Category: Art

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Monday/ Port Klang, Malaysia 🇲🇾

The Diamond Princess made it into her final port of call for this voyage this morning, arriving at Port Klang at 8 am.

I was well enough to take the shuttle bus to the AEON Bukit Tinggi Mall, 20 minutes away. That was a consolation prize, since I had cancelled my excursion into Kuala Lumpur, and the Petronas Towers 😢, two days before (not sure I would be well enough to do the whole-day excursion).

That ship in the distance, all the way across from our own terminal, sails under her new name Star Voyager, operated by StarCruises.
From Wikipedia:
She was built in 1997 and previously known as Dawn Princess and Pacific Explorer, having previously been operated by Princess Cruises and P&O Cruises Australia. In 2001, while operating in Alaska’s Glacier Bay National Park, Dawn Princess struck and killed a humpback whale while travelling too fast through the protected waters. Princess Cruises was later charged and found guilty in United States federal court and paid a fine and restitution totalling US$750,000.

Looking at my mall pictures, I now regret I did not buy the little gold wafer with the Petronas Towers on.

Oppo is a Chinese tech company, known for its innovative Android smart phone designs, with strong camera features (often with Hasselblad tech), fast charging and competitive pricing.

And the book? I should have bought that as well, but Amazon may be able to help me mend my mistake.
Google AI:
Antanom (Ontoros bin Endoi) was a renowned Murut hero from Sabah, Malaysia, who led an uprising against the British in Rundum in the early 1900s due to taxation and oppression. He is known as a great hero for his charisma, spiritual power, and ability to unite the warring Murut tribes against the colonizers, and he died in battle. His story has been immortalized in books and documentaries, solidifying his title as a hero of the Murut people.

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Sunday/ Penang, Malaysia 🇲🇾

The Diamond Princess arrived at the island of Penang on Sunday, but I was too ill-disposed to venture out of my stateroom all day. 😢

Here is my collection of pictures of the plaques that commemorate the Diamond Princess’s ports of call that are on display on the Promenade Deck, though.
She has certainly spent a lot of time in the Far East, it seems.

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Friday/ Phuket, Thailand 🇹🇭

The Diamond Princess arrived at Phuket at 9 am this morning, as scheduled.

Phuket is Thailand’s largest island, and the cruise ship was anchored by the bustling Patong Beach*. The tender boat trip to the Patong Jetty was only 15 minutes: not bad at all.

*Patong Beach was hit particularly hard by the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami. The waves reached heights of 3–6 m (9.8–19.7 ft) along the west coast of Phuket island.

Thaweewong Road runs at the back of Patong Beach. It is lined with anything a tourist might want, and might need: ATMs, markets, beach clubs with swimming pools, bars, pharmacies, restaurants, food stands, pot shops (legal but no smoking in public allowed), massage parlors, taxi stands and scooters.

Sarasin Bridge to the north connects the island to Phang Nga province, but we were a little deflated after a few hours in the hot sun and headed back to Patong Jetty to catch a tender boat to the Princess.

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Monday/ Ream National Park, Cambodia 🇰🇭

The Diamond Princess arrived at Preah Sihanouk (Sihanoukville) at 7 am this morning.

The tour bus that took us to Ream National Park and the beaches on the Gulf of Thailand first made its way through Sihanoukville, with a stop at the ‘love monument’.  The love monument is a a massive copper sculpture depicting the legendary Khmer couple Prince Preah Thong and Naga Princess Neang Neak, symbolizing the origin of Khmer civilization and culture, located at a major roundabout facing the sea. 

There were a lot of abandoned buildings lining the streets Sihanoukville: many of them projects by Chinese investors and entrepreneurs that were abandoned after the Covid pandemic had forced the stoppage of work on them.

The next stop was at a Buddhist compound with several temples, and Buddhas. (Theravada Buddhism is practiced by over 90% of the population).

After that it was off to the beaches of Sampounch Island, and the national park. We did a little motor boat cruise through the mangroves and walked on an elevated plank walkway through the forest. There was not a single bird in sight, but we ran into a few long-tailed macaques right at the end of the walk.

The other beach pictures and the crab, the gecko, the snake and the giant tree are near the beach at the Ream Boutique Hotel. We had lunch there, and a dip in the lukewarm waters of the Gulf of Thailand.

