1. Exemplary Interiors

Tori-Tori, one of the best Japanese restaurants in Mexico City, was winner of Interior Design magazine’s 2011 Best of Year Award for fine dining. The vibrant color and organic shape of the façade caught my eye. The project was built from the ground up and each dining space sports its own collection of custom furniture to enhance the diner’s experience.

The organic shape of the façade is created from two self-supporting layers of steel plates cut with a CNC machine.

Dramatic view of the restaurant entry.

The glass balustrade and glass wall provide an unobstructed view of the striking building façade.

Dubbed as the House of the Flight of Birds, the two wings of this home with their undulating rooflines bear remarkable resemblance to a pair of stylized birds. I love how architect Bernardo Rodrigues integrated the form of the house with its interior details so both elements reinforce his vision of the space.

The colorful high wall acts as a wind break to the blustery weather.

Covered courtyards and patios on the ground floor shelter the living spaces while the staircase to the roof top terrace traces the curvilinear form of the building.

The window ‘sling’ is a perfect example of Rodrigues’ attention to detail when designing the interiors of the space.

2. Green Light For Green Lighting

Since I write so much about lighting, it’ll be hard to close out the year without picking an eco friendly light fixture.

The award winning Plumen 001 light bulb has its merits – and at $35, is probably the cheapest designer lighting product on the market.

The lamp exudes a raw, industrial aesthetic, but I find the lamp a bit too ‘in my face’. However it’s supposed to provide almost 60W of light from an 11W bulb and lasts about eight years, so it’s a great choice if you want an energy efficient light bulb that makes a statement!

The light bulb is over 7" long and over 4" wide so it looks best in ‘bare’ sockets - considering it won’t fit inside a lot of lamp shades.

I personally prefer a more refined look. Aqua Creations unveiled a beautiful series of LED light fixtures, each of which are hand crafted from a single sheet of paper. The origami lamp casts a soft, delicate glow and will provide quality ambient lighting in any space.

The computer machined mahogany base adds to the organic look and feel of the lighting fixture.

3. The Travel Bug

As Rick Steves aptly puts it ”There are travelers and there are tourists. There is travel and there is hedonism.”

Billed as Editor’s Choice for Alternative Reality by travel writer Gary A. Warner, Las Vegas makes an easy weekend getaway. Considering all the action on and off the Strip, it certainly belongs to Rick’s latter category!

Paris, Las Vegas, by night. If canals are more your style, just mosey along the Strip to the Venetian...

...or head for Luxor to commune with the Great Sphinx of Giza!

I spent 3 weeks last winter in SE Asia, part of which was on a cruise. It was a whirlwind tour of China, Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Thailand and Singapore.

The good thing was that I was able to visit my family in Hong Kong, albeit for just a day - the roundtrip plane ticket would have set me back about $1300 in what I jokingly  call ‘Marsupial Class’!

On the other hand, I found out that unlike cruising in other parts of the world, a lot of the ports in SE Asia are an hour or more from the cities of interest. Most of the big ships have to be docked at deep water container ports which are nowhere near centers of civilization. The ports for Beijing, Shanghai, Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) and Bangkok are a couple hours away depending on traffic, and even Hong Kong and Nha Trang (Central Vietnam) require extended transfers to reach their town centers.

Despite the logistics issues, we steadfastly avoided the ship’s group excursions and experienced each country’s people, food, culture and religion through its local markets and street food stalls.

My favorite dish in Beijing. It was love at first bite – the glistening and crispy skin of the Peking duck at Da Dong Roast Duck Restaurant was absolutely addictive!

Festive night scene of Hong Kong as the ship sailed past the harbor. The waterfront buildings are usually lit up like a Christmas tree (can’t resist the pun!) for the holidays.

4. Food for Thought

While I’m not a fan of sugary fried dough, apparently fancy donuts are making a comeback!

Check out these ‘designer doughnuts’ – Gourdoughs in Austin has glazed versions topped with grilled bananas & cream cheese icing with brown sugar. Frittelli’s of Beverly Hills offers gianduja and orange cranberry, while Federal’s in Philadelphia features fried concoctions of pina colada and vanilla lavender.

Gourdough’s Dirty Berry doughnut is smothered in strawberries, chocolate syrup & chocolate chips.

Gourmet cupcakes seem to have made their run, while more and more mararons are debuting in upscale bakeries these days: even the renowned Parisian patisserie Ladurée opened its first stateside store in New York City last year.

