshu Toyo and under the influence of Zen Buddhism.

Sumi-e is still popular in modern Japan, and I've been lucky to meet Mimi Wada who is an contemporary sumi-e artist. She arranges workshops for people interested in learning to make sumi-e paintings, and since the year is coming to an end she gathered a group of interested painters (an amateurs like me) for a New Year card workshop.

Next year we enter the year of the horse, making the animal a natural choice considering the design for this year's New Year cards.

How to make a sumi-e horse

We received handouts from Mimi-san showing how to paint the horse step by step. Still, it was quite hard to make the horse look as natural as Mimi-san's version of the horse. Seemed like the other participants also had a lot more experience than me, so I kinda was the only one making somewhat disproportionate horses with crooked legs.

At least I made some improvement throughout the lesson

Mimi-san demonstrating

Mimi-san and Yuki

This is what it looks like when you're a Sumi-e master. Work by Mimi.

...And this is what is looks like when you're an amateur. Still, not too bad though.

Again, Mimi-san's skills are "slightly" better then mine..

Le saint opera decorated with Mimi-san's sumi-e scroll

All in all it was a great chance to learn more about sumi-e and its painting techniques. And now I also have my own original New Year cards to send of to some friends! Just hope they'll ignore my lack of artistic skills.. Oh well, it's the thought that counts, isn't it?? ^^

Mimi's sumi-e scroll has been exhibited in Le saint opera since mid-November.
For more information about Mimi's Sumi-e art, check out her website Sumiracle

The end of the semester is drawing near, and things have become pretty busy lately. However, as this is my last semester in Korea I decided to join my Indonesian friend Maya for a short daytrip to Seoul this week to get a bit of a changed in my environment from the usual days at school.

We had decided to go to a place called Naksan park, and ironically this park can be found in the Hyehwa area where I also stayed during my first weeks in Korea. It was strange to be back there again!

Anyway, Naksan is in fact also the name of the mountain where the park is situated (the -san comes of course from the Chinese character 山), and the Nak-part is apparently abbreviated from the Korean word for camel (nakta - 낙타). I guess the mountain might resemble the hump of a camel..?

The park is famous for its street-art, and I have added some of the pictures we took there!

Street-art: A man walking his dog

View from the top of the Naksan Park/Mountain

View from the top of the Naksan Park/Mountain

A pavilion on Mt. Naksan

Street-art: A korean (?) boy playing with toys and an African boy carrying stones. I really like the societal critic in this one..

Street-art: Maya posing in front of an imaginary city

Street-art: Discover your secret angel wings at Naksan.. :p

Street-art: A painting man

Street-art: Thumb's up!

Street-art: Flower stairs

Construction work and street-art

Street-art: 안녕!

Street-art: shhh..

Street-art: A cute frog

Street-art: puppies! <3

Street-art that utilize some electric boxes

Street-art: dog in the window

Street-art: 이제 정말 만나야 할때!

Creative street-art..!

Street-art: A guy painting a rainbow.. Love Maya's expression :p

colorful street-art

Street-art: Mother and child

Street-art: More colors!!

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