Taro Vase and Pumpkin Flowers. Evening Bangkok Sightseeing

Bangkok, Thailand
February 2013

Carving lessons at Malisa school

Chiang Mai-Bangkok train had a late arrival to the city. I had no time for seeing China Town in the morning as planned, I run to the carving school (jumped to my hotel for quick freshening after train). 

At the lesson I had a Taro root for carving. I have never seen it before, it was a new material to carve. Taro is good for sculpting. Here is a small vase with rose carving on it.

Shaping a vase out of Taro.  It was a small root

Completed vase carved of Taro

Taro root

Pumpkin flower

I wanted to share pictures of Bangkok suburbs made through the train window, but couldn't take good photographs because of the concrete pillars along the railway.

impossible to take good pictures of Bangkok suburbs because of the  pillars

These pillars are parts of a big construction of a new line for Sky Train in Bangkok. The line was canceled by the goverment, and the construction will be removed shortly (or not). Citizens call it 'Thai Stonehenge'.

Thai Stonehenge, the picture shared by Taweesak, a train companion of mine

I had good companions in the train, Thai guys, bicyclists, coming back from Chiang Mai cycling trip.
I have never been alone while my Thailand trip :) Of couse we are connected on Facebook now :)

with Taweesak, the train companion. Thank you, my friend! Good to know you.

Oh, I have one picture, it's Monkey Town 

After my lessons at Malisa school I went to the city. Got China Town in the evening about 6 p.m. when its streets got empty already, only mad cats walking.

in China Town

Retro car in China Town  (?)

I was not in mood to go ahead with the district sightseeing, I turned myself to Siam Paragon, a huge complex with shops, entertaining spots, food courts, Siam Ocean World and Imax cineplex (that was my aim).
Have I mentioned cinema is my passion? I booked 'Hansel and Gretel Witch Hunters' 4DX (the effects were  good, they had a few scary bloody scenes brrr).

cool car show in Siam Paragon center

Siam Paragon in lighting

Next post will show up the soap carving of new Malisa's design, new carving friends of mine and.. cats in Bangkok. Read all my Thai stories here.

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Thai Food. Chiang Mai Sightseeing

Chiang Mai, Thailand
February 2013

We had a dinner for 4 persons in a Thai restaurant.
Picked up the popular thai dishes, I don't remember its names. There were fried fish, a salad, tasty something looking like a white soup and fried chicken in leaf wraps.

Deep-fried fish with a sauce

Fried chicken wrapped in leaves

The fried chicken dish was garnished with a simple carrot flower. No carvings. Food first :) Don't you think the chicken in leaf wraps looks decorative?

The next day I found a recipe of the fried chicken in a guide magazine at my hotel.

Click the photo to enlarge

Fried chicken wrapped in leaf

Wrapping how-to

If you want to learn thai cooking, visit the Food Store at TempleofThai.com. There is plenty of asian products and cookware, some articles have a video about cooking/using the products.

Chiang Mai Sightseeng

Red Songtail taxi 

Laundry in Chiang Mai

Frangipani flowers what we carved in soap with Khun

Chiang Mai veiw from a hill

with Karla (TempleofThai.com)

In a Budhist temple, a sacred place on the hill

in the temple

God statues

Little thai girls dancing on the flower petals

Pagoda
walk the temple area barefoot

Take your time walking the Buddhist temple. Watch the local people doing rituals. You can do the same. We donated to the birth day's god to get the upper spirit support, got a strength from a Buddhist monk and picked out a fortune prediction (it was similar to O-mikuji in Japan). 

I had evening train to Bangkok that day. Well that was time to go back to the city, toward new carving lessons and new meetings!

Khun, Karla, Rob, see you on Facebook! :-)

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Papillion Method For Making Fruit Sculptures. Dragon and Snake Out of Oranges

I am writing this post to share some news in the world fruit carving industry. 

Mr.Paolo Pachetti introduces his fruit sculpting style named Papillion Method.
Paolo has DVDs for sale at his website. Now he is looking for students for his course on cocktail fruit decoration.

I purchased his DVDs in December 2012. I have 3 video tutorials on making a fruit dragon, a lion and cocktail garnishes. Paolo uses pomelo fruit for the big sculptures and small citrus fruits for cocktails.

As far as pomelo is a rare fruit in my place I used grapefruits and oranges for the sculpting.

The dragon on the picture below was made for the male's 60th birhtday party (the birthday guy was the Dragon according to the Chinese astrology) in 2012.
Material: grapefruits.

Fruit Dragon for 60th birthday party

Fruit Dragon sculpture, Papillion method

I found this method interesting and alternative to watermelon carving in winter (say 'no-watermelon-season'). The method allows to create various fruit models.