In fact I saw not one but two shops selling these delectable treats at the Marina Bay Sands Resort in Singapore last year, one of which was owned by Jean-Philippe Darcis, the first Belgian chocolatier to win the accolade “Ambassador of Belgian Chocolate”. I soooo miss the yummy-licious macarons from L’Atelier Jean-Luc Pelé in Cannes!

Macarons come in a rainbow of colors with sublimely creative concoctions such as passion chocolate, strawberry poppy, white chocolate coconut, foie gras with sea salt caramel and citron vert vodka…

5. It’s not Lady Gaga…

Of course the fashion event of the year for the world was Kate Middleton’s wedding dresses at the Royal Wedding to Prince William. I was busy with work so never followed the celebrations very closely, but it gave me flashbacks of Princess Diana’s storybook wedding to Prince Charles so many years ago…

Here’s a distinctly ‘royal’ picture of Prince William & Kate Middleton in their gilded carriage.

An uncannily similar shot from Princess Diana’s wedding to Prince Charles.

For me, the fashion event of the year was being part of the Designer Challenge fashion show.

Put on by my professional organization, the CA Peninsula Chapter of the American Society of Interior Designers, teams of interior designers are given randomly drawn interior design materials (upholstery and window fabrics, trimmings, tiles and wallpapers) 90 minutes before the start of the fashion show. The challenge is to design and fabricate a ‘couture’ garment without using a sewing machine within a short 1.5 hours.

I met up with my team, Haute Rags, the afternoon of the show. Luck of the draw landed us an unusual snake motif fabric, which became the inspiration of our design. Once the outfit was sketched out, we worked fast and furious to turn our vision into reality in our remaining hour.

Absolutely clueless about the art of tailoring, I was kept busy and out of trouble assembling the garment while others created dress patterns on the fly. Work was feverish but a total blast and I have to say guns (hot glue and staple), not diamonds, were my best friends that night!

Our team member’s sketch of the design.

Our ‘Contemporary Egyptian’ theme was accented by a multi-color metallic tile collar and snake tattoo on our model’s arm.

Here is proof positive that you can create Haute Couture from home furnishings! This ornate headdress of delicately etched floral patterns is a creative adaptation of an award winning lamp shade by Tord Boontje. He used advanced laser cutting technologies on metals to produce cascading 3-D floral patterns that vaguely is reminiscent of a SE Asian tribal headdress I saw at Singapore’s Asian Civilisations Museum (it’s not a typo – the official name is Civilisations with an ‘s’). The light shade is an alchemy of organic lighting design and tech savviness.

To deploy it as a lamp shade, you simply drape the Garland around a bare light bulb and secure it to the base with a clip. One can intertwine several strands together for a more voluminous creation. Materials available include brass or stainless steel, but for those who desire more bling, there is a 24K gold plated option!

A festoon of silver Garland Light strands artfully hand crafted into a chic headdress!

This colorful chandelier is one of 3 limited edition fixtures created by Johanna Grawunder, who was a partner with Ettore Sottsass of Memphis fame. The ceiling lighting, essentially a 31.5” cube, is made from polished acrylic, stainless steel and LED lights. It was listed in an art auction for an estimated value of $32-36,000 earlier this year, so come with your wheelbarrow of dollars if you want one!

The vibrant and crisp, clear colors of this pendant lighting fixture make it a great piece of functional art.

Here’s a clever way to upcycle and repurpose everyday goods into decorative furnishings – in this case, old books. Available as a table lamp or pendant light, each custom fixture is fashioned from a single book. In this way, all parts – the pages, spine and covers – are put to good, use minimizing landfill one book at a time! As the books are intended to reflect customer interests, art and coffee table books are great choices.

Casting a soft glow, the lighting fixture functions well as a mood light. An ingenuous way to re-lamp: fluorescent light bulbs can be replaced by removing the book covers.

A nice touch - each light fixture comes with a custom lamp base engraved with the name of the book from which it was made.

By taking advantage of carbon fiber’s outstanding strength & nominal weight, lighting designer Marcus Tremonto was able to create a ceiling light that resembles a swirling ribbon frozen in mid air. Electroluminescent electronic paper is used to maintain the thin profile of the lighting strip.

Some likened the pendant lighting fixture to a giant soft serve ice cream cone hanging upside down from the ceiling!

A whimsical ceiling lighting fixture designed by award winning designer Ingo Maurer that is playful and creative. This lamp comes with sheets of paper as part of the lighting and is designed so they can be hung at random on stainless steel wires around a heat resistant frosted glass diffuser.

This fixture is almost 48” x 48” and features a collection of 31 sheets of paper with English, French, German, Swedish, Chinese, Japanese, Russian proverbs and poems. There are also 49 sheets of blank Japanese paper, allowing aspiring poets to hang their writings up for the world to enjoy.

