KL Chinatown Jalan Sultan Mural

This is a follow-up post to the earlier post, Preserving Kuala Lumpur Chinatown heritage with a Mural.

Wish I was able to be at Chinatown on Saturday to witness this Jalan Sultan mural in the making. It used to be a sad, dilapidated wall along the Jalan Sultan stretch here. In fact, the site here used to be a funeral parlour for many decades if not a century, which probably accounts for the plot being left alone even after it has stopped operating as one.

The group of 60 artists and well-wishers on Saturday transformed the location into something artistic and bright at the same time playing a part in preserving Chinatown's heritage which dates back to the Yap Ah Loy era of the mid-1800s.

Here is a glimpse of some of the many artworks adorning the wall. These are video-shots picked up from the video below.

Video to watch..

Visitors to yesterday's event also got to go on a heritage walk that took them to historic sites in Chinatown, including the Petaling Street gateway and Lee Lam Thye market.

More..Mural project gives Jalan Sultan colourful facelift, The Star

Preserving Kuala Lumpur Chinatown heritage with a Mural

If you are planning on going downtown to Chinatown this morning, you might want to drop by Jalan Sultan to witness history in the making or rather an activity on Chinatown heritage preservation.

In the wake of intended acquisition for the MRT project and the need to preserve century-old buildings in Jalan Sultan, The Star, in partnership with Dulux, is joining forces with a group of 50 artists on an art installation. Amongst the artists are Sharifah Zuriah, Syed Thajudeen, Tew Nai Tong and Philip Wong.

Their canvas will be the wall, near the carpark on Lot 49, Jalan Sultan, which was exposed since the demolition of six pre-war shophouses including the iconic Chik Sin Thong funeral parlour about 15 years ago.

The artists will start to paint from 9am. Members of the public are welcome to see them at work and to support the cause. Several sessions of heritage walks around Chinatown have been arranged, but participation is only on a first-come-first-served basis.

This badly-weathered wall will be the canvas for the artists today. Inset shows a worker engaged by Dulux painting the wall for the Jalan Sultan mural.

Source: The Star


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Toxic art - Portraits using Pills

Celebrities make popular subjects for art, in any medium. These celebs don't need introduction. Besides being famous in the entertainment arena, one thing they have in common is that they are no longer with us. Gone too soon, indeed! What did they all succumb to? Take a closer look at the images below and you might get a clue. Click on them to enlarge for a better view.

Amy Winehouse

Michael Jackson

Heath Ledger

Great works of art, don't you think? These portraits are created by a U.S.-based artist, Jason Mercier, using colorful medications, as part of a series of mosaics inspired by celebrities who battled drug abuse.

Rehab-star Amy Winehouse died at the end of last month, bringing to an end her well publicised battle with crack cocaine, heroin and alcohol. We all know what happened to Michael Jackson and Heath Ledger.

While we are at medications, if you are interested in gaining education in the medical field but attending school in a traditional classroom is not practical, you can sign up for an online medical assistant school.

It says on the website, students will receive online support from their instructors, peers and student services through faxes, phone, virtual classroom, email and newsletters. The student can communicate with an admissions representative, view their facility through a virtual tour, apply to the program of their choice, register for classes and seek financial assistance.


Source: Dailymail.co.uk

12 Monkeys dance performance in Penang on Saturday

If I were to be in Penang this Saturday, I would be sure to watch this dance performance at the George Town Festival 2011 to be held at the Taman Rekreasi Kuari, Penang Botanical Gardens.

It starts at 6:30pm. Admission is free.


Source: The Star..Monkey dance

Best insider tips on Amsterdam restaurants and art from Coolcapitals

If you think Holland is just about tulips and windmills, you would be surprised to know that there is more to Holland than tulips and windmills.

Amsterdam, the capital of Holland, is famous for its diversity and tolerance as well as its architecture, design and art, not forgetting its food. Amsterdam restaurants serve a wide variety of cuisines from their traditional Dutch pancakes to French food to Arabic, Japanese, Indonesian and more. Any visitor to this wonderful city will be able to try out any food imaginable from the international flavors available in this favorite city for travellers.

If you are planning a visit to Amsterdam, here is a site to check out for recommended amsterdam restaurants to enhance your food experience. Coolcapitals.com offers insider tips on Amsterdam restaurants to help you discover the best of cuisines Amsterdam has to offer.