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Saturday/ Ho Chi Minh City 🇻🇳

The Diamond Princess arrived at the deep-water port of Phú Mỹ at 8 am on Saturday morning.

It’s almost a 2-hour drive from Phú Mỹ to the sprawling city of Ho Chi Minh.  Our tour bus ran alongside and across the rivers of the Mekong Delta*, and the route included a segment of National Route 1 with toll plazas. It is the beginning of the rice planting season. Rice is a staple food in Viet Nam.

*Home to the endangered Mekong giant catfish (Pangasianodon gigas), known for reaching nearly 10 feet and over 600 pounds.

As we approached the city, we saw tall apartment buildings (what we would call condominiums in the States). These go for a fortune in Vietnamese Dong— 5 billion, about US$200,000— and are strictly for rich people. The supertall skyscraper in the pictures is that of the 81-story Landmark 81 tower (completed 2018).

Our first stop in Saigon* was at an art studio and gallery with Vietnamese lacquer art, or Sơn Mài.  *The central part of Ho Chi Minh City still goes by the name of Saigon.

The next stop was at Ho Chi Minh City History Museum with its lovely water lily pond and displays of the forces that occupied the territory of what is known as Viet Nam today.

I asked Google AI Overview for a summary:
Vietnam’s history is marked by occupation and resistance, starting with over a millennium of Chinese rule (c. 111 BCE–938 CE), followed by internal dynasties and expansion south. French colonization from the 1880s led to French Indochina, briefly interrupted by Japanese occupation during WWII, sparking the Viet Minh independence movement. After WWII, France tried to reclaim control, leading to the First Indochina War (1946-1954), ending with French defeat and Vietnam’s division, ultimately leading to the Vietnam War (US involvement) and communist unification in 1975.

Next was the Saigon Central Post Office with a portrait of Ho Chi Minh inside. (Ho Chi Minh was the man that led a long and ultimately successful campaign to make Vietnam independent. He was president of North Vietnam from 1945 to 1969.)

Look for my picture of the Pittman Apartments building from which people were airlifted from during the Fall of Saigon in April 1975 (famously captured in Hubert van Es’s iconic photo). It’s painted yellow and light brown and has several antennas attached to it.

We made a quick stop at a Buddhist Temple, and then went to the swank Windsor Plaza Hotel for lunch. I loved the dragon on my little can of Bia Saigon Special beer.

The next stop was at the Independence Palace (also called Reunification Palace) , a building that played a central role in the Viet Nam war. It was designed by architect Ngô Viết Thụ. Construction started in 1962 and it was completed by 1966.  It was the home and workplace of the president of the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam).

The final stop for the day was at Ben Thanh market.
It has some 1,500 booths inside and it was crowded, so I went outside and took a few pictures instead.

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Friday/ Nha Trang, Viet Nam 🇻🇳

The Diamond Princess arrived at the pier in Cam Ranh at 7 am this morning.

My coach bus excursion to Nha Trang was a whirlwind tour consisting of a visit to Po Nagar Temple, a short cruise on Cai River, and visits to an ancient house built from ebony wood, a mat weaving shop and an arts & crafts market.

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Thursday/ another day at sea 🌊

The Diamond Princess was still plying her way through the waters of the South China Sea towards the port of Cam Ranh today.
We are due in at 7 am in the morning.

The plaques with artwork on them are from the walls on the Promenade Deck. They commemorate the dates when the Diamond Princess called ports around the world.

The inaugural call for the Port of Seattle was May 29, 2004. This is the very year she was delivered from the shipyard of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in Tokyo, Japan to the cruise line.

The other two plaques are from Nha Trang. (Passenger cruise ships stopped calling directly at Nha Trang’s main port starting around late September 2024. The pier was closed for urgent repairs and safety issues, forcing cancellations and rerouting to alternatives like Cam Ranh Port. Some ships are scheduled for returns for 2026 after the completion of the repairs.)

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Monday/ the Gardens by the Bay 🌴

The Gardens by the Bay is a futuristic nature park spanning 101 hectares of reclaimed land right in the center of the city.

The Flower Dome is the world’s largest glass greenhouse and features a spectacular ensemble of plants, trees and flowers from all over the world.