POW! This limited edition chandelier packs a visual punch. The colorful lighting fixture has 80 sheets of paper, each of which is printed with either a comic character or word.

Want a green and sustainable lighting option? Look no more! Upcycling and repurposing out-of-ink Epson cartridges into lighting fixtures is as eco friendly as you can get. The casings are translucent and come in a plethora of colors: Cyan, Yellow, Magenta, Light Cyan, Light Magenta, Black, and 2 Grays.

The chandelier version includes all the ink colors, but at 12” diameter and 8” tall, the 100W fixture feels more like a pendant than a grand chandelier.

The single ink cartridge can be used as a 6 W desk lamp, night light, or hanging lamp.

OK – this entry isn’t technically a lighting fixture, but NunoErin’s interactive Lightning Bench lights up like a X’mas tree on contact! The secret? Hidden under the touch-sensitive resin ‘skin’ is a network of sensors that detect electrical charges within the human body. When the bench is touched, it’ll produce a display of flickering lights at the points of contact.

The translucent, luminous bench surface is made of resin with 40% recycled content, making it a both cool AND environmentally friendly piece of furniture.

Keeping the public entertained – the lighting effects, shapes, and colors are all customizable for an even more dynamic experience.

Looking like a delicate bird’s nest spun from silk threads, this chandelier is the creation of Alicja Wasielewska when studying at the Edinburgh College of Art. By taking the unconventional approach of applying traditional crochet techniques to new fiber optic technology, she was able to fabricate the fixture’s ethereal design.

Fiber optics strands loosely form a bowl shape and tumble like strings of fine pearls from the Chandelier.

Another design born from the dynamic partnership between nature and technology. The sculptural lighting pendant consists of 8 laser-cut “leaves” made from sustainable and recycled/recyclable materials, such as renewable cotton mat and cardboard. Lamping options include LEDs or 40 Watt light bulbs. All of the leaves are interchangeable with one another, so you can mix & match the different patterns, colors, and materials within the series to your creative heart’s desire.

Patterns of the ‘leaves’ are precise and modular, an ironic counterpoint to the organic aesthetic of nature’s forms.

Inspired by the centuries-old folk art of shadow play, Michael Rosing and the Cologne-based artist Dennis Thies created a unique floor lamp called Shining Image. It offers 10 different patterns that can be projected onto any blank wall in a house.

Whimsical and playful, the two-dimensional sculptures will appeal to everyone’s inner child!

On a recent trip down the Central Coast, I was able to check out furnishings showrooms between jaunts to wineries and tasting rooms. This definitely upped the pleasure quotient even though showroom hopping was admittedly fun enough! Although there were less high end accessories available compared to the Bay Area, I was very impressed by the variety and selection nonetheless.        

It was awesome to see the abundance of accessories creatively making use of materials both new and old. The range and depth of repurposed products show that sustainable design is now truly main stream: some artisans take to breathing new life into time worn objects, while others focus on re-imagining mundane products, adding their own pixie dust to produce pieces of functional art.     

Of course plenty of objects in the showrooms are cherished simply for what they are, perfectly complimented by their marks of age – fragments of worn & faded kimono stencils, patinated bronze torsos of 16th century warriors, or weathered wooden ox cart wheels. The choice is yours!   

I found this in a Bay Area designer showroom. The bracket is circa Meji era Japan. It epitomizes what I love about the Japanese aesthetic: wabi-sabi. It is raw, spare, unadorned, and because of that, powerfully striking.          

Japanese Elephant Temple Bracket

As part of the movement to create sustainable furnishings, this lighting fixture is made from salvaged copper piping and other recycled parts. The table lamp’s delicate look belies its humble roots and shows what creative reuse of junk yard finds can do.         

Table Lamp of Salvaged Copper Piping

The exuberant colors and diversity of sizes as well as shapes of these Asian spice containers attest to the personal nature of cooking the world over.       

Spice Containers from Asia

The flowing form of this reclaimed wood top is edged by striking sapwood borders along its length. Two artfully arrayed sets of butterfly spline joints become the main decorative elements. Making lemonade from lemons: I love how the joints’ proportionate sizing and judicious placement work with the cracks in the slab and turn them into design features!       

Reclaimed Wood Table Top

These beautifully weathered artifacts are actually roof top finials from Thailand. There is something elemental about these craggy spires that help transform the mundane into objects of desire.       

Antique Thai Roof Top Finials

The massive skull caught my eye, and all of a sudden I saw flashes of Georgia O’Keefe. Although Asian buffalos have much longer horns than their American counterparts, there’s no stopping anyone from exercising creative license and using the skull for a “Southwest Look”!        