Little Buddha Amsterdam is among restaurants recommended. Food lovers can expect the unexpected from the Little Buddha chefs and you can enjoy one of the signature cocktails or Sakes that is guaranteed to please your taste buds. Little Buddha Amsterdam is also open for lunch.

Little Buddha

Here is another restaurant that makes the list and which warrants checking out. Restaurant Fifteen Amsterdam is the Dutch restaurant of the British TV chef, Jamie Oliver, the Naked Chef. Every year fifteen young people with limited future prospects are chosen and trained to become catering professionals. This project has been made into a reality show. Anyway, this huge restaurant that seats 200, is set up in a former warehouse and serves Jamie’s modern Mediterranean dishes. Fifteen’s Trattoria has a simpler menu of delights such as antipasti, risotto and desserts if you don't feel like having such an elaborate meal.

Restaurant Fifteen

If it is art in Amsterdam you are interested in, Coolcapitals.com offers the very best insider tips on art in Amsterdam and recommends places to go and what to see. In fact, no visit to Amsterdam is complete until you have visited the art galleries or museums to take in the artwork of Dutch Masters such as Van Gogh and Rembrandt. For those with a desire to take in some of the finest art pieces found anywhere in the world, art Amsterdam does not disappoint.

A visit to the Van Gogh Museum must be a unique experience. The museum contains the largest collection of paintings in the world by Vincent van Gogh. The museum also holds exhibitions on various subjects from 19th-century art history. On Friday nights, from 1800 to 2200hours, the Van Gogh Museum turns into a nightspot where people can kick back and unwind after a tough week. With a bar in place, the lights are dimmed in their central hall, the stereo turned up, some lounge chairs pulled out, DJs invited and live acts to perform.

Amsterdam, there is more than meets the eye. If you are going to Amsterdam, do check out Coolcapitals.com for insider tips on anything Amsterdam, be it deals, design, architecture, events, entertainment, hotels, fashion, shopping. You won't regret it!

Google doodle: Honoring Martha Graham

Another animated Google doodle today. This time to honor someone who made a difference in the performing arts, Martha Graham. See the little performance on google.com.

Some information from Wikipedia..

Martha Graham (May 11, 1894 – April 1, 1991) was an American dancer choreographer regarded as one of the foremost pioneers of modern dance, whose influence on dance can be compared to the influence Stravinsky had on music, Picasso had on the visual arts, or Frank Lloyd Wright had on architecture.[1] Graham was a galvanizing performer, a choreographer of astounding moves. She invented a new language of movement, and used it to reveal the passion, the rage and the ecstasy common to human experience. She danced and choreographed for over seventy years, and during that time was the first dancer ever to perform at The White House, the first dancer ever to travel abroad as a cultural ambassador, and the first dancer ever to receive the highest civilian award of the USA: the Medal of Freedom. In her lifetime she received honors ranging from the key to the City of Paris to Japan's Imperial Order of the Precious Crown. She said, "I have spent all my life with dance and being a dancer. It's permitting life to use you in a very intense way. Sometimes it is not pleasant. Sometimes it is fearful. But nevertheless it is inevitable."

Image above is of Martha Graham, shown here with Bertram Ross

Google logo today, Feb 8 - Jules Verne

Google has an interesting logo today on its website. It is to commemorate the birthday of Jules Verne.

From Wikipedia,
Jules Gabriel Verne (French pronunciation: [ʒyl vɛʁn]; February 8, 1828 – March 24, 1905) was a French author from Brittany who pioneered the science-fiction genre. He is best known for novels such as Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870), A Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864), and Around the World in Eighty Days (1873). Verne wrote about space, air, and underwater travel before air travel and practical submarines were invented, and before practical means of space travel had been devised. He is the third most translated individual author in the world, according to Index Translationum. Some of his books have been made into films. Verne, along with Hugo Gernsback and H. G. Wells, is often popularly referred to as the "Father of Science Fiction".

The image is in the form of a series of portholes in an underwater vessel - what else! On the right is a joystick which you can manoever in four different directions to view the sea life. You will notice that the lower you go, the darker it gets. Very cool! Quick, get on to Google.com. This is what it looks like.