Indonesian Coconut Shell Carving

When R and I were in Bali we saw some carved coconut shell lights in the markets, most of the designs were fairly simple. But when we went on a sightseeing trip to a temple outside of Ubud, we found this old man who had been carving coconut shells for his whole life. His designs (in the photo above) are quite elaborate and magical. We zeroed in on one that was really cool with monkeys carved in it, he said we picked his favorite work and wouldn't sell it, but showed us another that was similar. ...

The design also has monkeys, if you look hard you can see their bodies and arms and tails. It sits on another carved shell base.

Sometimes these lights are lit by candle, but we put a electric bulb in ours when we got back to Malaysia. It looks pretty cool at night as our master bedroom is dark brown so the light makes the room very moody. I tried to search more on Indonesian coconut shell carving, not much out there on the web.

Lobster Claw Plants

It's been awhile since I've posted. This year has been a busy one already! I recently found some HUGE Lobster Claw plants (Heliconia family) that were blooming. I've never seen the plants so large, in fact, I've only seen small plants available once in Seremban. So I bought these three plants and planted them at the side of the house between our property and our neighbors. The Lobster Claw plants are quite popular in my neighborhood and around Seremban. I love them and have wanted a few for our yard. They have been doing well. There's not too much sun in the area as it is below a giant mango tree, but still these plants seem fine when watered once a day.

As I added the photo to Blogger, I remembered I had seen a number of Lobster Claw and Lobster Claw-like plants on my trip last year to Ubud in Bali (see the post here).

So I pulled up some photos I took in the gardens of the Rudana Fine Art Gallery. I guess I only took one of a Heliconia, where the claws go up instead of hang down like the ones I aquired. The garden was so pretty. . .