Preserved Asian Buffalo Skull

The bleached buffalo skull is vaguely reminiscent of Georgia O’Keeffe’s painting “Deer’s Skull with Pedernal” even if it were a different animal, so to speak!       

Georgia O'Keeffe painting "Deer's Skull with Pedernal”

Tongue in cheek upcycling - this lighting fixture cleverly uses printed circuit board schematics on the lamp shade. I’m impressed by the remarkable symmetry of the product cycle: construction industry waste of glulam beam and scrapped metal parts are re-incarnated into interior furnishings and used for the lamp base.       

Recycled Circuit Board Table Lamp

Conventional wisdom is that refinishing antiques can diminish their value.  But unless the item is a period masterpiece or has a rare hand-painted finish, one always has the option to restore the furniture and repurpose it for a ‘second life’. This light wood cabinet was artfully stripped to leave small traces of red lacquer to give it a fresh contemporary feel. With the wood waxed and hinges repaired, the sideboard was transformed into a piece of furniture that worked as well as it looked.       

Restored Antique Chinese Sideboard

As green living becomes a way of life, the focus on lighting still centers around energy efficiency, such as how much light per watt can an LED fixture eke out. Although energy conservation is important, it’s equally important to have fun accent lighting as well.  Here is a collection of unique and creative earth friendly decorative fixtures.          

Making the Extraordinary from the Ordinary – enPieza a design firm from Madrid concocted a shimmery chandelier out of discarded Bic pens, which are apparently as plentiful in Spain as they are over here! This version is made with clear and black plastic pens. The fixtures are available 32” h x 20.5” w or 47” h x 35” w.          

Chandelier of recycled clear and black plastic Bic pens

This chandelier in iconic yellow and black Bic pens have a pop-art look to it.          

Chandelier of recycled yellow and black plastic Bic pens

For those who love reading, here is a light fixture made of what else – books! With thousands of used books heading for the landfill, Brit designer Lucy Norman is helping to off-load some of these books by turning them into fixtures aptly called ‘Light Reading’.          

View of the pendant fixture Light Reading from below

Each page is folded in half to create a number of circular forms. The paper is artfully cut to reveal a visual texture that is at once familiar and alien.          

Close up of the construction of the lighting

The Trash Me Lamp by architect and industrial designer Victor Vetterlein stays true to its name. It’s made of recycled materials and designed to be recycled at the end of life, so instead of ashes to ashes, this product is trash to trash!         

The light fixture is hand crafted from the pulp of 4 paper egg cartons. It sports a red cloth electrical cord with recyclable electrical parts and is fastened with aluminum screw posts.         

The light fixture’s texture reinforces the pared down industrial look

A totally organic design solution – the desk lamp uses a paper bag filled with bird seed to stabilize the base.         

Cut away view of the desk lamp showing the cavity for the bird seeds in the base

I love mood lighting for its dramatic impact and Neoz Lighting has come out with 2 truly exciting portable lighting products. The Australian firm offers an award winning collection of cordless rechargeable lamps that allows you to light up anytime, anywhere, legally!         

The fixtures are available with LED or halogen light bulbs, depending on whether energy efficiency or task lighting is needed. The lighting is wildly popular with the hospitality industry, especially among beach front resorts. Apparently the romantic candle light look without the accompanying hazards makes a great selling point!         

The products are designed for sustainability so all core components are replaceable, upgradeable and recyclable. The fixtures use Lithium-ion battery technology which is one of the greenest choices.         

The table lamps allow varied brightness levels, including a candle light option, for intimate tête-à-têtes indoors

…or outdoors!

The other product category is called ‘illuminated furniture’. As a unique type of dimmable, illuminated seating that is also suitable for indoor or outdoor applications, it is one Cool Stool…         

The furniture of UV stabilized, recyclable, and weather proof polyethylene provides a soft ambient glow. Like the lighting products, it is available in 1.1 W LED.         

The distinction blurs between lighting and furniture at this resort

The glow from the illuminated seating and lamps creates a feeling of exotic drama

This model is probably more practical in bars as the seats are smaller but easier to stay perched on after a couple toddies!

The big day finally arrived – we were heading to the Amazon! We flew from Rio via Sao Paulo to Manaus, the gateway to the rainforest. In the process we got separated from one of our bags and attempts to track it through Portuguese speaking TAM Airlines staff who could rarely be reached by phone (and definitely not email) became an adventure unto itself…        

On arrival at the lodge, we found that the Amazon was suffering from a severe draught. Good thing is, despite daily rains, the humidity remained comfortable – which was a far cry from the sweltering heat of the Ecuadorian Amazon on a prior trip. Bad thing is the draught had severely affected the flora and fauna in the dwindling waterways.        

