weekend photos

Took a walk in a city park this weekend and stumbled across THE best playground EVER. Here are some friends we made.

Cat brooches recently made for a friend. Never ever made a cat brooch before!

Gifts I'm working on for a newly arrived little friend ;)

Took a little walk this morning. The sky was very blue and clear and our shady street almost felt cool. Now the clouds are gathering once again and you can bet it's hot!

Who knew a monsoon drain could be so pretty?

zoo what?

Had a trip to the zoo last weekend. It was as most trips to the zoo are - long and exhausting. Still, we had a fairly jolly time. Ice-cream, fairy floss. Animals galore. The usual suspects. The following are a few pics of some very impressive folk. Our camera ran out of battery half way through, so unfortunately I can't bring you any images of the female orangutan banging her head against the enclosure door. Like I said, it was a fairly jolly time...






Actually, bittersweet is a more apt description of my Zoo experience. I love seeing these creatures up close, but when I see them doing tricks for food, I want to cry. "Goodness," I think "do they treat you like this at home?"

ETSY

Yes yes, it's true. I DO have an Etsy shop. It's awfully quiet over there, perhaps because I haven't gone in for a lot of self-promotion. I quietly popped an 'etsy mini' in my side bar and mentioned the shop a while ago, but haven't yelled it from rooftops yet. It's a bit intimidating, peddling your wares. Still, it must be done so I'm holding my breath and jumping in...


Bird Brooch - available in my shoppe.


Horse Brooch, also available in my shoppe.


Oh look! Bird brooch, available...yeah, you guessed it.

You think I'd be a bit more forward, that I would have made more noise about the shop. This is the made by maude blog after all.
What happened maude? Stage fright?
Yeah *whimper* ...

Buckle up, you're in for a long post. It's a late one also. We visited the Batu Caves on the weekend, and I'm only NOW posting about it because I forgot to take the camera along so used my phone camera, and it has taken me this long to send the images from my phone to the laptop. Ok?

The entrance to the Batu Caves, a Hindu temple here in KL. It's dedicated to the god Murugan. Here he is, gold and glorious.

This is the elaborately decorated archway to the 272 steps that lead to the Batu Caves. It is very very beautiful. My images don't do it justice but they are my souvenirs so...

Three friends begin the climb...

as many monkeys dart around, food in mouths. Those monkeys will happily leap up and snatch any food you have straight from your hands. It looks quite frightning, so we left our peanuts at home.

A temple inside the caves.

Looking outside from within, a souviner shop to the right.

The descent.

Deities decorate the other side of the entrance archway.


In true KL style there was plenty of rubbish scattered along the sides of the cave :( We only visited the main 'cathedral cave', but it was pretty special. There's some history on the Batu Caves here at reliable (!) wikipedia. There is the yearly Hindu Thaipusum festival in KL where devotees make a pilgrimage to Batu Caves. Some carry jugs or containers filled with offerings, others attach offerings to their bodies by piercing or hooking their skin, often dragging the offerings behind them... Obviously the Batu Caves are a deeply important to Hindus, and the day we were there there were many (gentler) forms of devotion taking place.

Be still, deer.

Yesterday a friend and I took a trip to the Deer Park here in KL. It's in the same area as the Butterfly Park Thistler and I visited some time ago. It was my friend's birthday, and we had already had nice lunch together with our husbands (!) in Mid Valley (Oh mega mall, where would we be without you?). We bought drawing supplies along to the deer park and settled down to an afternoon of sketching. The rain settled in also, and you can see how the deer (and two stags) congregated under the shelter. Oh, they really were so sweet! Standing there, staring back at us. Very very still most of the time then of course, at the inopportune moment, a little shuffling and the drawing is ruined. Never mind, it was so lovely to sit there and watch them as it rained, thundered and lightninged around us and I slowly re-acquainted myself with drawing.

This weekend Malaysia celebrated Merdeka, or independence (from British rule). There were many many flags adorning houses, buildings and cars. A car covered in small flags is quite a sight, each one flapping gleefully in the breeze. There were lots of thing happening in KL (many sales, of course) and on Saturday Thistler and I headed down to the Annexe Gallery in Central Market for the Art for Grabs market they hold there every so often. The gallery was also putting on a programme of films and lectures about Malaysian identity (and constructions of) that looked pretty good, but our love of craft won out over intellectual curiosity...
Lots of handmade goodies to see, here are a few we bought home for ourselves.


This little critter is a handmade softie constructed from a glove. Rather in keeping with my own sock kitty. Below is a set of hand cut perspex brooches. The black fruit is a durian - a beguiling fruit that stinks to high heavens but is heavenly to taste, apparently. Never eaten it, but have certainly smelt it at the markets. That and the umbrella are perfect Malaysian souvenirs!



We totally made it up to our intellect this afternoon though. We were hanging out in the city when, surprise surprise, it started raining. We thought we'd pop in to see a film. 'Don't Mess With The Zohan'. Yes, it is as bad as you think it may be. At one point Zohan says he's from Australia (hiding his true identity) and another character says 'Oh, it must be nice there now that Apartheid is over.' We must've been the only Aussies in the cinema, cause no none else chuckled. Now I've told you the 'funniest' part, you don't need to see it.