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Sunday night / the Marina Bay Waterfront Promenade 🏙️

These pictures are all from the Marina Bay Waterfront Promenade where the Marina Bay Sands Hotel is.

The hotel’s grand opening was in February 2011.
It was designed by Moshe Safdie Architects (Safdie Architects), and features three tilted hotel towers linked by a massive, surfboard-like SkyPark at the top, housing gardens, restaurants, and the famous infinity pool, inspired by a deck of cards.

The sphere in the water is an Apple store and the building with the petals of a flower is the ArtScience Museum.

After sunset, there was a laser and fountain show.

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Tuesday/ happy birthday, Jane Austen 💐

It was 250 years ago when English writer Jane Austen was born— on 16 Dec. 1775 in the village of Steventon, north Hampshire, England.

From Wikipedia:
Austen’s plots often explore the dependence of women on marriage for the pursuit of favorable social standing and economic security.
Her works are implicit critiques of the novels of sensibility of the second half of the 18th century and are part of the transition to 19th-century literary realism.
Her use of social commentary, realism, wit, and irony have earned her acclaim amongst critics and scholars.

In 2017, Jane Austen’s image was added to the Bank of England’s £10 note.
The note carries the quotation, “I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading!”, said by Caroline Bingley in ‘Pride and Prejudice’ (1813).

P.S. As far back as 2015, then-Treasury Secretary Jack Lew announced that there were plans afoot to ‘feature the likeness of a woman who has played a major role in American history and has been a champion for democracy’ (no specific name was mentioned then). As of now, the U.S. is actively working to feature women on its banknotes, with plans to put abolitionist Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill, replacing Andrew Jackson, with a target release around 2030, coinciding with security updates for other denominations, though the process has faced delays— delays of a logistical and political kind.

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Sunday/ The Nutcracker, at large 🎄

From the ‘At Home in the Northwest’ supplement to the Seattle Times
[Photo by Jiajing Grygriel]
From the ‘At Home in the Northwest’ supplement to the Seattle Times
[Photo by Jiajing Grygriel]
Jiajing Grygriel writes for this Sunday’s ‘At Home in the Northwest’ supplement to the Seattle Times:

The mail carrier slows his van down to a crawl and gapes. “Is that you folks’ statue?” he hollers out the window. “This is amazing. I love it so much!”

A jaw drop is the typical response for people passing by this storybook home in Ballard. The 1936 house looks straight out of the pages of a fairy tale, with its steeply pitched roof, rustic stone chimney and turreted entryway.

During the holiday season, it’s decked out in Nutcracker figures designed by Maurice Sendak, of “Where the Wild Things Are” fame.

Pacific Northwest Ballet commissioned Sendak to design original art for “The Nutcracker,” which ran from 1983 to 2014.

It was Seattle’s own wild rumpus, a one-of-a-kind “Nutcracker” production.

A 15-foot-tall figurine stands at the end of the driveway. In the front yard and on the deck are three small nutcrackers and two rats – and by small, we mean 8 feet tall.

Three original Sendak ornaments hang in a nearby tree.

It’s the 11th year John Carrington and Scott McElhose have displayed the Sendak Nutcracker at their home, on the corner of Golden Garden Drive and Loyal Avenue Northwest in Ballard.

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Friday/ postage due stamps ✉️

Here’s another interesting envelope that I picked up on Ebay for a few dollars. It was dispatched in Johannesburg to Philadelphia, Pa. The franking on the stamp was done with a metering machine in 1951.
(Franking machines were first used in South Africa in 1926).

The franking of 9½ pennies fell woefully short of what was actually needed, though.
The US post office demanded 27 US cents more for delivery. The last ‘Postage Due’ stamps in the USA were issued in 1985.  They were rendered obsolete by tracking technology and the requirement of full prepayment of postage in most cases. 

Meter Stamp
Printed in South Africa for 9½ pennies, dated May 9, 1951, with Universal “Multi-Value” (MV) metering machine (first used 1933).

Postage Due Stamps
Issued by United States, 1931-1956.
Perf. 11×10½ | Engraving by American Bank Note Company | Rotary Press Printing
J81 D3 | 2c dull carmine
J83 D3 | 5c dull carmine
J84 D3 | 10c dull carmine
[Sources: Wikibooks.org, 2003 Scott Standard Postage Stamp Catalogue]

Taking a closer look at the engraving detail. The design of the stamp and the fonts resemble the design of a banknote.