The Amazonat Jungle Lodge is run by Jacques van Egeraat a Dutch transplant with his Brazilian wife, who are incredibly gracious hosts. To accommodate my quest for a safety deposit box, hot shower, and a relatively bug free room (well this is the Amazon after all…), they allowed me go thru 4 of their cabins during our stay! We spent 5 days at the lodge (including Christmas) and went on daily excursions to different tributaries of the Amazon with a local guide. 

According to custom, Christmas Eve is the ‘big day’ when families gather for a late dinner, then open presents before they go to midnight mass and party afterwards till the wee hours. Being treated to the Holiday feast (all the more spectacular because of the limited supplies available) and chatting with our host about all things Amazon (and Brazil) was a highlight of the trip. Although Christmas was supposed to be a work day, Jacques went to personally pick up the guide to make sure our tour happens!       

During our stay, we took nocturnal tours looking for tarantulas and alligators, went on the Amazon River as well as the black water Urubu River in search of wildlife – while motoring past a floating dental clinic, butcher shop, and hotel! We also hand-lined for piranhas and hiked into the lodge’s jungle camp called Jane’s Place (aptly named after Tarzan’s wife).       

I had loved camping overnight in the Ecuadorian Amazon before, even though the site was populated with LARGE, strange, and generally nasty looking insects. But there were tents & sleeping bags, and we had our guide, the shaman with his son, the chef and the boat captain to keep the two of us company! I reluctantly decided against overnighting at Jane’s Place because the only bedding choice was hammocks, which I’ve always found to be uncomfortable, and I want a tent for protection against biting critters…       

Despite finding notably less bird and monkey species compared to our Ecuadoran trip, we had numerous sightings of the elusive pink dolphins, experienced firsthand the bio-diversity of the Brazilian Amazon, and saw how the river remains the lifeblood of the indigenous peoples.        

On our last day Jacques drove us to Manaus and chartered a boat to see the “Meeting of the Waters” where the dark Rio Negro and the sandy colored upper Amazon River flow side by side without mixing. Then he took us to a buffet restaurant that is licensed to serve turtles and alligators among other local specialties. After he dropped us off at Manaus, we wandered around and sampled more gelados before heading to the airport.        

One of the lodge’s pets - if you ignore the thought that the capybara is the world’s largest rat, it is kind of cute. It made a variety of grunting noises as it followed us around.

Another lodge resident is a scarlet macaw which likes to commandeer fruits from guests at the breakfast table. Shown in the background is the dining pavilion’s ‘open air larder’ with fruits lining shelves attached to the center post.

One of the smaller tributaries visited by our boat. Some were too shallow to navigate forcing us to turn around.

With strips of raw beef, we tried our hand at piranha fishing. Locals eat the bigger fish though most of our catch was thrown back.

Brightly colored flowers along the jungle path.

We hiked to the lodge’s survival camp and saw some colorful dragonflies, butterflies, and unknown critters. The insects on the lower left were lined up in a straight line, seemingly chatting to each other!

A transparent dragonfly resting on a stick by the stream at the jungle camp.

The famous ‘Meeting of the Waters’ at Manaus where Rios Solimoes & Negro meet but remain separate for miles because of differences in temperature and flow speed.

The Restaurante Olenhador serves local dishes including specialties such as turtle & alligator. The turtle dishes were actually quite good but the various gator renditions were rather stringy and chewy. Maybe this was a particularly large alligator...

Something that can only happen in the Amazon – a baby armadillo taking up residence inside Manaus Airport! I have a feeling the poor critter is going to end up in someone's stock pot...

São Paulo        

Our last stop was São Paulo – a metropolis, a veritable concrete jungle diametrically opposite to the Amazon. More than other countries we’ve seen, the local businesses celebrate Christmas with beautiful window displays and monumental scenes on their building facades, giving a much more festive look to the downtown area.       

We took the metro to the Mercadão (Big Market) which houses over 300 stands that sell just about everything edible, including meat, vegetables, cheese, spices, and fish from all over Brazil. Chock full of restaurants, traditional snack bars and bakeries one can browse for hours there.        

Epilogue – After spending countless fruitless hours trying to contact TAM Airlines about our lost luggage, the bag mysteriously showed up at US Airways in Atlanta, one day before we were eligible for compensation for the missing bag! So now all is well…        

Animated Christmas vingette of Santa Claus outside a bank.