I did the Snake, a host of the year 2013, out of oranges for New Year exhibition.

Snake sculpture out of oranges

Paolo's website http://www.fruitsculpture.it/

The info about cocktail garnish course:

Enjoy carving art all the year round!

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Flower Festival in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Meeting carving friends.

Chiang Mai is a beautiful city and an ancient capital located in the north, a motherland of all kind of carving in Thailand (wood, stone, fruit and vegetable carving art and other)

I came to the city to meet my carving friends Karla (a president of TempleofThai.com) and Khun Narata (a carving artist and teacher). TempleofThai was a sponsor of the Fall Carving Contest 2012. My trip was a perfect occasion to meet the people in person.

I was lucky to get Chiang Mai at the day of Flower Festival. It was a Flower Parade with orchestra, costumed people and big flower sculptures moving the city streets. Apart from flowers we noticed vegetable carving flowers and watermelons.

Dragons made of flowers are the copies of dragon sculptures in Thai temples 

flower sculptures

A Thai girl sits between flower sculptures.
We noticed vegetable flower bouquets  there!

Flowers carved of vegetables 

Watermelon and pumpkin carving

The Zero kilometer. Thailand starts from here

After watching the parade we went to Wat Prasingh Temple to see Khun Narata carving. Khun is a well known carving artist and teacher. That day she had a carving class at the temple area in the shadow of  the  buddhist garden trees. What a great idea of having classes in a such pleasant place! I was invited to try myself in carving frangipani flowers out of soap.  

With Khun Narata 

Girls carving soap flowers

Frangipani soap carving in a process, carved with the thai knife

Frangipani flowers in person and in soap

I left the girls at the carving and went for a cultural dose. The temple was beautiful with lot of dragon sculptures (we saw its copy at the Flower Parade). I did some things for good luck in the temple, took some pictures, had a talk with a buddhist monk (he started it, not me :)), tried local food with delicious fried stuff. 

Dragon statues in the Chiang Mai temple

Buddhists care for flora and fauna

After the carving lesson Khun gave me a lift to a Thai restaraunt, we had a dinner for 4 friends there. The food, a   famous thai recipe and more pictures will come up in my next post!

Khun's motobike. It was my first ride on a motobike! Was scary at first :)

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My Travel to Bangkok for Carving Art Study. Malisa School

A few days ago I came back from my trip to Bangkok, Thailand. 

I had a week there to study carving art, to travel Thailand and meet friends. Do you think one week is a short period? Every day I had carving practice, new friends meeting and nice talks with local people. 

My route wasn't a typical tourist route. Besides Bangkok I visited  Chiang Mai, a heart of Thai culture. Thanks Karla from TempleofThai.com for showing me around and getting me acquainted with Thai food and  culture on my first visit to Thailand! 

I have a lot to share with you my friends :) I will write several posts about my travel and study, you are able to read all of them by clicking the "Thailand' label in the sidebar of the blog.

Malisa School in Bangkok

Malisa Language and Culture School is very famous among Japanese carving artists. The school teaches fruit and soap carving art, Thai cooking and Thai dances. I took a soap and fruit carving course from Malisa teachers. 

The school is located at Sukhumvit district in Bangkok, a noisy place famous with its night life. So you have a great opportunity to learn a traditional Thai culture at the school in day and experience a mad city with pubs&girls in night (that is a contemporary Thai culture:)) 

Spirit house by the entrance to Malisa school.
Pray first before going for fun in the city :)

A hotel building with beautiful plants on the way to Malisa school

I have stayed at Orchid Place guest house in 3 minutes walk from the school. The guest house is aside of the noisy streets with a good location close to the train city line (Nana station). It was a safe place with surprisingly calm neighbours :) If you want to come to Malisa school I'll give you a contact of Malisa person to help you with accomodation and study schedule.

Malisa's teachers speak Japanese and English languages. You will need a knife for your study. You can buy it at the reception or bring your own knife. Malisa's designs are intricate, be ready to carve many small details.  

I was surprised to meet a famous carving book writer Narong Kasinsit at class, he is a teacher in Malisa.

with Malisa school's teachers and personnel (not all here)

with Tui-sensei

I had two lessons that day, on soap and melon carving.

my soap carving

my melon carving

melon carving in process

can't carve deeper, the melon is hollow inside

After lessons I went to find out what is Sukhumvit. Friday night was on. Loud music, pubs, food shops, narrow streets, people, cars, taxi, people, dogs, bikes, people.. Oh my! I found a post office and sent a postal card with greetings to my home (I have a custom to send cards from places I travell to). Went back to my hotel and got asleep. The next day I had early flight to Chiang Mai. That was my first day in Bangkok.

Morning in Bangkok, sunrise at Sukhumvit

Sukhumvit street in evening. 

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