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Tuesday/ The Twelve Days of Christmas 🎅

Two of the stamps on one of the outside envelopes for an Ebay purchase from England feature The Twelve Days of Christmas (song).

Great Britain/ Queen Elizabeth II— Christmas Stamps, 1977
Issued Nov. 23, 1977
Perf. 15×14 | One center phosphor band (7p.) | Design D. Gentleman
1046 525 7p. Slate, grey, bright yellow-green, new blue, rose-red and gold | “Eight Maids-a-milking, Seven Swans-a-swimming”
1047 526 7p. Slate, grey, bright yellow-green, new blue, rose-red and gold| “Ten pipers piping, Nine Drummers drumming”
[Source: 1997 Stanley Gibbons Stamp Catalogue, Part 1 British Commonwealth, Vol. 1]
From Wikipedia:
The lyrics given here are from Frederic Austin’s 1909 publication that established the current form of the carol.
The first three verses run, in full, as follows:
On the first day of Christmas my true love sent to me
A partridge in a pear tree

On the second day of Christmas my true love sent to me
Two turtle doves,
And a partridge in a pear tree.

On the third day of Christmas my true love sent to me
Three French hens,
Two turtle doves,
And a partridge in a pear tree.

Subsequent verses follow the same pattern.
Each verse deals with the next day of Christmastide, adding one new gift and then repeating all the earlier gifts, so that each verse is one line longer than its predecessor:

— four calling birds
— five gold rings
— six geese a-laying
— seven swans a-swimming
— eight maids a-milking
— nine ladies dancing
— ten lords a-leaping
— eleven pipers piping
— twelve drummers drumming

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Sunday/ a little architecture tour 🏢

I braved the cold wind outside to do a little self-directed architecture tour on First Hill today.
I wanted to take a look at the The Graystone Seattle on Columbia Avenue and the Museum House complex with its twin towers.

The Graystone at 800 Columbia St was actually built in 2021 (how time flies). It has 31 stories and 271 units. This is the view from the parking lot on 8th Avenue, looking northeast. (On the right, just a block or so away, is the Museum House complex with its twin towers).

Now I am on Columbia Street, walking up hill. I should have taken a picture without the tree! but there is a waterfall feature on the right that obscures the street view into the condo’s gym somewhat. There are several other amenities of course, such as a rooftop deck and meeting rooms and all that.

Here’s the view of the downtown skyline, looking towards the west. Interstate 5 is close by, but at a much lower level which dampens any traffic noise one might hear.

Now walking to the Museum House complex on Terry Avenue.
This apartment building opened in March, and features a north tower and a south tower, each with 32 stories. It offers 506 rental units.

Looking up at the main facade of the building. The skybridge is all the way up on Floor 31.

First Hill has several hospitals and buildings with clinics and doctors’ offices inside. This is Cabrini Center on Boren Avenue, completed in 1973 with 18 towers.

St. James Cathedral is a Catholic cathedral located at 804 Ninth Avenue. It was dedicated in 1907.

All right. The sun is going to set soon and I am heading to the waterfront.
Here’s a look at the traffic on I-5 (looking south).

Beautiful colors reflected by the windows of the Crowne Plaza hotel in downtown. The hotel was completed in 1980 and has 18 floors.

Seattle’s weird library with its faceted frames of glass and steel has 11 floors. It opened in May 2004 to the public.

Further south along 4th Avenue is the Columbia Tower, at 76 stories still the tallest structure in the state of Washington. (Getting squeezed out of view from here a little bit by the F5 Tower in front of it that opened in 2017).

Heading down to the waterfront now. It’s good that I snapped this picture of the sun behind the clouds, because it was gone for the day just a few minutes later.

Seattle has 33 fire stations and the one on the waterfront is No 5. The original Fire Station No. 5 building opened here at this location in 1902.

Here are the first cars rolling onto the Walla Walla ferry at Colman Dock (Seattle Ferry Terminal), for its departure to Bremerton.
Look at the windsock and choppy water: there is a strong breeze.