A domestic scene with Mr. and Mrs. Claus, their Saint Bernard, and a large pile of gifts!

The lamp posts were all elaborately decorated with the likes of zebras, mice, and elephants sporting musical instruments.

The bike shop cleverly integrated Season’s Greetings into the whimsical building graphics with an inflatable Santa.

Interesting wooden screen doors of a restaurant.

Stained glass windows of the Mercado Municipal. The renovated 1928 neo-baroque building turned grocery market is the quintessential hot spot for food lovers.

Heaven for olive lovers!

The ubiquitous bacalhau, or salt cod, is part of Brazil’s Portuguese culinary heritage.

I loved sampling bolinhos de bacalhau, deep fried balls of potatoes, eggs, and salt codfish, at numerous snack bars throughout my stay.

Here is a recipe from the internet.        

Bolinhos de Bacalhau        

1 pound salt cod
2 cups of mashed potatoes
2 tbsps of finely chopped parsley
2 large eggs
oil for frying        

Soak salt cod overnight and during the morning, changing water three times. Drain, remove skin and any bones and cut in small chunks. Simmer a small onion, thinly sliced, with a bay leaf and 4 peppercorns in 2 cups of water. After 5 minutes, add the cod and 2 cups of water. When it simmers, cover the pan and remove from heat, so the cod doesn’t toughen. The cod can be kept in this liquid in the refrigerator until needed.        

To form the bolinhos: drain the fish and flake it well into a bowl. Add 2 cups of mashed potatoes; beat two eggs with a pinch of salt and add them to the fish and potatoes. Add the parsley, salt and freshly grated pepper to taste. Wait about 1/2 hour to form 1 1/2 inch balls. Fry in oil at 375°. Dry in paper towels. Serve with very cold beer!

We were diverted from the Brazilian town of Recife because the cruise ship and local port authorities ‘failed to reach an agreement’, whatever that was… Once at Salvador, we found that anyone who didn’t want to get mugged getting to the UNESCO heritage site of Cidade Alta (Upper Town) would have to take an elevator to reach it. For the next 2 hours, we tried every international bank ATM machine on the main street, including 3 trips to Citibank (its ATMs apparently take siestas…), in our quest for the $.15 USD elevator fare.    

Picture of the elevator tower and sky bridge from Cidade Alta overlooking the port.

Square in Cidade Alta, renowned for its Portuguese Colonial architecture dating from 17th to 19th centuries. We ate through several ice cream shops and barely made a dent in the amazing selection of exotic gelados (ice creams)!

We loved the acarajes, crunchy Afro-Brazilian street food of bean fritters fried in dende (palm oil) stuffed with a paste of dried shrimps, nuts, dende, coconut milk, and splashed with okra & hot sauces. Yum!

 Port 7 – Rio de Janeiro
Our cruise finally came to an end at Rio. After disembarking, we stayed for another two days before taking our flight into Manaus, the gateway to the Amazon. We found Brazil to be a surprisingly expensive country. My unscientific benchmark is the cost of ice cream – at $4 a scoop, it’s not what I’d call developing country prices!
Because of security concerns, we didn’t carry much currency or credit cards. We once managed to snack through our combined assets and had to rely on the kindness of strangers for metro fares to get back to the hotel, but that’s another VERY long & embarrassing story…    

View from ship approaching Rio with view of Cristo Redentor (Christ Redeemer) above Copacabana Beach.

Diamonds are a girl’s best friend – Here are a few of my Best Friends at the H. Stern Gem Museum. The jewelry store offers free shuttles at the cruise dock to its worldwide headquarters in the posh neighborhood of Ipanema.

Stained glass windows inside one of the churches in Rio.

The distinctive Portuguese pavement mosaic at Copa Beach.

Our quest for Beautiful People at the fabled Copa Beach was a failure. We made the strategic mistake of showing up before noon, when no self-respecting BP would have rolled out of bed!

View from the Pão de Açúcar (Sugar Loaf) tram’s lower station at Morro da Urca looking towards the 1300 ft summit.

Ethereal sculpture on the observation deck at Sugar Loaf.

Magical sunset view of Rio and its beaches sprinkled like spilled diamonds beneath the Sugar Loaf.

quoted from moroccanwine

@IntDesignDiva beautiful photos from your trip!

