Friday, December 31, 2010

Happy New Year!

We spent New Year Eve at the beach playing with waves, watching the sky turning into velvety blackness, mesmerized by candlelit lanterns floating up towards the stars.

I counted my blessings and whispered after incomparable E.E.Cummings:


Happy New Year to all!

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Present, Past and Future

Statues that pepper the streets of the cities tell intersting stories about cities' inhabitants. Here in Baku a lot of statues bear the features of social realizm - all solemn, angular, emanating strength and determination.

In Bangkok they seem to be more about smooth, elongated forms and intricate detailing.



Present:




Found in Lumphini Park


Past:





"Warrior", found in Wat Phra Kaew



Future:


Want to guess the title of this statue?


"Women in the Next Three Decades" by Sahathep Thepburi

"Slighty grim look at future", I thought, but googling around discovered that those round forms seem to be a trademark of this Italian artist. By the way, he founded the art school in Bangkok that later became Silparkorn University.(The Silpakorn University is situated north across the street from the Grand Palace and is the home of several galleries of contemporary art.)

Sunday, December 26, 2010

Flowers, Flowers Everywhere...




Grand Palace, Bangkok


Details, Grand Palace, Bangkok


Details, Grand Palace, Bangkok


On the Second Day of Christmas

in Bangkok we saw... No, not two turtle doves, but something a bit more exotic...



And, then further in the park...



And, later in the street...



But as soon as we sighed, "oh,how peaceful", we came to this...

Friday, December 24, 2010

On a sunny day

before Christmas we went to see mud volcanoes. There are more than 300 of them here in Azerbaijan, you know.



We saw little ones...



And we saw big ones...



We listened to their gurgling sounds...



And we touched their cool mud...



And we simply couldn't resist to say...



to all.