On my way back to the G-line bus stop. Here is “What Goes Up Must Come Down” — the giant paddle-ball sculpture by Catherine Mayer at 2nd Avenue and Spring St. It is about 42 feet tall and made of fiberglass and steel.

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Friday/ AI embellishments 🦍

Happy Friday.
I embellished some of my pictures from last Sunday with Google’s new Gemini 3 (“Nano Banana Pro”) image editor.

It is as easy as saying “Add Bigfoot (Sasquatch) crossing the street into this picture”.
(The Cybertruck in the last picture was real, and not added).

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Saturday/ sophisticated humor 🦓

I was not 100% sure if I understood all the subtle humor in this cartoon, and enlisted the Chat GPT chatbot’s help to explain it to me.

The cartoonist is Edward Steed (born 1987), a British cartoonist and illustrator, best known for his work for in The New Yorker magazine.

Here is the explainer from Chat GPT:
The humor comes from the contrast: ‘Polite cocktail-party etiquette’ versus ‘Wild-animal behavior’. It’s the absurd mix of manners (“Could you hold my drink?”) with the expectation that something ferocious is about to happen (such as the lion devouring the zebra). The rest of the party acting like all this is totally normal adds to the surreal deadpan comedy.
[From The New Yorker magazine, the Dec 18 & 25, 2017 issue].

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Saturday/ don’t stop painting 🦁

It’s time for another safari cartoon.

Cartoon by Eldon Dedini.
(That must be Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania in the distance, and on the canvas— elevation 19, 341’/ 5,895 m).
From a hardcover book called ‘The Dedini Gallery’, published by Holt, Rinehart & Winston, New York (1961). The cartoon first appeared in The New Yorker magazine in 1959.

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Monday/ shades of King George V 👑

I have long been unhappy with my pre-printed Leuchtturm stamp album pages for the first definitive issue of stamps for the Union of South Africa*.

The old pages are in bad shape, with bare-bones headers, and my South African Color Catalogue lists several more shades of the King George V issues, as well as a few with inverted watermarks.

The new page that I created is a difficult assembly and not yet complete, though. The black-and-white images are placeholders.
Will I ever get my grubby hands on one each of the two £1 stamps at the very high end of the set?
I doubt it. The catalog values for perfect specimens of these are US$800 and US$ 1,000 respectively.

*The Union of South Africa was the historical predecessor to the present-day Republic of South Africa. It came into existence on May 31,  1910 with the unification of the Cape Colony, Natal, Transvaal, and Orange River Colony.

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Sunday/ along Columbia Street ️️🏙️

I took the G Line bus to the waterfront, and walked back up along Columbia Street in downtown Seattle to take a few pictures.
The tallest building in Seattle is on Columbia Street: the 76-story Columbia Center, which rises 937 feet (286 m) and was completed in 1985.

I went back to the waterfront to watch the sun set.
Sunset is now at 4.49 pm.

Blue skies and golden leaves on the way to the G Line bus stop on 17th Avenue E and Madison Street.

The view an hour or so before sunset from the Marion Street Ferry Walkway, looking north along Alaskan Way.

There’s the Columbia Center, reflected on the marble wall by First Avenue.

The Columbia Center (1985, 76 stories) is in the middle of the picture, with the Seattle Municipal Tower (1990, 57 stories). 
On the right is the Pacific Building (1971, 22 stories).

A closer look at the Columbia Center.

There goes the last of the leaves on the gingko tree at 215 Columbia Street.
This building was originally the Seattle Chamber of Commerce Building (1924), and is now the Northwest Title Insurance Company Building (since 2007).

The Net, formerly known as The Marion, is a planned high-rise office building. In its current design iteration, it is to be 36 stories tall.

Six skyscrapers in one picture.
Clockwise from the top right corner: the Columbia Center (1985), the Seattle Municipal Tower (1990), the F5 Tower (2017), 901 Fifth Avenue (1973), Fourth and Madison Building (2002), DocuSign Tower (1983).

Buildings close to Alaskan Way by the waterfront. I like the pastel colors reflected in the window panes facing the setting sun.

Sunset with the Seattle Ferry Terminal (Colman Dock, Pier 52) on the left.
The ferry is the Kaleetan, getting ready to depart for Bainbridge Island.