Day 6  – we finally made it to the N. African coast! Because of its namesake movie, Casablanca often conjures up images of romance and intrigue. In reality it’s a vast, modern metropolis that lacks the exotic atmosphere of Morocco’s ancient cities. Refusing to spend hours in transit for the 300 mile trek to Marrakech, I decided to explore Casablanca on our own.
Immediately after docking, we headed for the Hassan II Mosque, the largest mosque in the country, meandering through the winding alleys of the medina (old souk) along the way. The vendors were selling a mélange of spices, olives, (freshly) dead fish, live (soon to be dead) chickens, and butchers proffering cuts of mystery meat. The colorfully restored old fort nearby, with a restaurant built in the gardens of the city wall, is a striking contrast. We also checked out the Deco District, where Moroccan traditional buildings gave way to Art Deco architecture. We eventually took a break and had some Moroccan coffee with traditional ground almond sweets. The coffee, similar to the Turkish variety – aka Sludge Coffee – is bold, flavorful and quite addictive, especially with hot milk and sugar! As we scurried towards the port, I looked enviously at the locals (mostly men) leisurely sipping their drinks at the sidewalk cafes. Someday, I promised myself, we’ll have time to do nothing – but not today…   

A peek into one of the alleys inside the old medina.

Remnants of Casablanca's 18th-century fortifications.

A lone feline patrols the citadel and stares intently out to the sea.

We stumbled upon Rick’s Café, named after the one in the movie, tipped off by a busload of tourists snapping pix across the street from the restaurant.

At 689 feet, the Mosque's minaret is the tallest in the world. At night, lasers shine a beam from its top towards Mecca.

Built on reclaimed land, almost half of the surface of the mosque lies over the Atlantic water and has dramatic views. The lavishly designed building has a heated floor and electric doors. There is also supposed to be a glass floor with views of the ocean below, but it’s reserved for ‘The Royals’ only. Guess we'll never get to see THAT view...

The Mosque displays strong Moorish influence with horseshoe arches used throughout the building. Walls and columns of the interior are delicately carved in a variety of intricate patterns reminiscent of the Alhambra and Great Mosque of Cordoba in Spain.

It was our lucky day - the automated sliding roof was retracted on our visit, exposing the sky above. It’s open only on special occasions (a small undersection is visible in picture).

A patinated brass chandelier from prolonged exposure to the corrosive sea air.

Protected by walls finished with tadelakt lime from Marrakech, a highly breathable plaster, this brass chandelier in the hammam under the Mosque looks good as new!

This Art Deco building could have been in South Beach!

Port 5 – Agadir   

Rebuilt after being leveled by a devastating earthquake in 1960, Agadir resembles a modern European beach resort with a conservative bend. I waited in anticipation, not because it’s charming or scenic, but because a lunch of camel tagine beckons…
I know you’d say “WHAT tagine?” since most tourists would be booking camel rides rather than looking for it on the menu. To me sampling local foods is the quintessential travel experience, therefore so long as it’s legal and not too gnarly tasting, I’m up for it. Also on the itinerary is Souk Elhed, a labyrinth of 3500 different stores with 10 gate entrances, for potential bargains in the afternoon. We were going to take it easy at Agadir since it was the last port before the transatlantic crossing, so we literally couldn’t afford to ‘miss the boat’!   

Despite being armed with Google maps of the restaurant location, we still wandered round till we came upon it by accident. We ordered goat and camel tagines. The camel tagine is actually quite flavorful, tender but slightly chewy. Both tagines’ presentations were similar, and being the same price, we joked if they ran out of one, they could probably substitute with the other! Being a Muslim country, beverages were limited to coffee, mint tea and juice shakes. With coffee, tea, and an avocado shake, the entire tab was still under $14!

One of the entrances to the walled compound of Souk Elhed. The market is divided into sections selling everything from clothing, leather ware, handicrafts, to fruits and vegetables.

A stall in the Souk. It’s amazing to see stalls carrying dozens of varieties of olives and dates, with locals buying them by the kilo! We bought 3 types each of dates and olives – in case there wasn’t enough food on the cruise ship...

I decided to get a pair of leather babouches, the pointed toe traditional Moroccan slippers. Though cheap, some slippers were of plastic, and the workmanship marginal. After bargaining at several shops, I finally got a pair of leather ones at $8 US – more than the $6 that I offered, but less than the $20+ some vendors wanted, so I guess everyone went home happy.

It was fun to get lost in the maze of the Commune Libre du Safranier, where narrow streets and even narrower houses are covered with flowers & vines, and neighbors can chat from window to window. I’d love to return and sit stroll through the streets on a sunny day!

The doors are unique in each of the houses, a contrast to the monolithic sameness of modern homes.

I love the quirky location of the door pull, arrangement of the metal studs and texture of the glass of this old door.

