The Anthem Philatelist

It’s time to hail Havana as one of the world’s great art cities. The Cuban capital has never lacked artistic credentials, but a growing band of small private galleries, fresh interest in outlandish street art and the emergence of the extraordinary art collectives has sparked a creative renaissance that has truly put the city on the map.  Havana’s artistic roots go deep. The city is home to the olde st arts academy in Latin America, the Academia de Bellas Artes San Alejandro , housed in a colonnaded building in Marianao. Founded in 1818, the academy has bred generations of precocious talent, most notably in the 1920s when it spawned the Vanguardia , a loose collection of painters and sculptors who, rejecting the contemporary penchant for mundane landscapes, invented Cuba’s avant-garde. ( Lonely Planet )  Sand Art Mural in Habana Vieja (Old Havana)  

This is where one can see the oldest work of art in the Philippines done 3000 years ago using stone tools.  I visited this site on May 1, 2018 and what normally is a 2 to 3 hour ride from Manila to Angono-Binangonan in Rizal Province took me less than an hour, being a Labor Day holiday.  The Waze app I used was very accurate and I suggest using this because only 5% of the locals have knowledge of this place.  Ninety five percent of the visitors are out-of-townees.  The site is on an elevated area, hilly, and located inside a subdivision which is privately owned.  There are no public transportation inside so one has to walk a few minutes from the entrance to the site.  If you have a private car, there is a parking area beside the tunnel entrance to the petroglyph.  Its a 5-10 minute walk from the man-made tunnel entrance which was a little dark but cool.  There is a mini museum which use to house the artifacts like flake stone tools ...

                              Our passports were checked as we left Dubrovnik and entered Bosnia-Herzogovina .  Asians these days are a welcomed travelers and passing through the checkpoints was a breeze.  It was a rainy day but our hearts were not dampened by the weather and we ventured into the Old city with our young guide who started the tour in the old Town.  We saw some remnants of the ravages of war like large holes through buildings and destroyed mosques but the town was completely rebuilt out of the original materials.  Even the cobblestone streets were patterned from its prewar appearance. An interesting place we visited was a mosque where traditionally one is allowed to wear shoes inside.  This is the only mosque in the whole world where this was once done.  It was a tanners mosque and being smelly and dirty, they were allowed to wash their bodies inside the prayer...

  An autostereogram is a two-dimensional (2D) image that can create the optical illusion of a three-dimensional (3D) scene. Autostereograms use only one image to accomplish the effect while normal stereograms require two.    The 3D scene in an autostereogram is often unrecognizable until it is viewed properly. One needs to stare at the scene for awhile for the 3D effect to emerge.   Guernsey Post issued a set of 2 stamps featuring design of a dove, a universal symbol of peace, one with a green background 25p stamp, and a blue background 30p stamp. Designed by Keith Bassford, the Autostereogram (a hidden image seen by crossing one's eyes in the correct way) was created by David Burder (UK) and Bob Mannle (USA). The hidden images are large versions of the doves as featured on the patterns i.e. on the 25p stamp the bird is standing, face to your right, while on the 30p stamp it is flying to the left.   Autostereograms can also be found in art. An example is by ren...

     To be published April 2030.......         Never surrender to any form of temptations that will taint your integrity - BBM

The Historical Village of Hokkaido covers an area of some 54 hectares and is located in the Nopporo Forest Park in the suburbs of Sapporo City . This outdoor museum was opened to the public on April 16, 1983, to preserve the olden day structures and to show what the pioneer's life was like in Hokkaido . About 60 typical structures of the Meiji and Taisho era (Mid 19th to early 20th century) are restored in a site which is divided into Town, Fishing Village, Farm Village and Mountain Village sectors.  Due to time constraints, we were only able to visit the Town sector of this massive area. Each structure is reproduced authentically with displays inside.   Horse drawn trolleys in the summer and sleighs in the winter provide transportation for visitors along the main street, which is lined with old wooden and wooden buildings.   I had the privilege to visit a doctor's clinic, a barber shop, police station, brewery, newspaper, and photography studio building to ...

On 7 June 1897, the Congress of the Dominican Republin passed an act adopting "Himno Nacional" with the original music and revised lyrics as the country's official national anthem; however, then President Ulises Heureaux (1846-1899) vetoed the act because the lyric's author, Prud’Homme, was an opponent of the president and his administration. In 1899, Heureaux was assassinated, and the political disorder that ensued prevented the national anthem's legal adoption until 30 May 1934 when "Himno Nacional" was officially adopted and signed into law. The Spanish name of the Dominican Republic, "República Dominicana", is never used in the anthem's official Spanish lyrics nor is the denonym for Dominicans, "dominicanos". Rather, the indigenous word for the island Hispaniola, "Quisqueya", is used twice and its derivative denonym, "quisqueyanos", is used once. However, research later shows that these ...