A number of the buildings retained the tradition of having 3-dimensional signage, either of metal or wood, to announce the trade of the occupant. This sign shows a baker in front of the oven with a bread paddle. The patisserie was the second pain au chocolate stop in my quest for the perfect one…

Not half as charming as Antibes, Cannes is home to the Palais de Festivals where the fabled Cannes Film Festival is held. As the French answer to Grauman’s Chinese Theater, the surrounding pavement of the Palais shows some 300 autographed imprints of film stars’ hands (Meryl Streep and Sharon Stone’s included). At the nearby La Croisette, the tony waterfront promenade is lined with sumptuous hotels, apartments, restaurants and shops all geared for high octane consumption.
After much WINDOW shopping, we wandered around the festive side streets which were decked out in Christmas decorations, went hog wild over the scrumptious rainbow hued macarons at L’Atelier Jean-Luc Pelé and then visited Marché Forville. It’s a food market where local chefs come to shop for fresh fish, vegetables, and meat every day except Monday – our port day. I was bummed. In its place was a forlorn looking flea market that drew little traffic from locals or tourists alike. We eventually braved the blustery wind to walk along the old port walls, just for the heck of it, then checked out the Christmas Market before getting back onto the ship.     

Looking for simpler pleasures, I searched for the famed L'Atelier Jean-Luc Pelé which sells exquisite pastries along Rue Meynadier. These are truly edible works of art!

The chocolatier offers 20-30 types of macarons, including mint-anise and Menton lemon. We had the amazing foie gras with sea salt caramel and citron vert vodka – at 2 euros a piece, they were delightful mementos of our visit!

Roadside sculpture around the Palais de Festivals - the white film strips made it resemble an artistically TP’d reel to reel projector.

Port 3 – Barcelona
Since Barcelona was the epicenter of the Modernisme (Catalan for modernism) movement, I was bent on experiencing its architectural treasures. In a moment of (irrational) exuberance, I got tickets to see architect Lluís Domènech i Montaner’s Palau de la Música Catalana shortly after docking, and then join a Gaudi walking tour at the Placa Reial immediately afterwards. We ended up almost missing both, dashing haplessly up and down La Rambla, Barcelona’s main drag, as the locals point us in opposite directions for the landmarks.
But it was well worth the effort – the Palau’s sculpture, ceramic and stained glass were stunning; and the walking tour shed light on the life and work of the creative genius that was Antoni Gaudi. Though stylistically different, both Gaudí and Montaner favored organic forms, curved lines and parabolic arches, as well as extensive ornamentation using ironwork, stained glass and stone.
To cap off the day, we wandered quietly around the grounds of Montaner’s Hospital Sant Pau, which like El Palau, is a UNESCO World Heritage site.    

The concert hall is the only auditorium in Europe that is illuminated entirely by daylight light via the enormous stained glass skylight and curtain walls. Since photography is disallowed inside the building, these pictures of the Palau are from the internet.

The stained glass centerpiece is an inverted dome in shades of gold surrounded by blue that suggests the sun and the sky.

The colorful, sumptuous sculptural decor of the concert hall celebrates both folk and classical music. Shown are instrument-bearing muses in terra cotta and trencadis (broken mosaic collage) with the bust of the music director Josep Clavé.

Gaudi’s work is steeped in symbolism. One of his most spectacular residential commissions, Casa Batlló’s arched roof likens the back of a dragon, and recalls stories of St. George, the patron saint of Catalonia. And of course, there is the colorful façade of trencadis as pioneered by Gaudi.

We didn’t go into Casa Batllo, but I found this awesome picture. The light on the delicate plaster surfaces are particularly magical. The organic planes of the staircase, wall, and ceiling flow seamlessly together to form ‘the house without corners’.

Casa Mila, popularly known as La Padrera (stone quarry), with its famous Darth Vader-like chimneys. The undulating rough-hewn limestone blocks and sinuous wrought iron balconies are reminiscent of eroded sea cliffs.

Detail of Casa Mila, another celebration of ironwork, glass and stone. The vulture was purported to be an oblique reference to Gaudi’s client, Pere Mila.

The imposing entrance to the Hospital Sant Pau which is undergoing restoration for use as a museum and cultural center.

View of hospital roof with an eclectic mix of tiles, stone capitals, corbels and religious motifs.

The hospital’s access pavilion is crowned by a slender clock tower with exposed brickwork.

Detail of the Nativity façade on the north side of Gaudi’s Basílica de la Sagrada Família showing Mary at the Visitation.

Sagrada Família’s façade on the opposite side includes over a hundred contemporary sculptures evoking the Passion by sculptor Josep Maria Subirachs. Chosen to execute Gaudi’s plans after his death, the work is starkly different from the exuberant ornamentation of the Nativity façade.