Mali in the City Auction - Photo Blog

En français      En Español

Two months ago, the Melbourne Zoo placed elephants that resemble Mali, their new baby elephant around Melbourne City. You can read about it here. 

After a couple months of street exhibitions, the Zoo Committee auctioned 50 elephants to Mali supporters, interested parties affiliated with the Zoo. This was a great night and here is my experience of it:

Mali's Self-Portrait

Gabriel

Eltham Copper Butterfly Story

Elephantasy

Bromley Two

Mali paintings

Paintings of the Mali elephants

I met Pippa Makgill, the artist who painted
the Spooky Possum Mali 

Spooky Possum Mali

The cutest picture of a koala I've seen

Pippa's Spooky Possum Mali will be on display at Luna Park, Melbourne along with Kevin Presley Mali. 
If you want to see more of Pippa's art, go to these links below:

Spooky Possum Mali
Pippa Makgill's website
Pippa Makgill's blog

10 reasons to learn Indonesian (Bahasa Indonesia) and how

En español 
Em Português

Currently, I am trying to become fluent in Indonesian and want to encourage you to learn the language as well. 

Photo by Mr. T in DC

Here's 10 reasons why:

1. It's easy. Indonesian is VERY easy compared to European languages. There is no word for 'to be' and 'have already' is one word, 'sudah'. To make a word plural you say it twice.

2. The vocabulary is diverse (which can help you learn other languages). Most of it's words come from Malay but there are also some words from Dutch, Arabic, Sanskrit, Chinese languages (like Hokkien), Portuguese and Spanish. 

3. Many words are sound similar to English. E.g. Filem (movie), telivisi (TV), gelas (glass), polisi (police), kelas (class), musik (music), buku (book).

4. There are many people who speak Indonesian and it is the 14th most spoken language (by number of native speakers). Indonesia is the 4th most populous country with over 238 million people. 

Population map of Indonesia by Worldmapper.org

5.  You will be able to haggle in Indonesian. You can bring prices down just by knowing what to say. 

Photo by clairerowland

Photo by IronChefBalara

 

6. You can on a holiday to Bali or a business trip to Jakarta without much trouble.

7. Indonesia is the 2nd closest country to Australia (after Papua New Guinea). 

8. You can speak it in any island in Indonesia. Each island in Indonesia has it's own culture and language but Indonesian is the Lingua Franca that unites the country.

9. It's phonetic. Every word is spelt the way it sounds. 

10.  You can see tigers, elephants, orang-utans, sun bears, tapirs and rhinoceroses in the wild all in the same island, Sumatra. 

Photo by Peter Lee

Photo by Christine Majul

Photo by cskk

Photo by Robert Goodwin

Fun and creative ways to learn a language:

- Audio lessons (I reckon learningindonesian is one of the best)

- Indonesian music (download TurnInRadio app on your Apple device and search for Indonesian radio or listen to it online)

- Indonesian movies (world movies channel and YouTube)

- Talk to Indonesians on Skype 

- Indonesian Social Network sites

- Write on Lang-8

- Buy an Indonesian phrasebook and read it when you have a spare moment

- Indonesian flashcards (The Gengo flashcards app is a good way to learn)


Selamat Belajar! (Happy Studying)

(By the way, I now have a FaceBook page. Please help promote my blog by 'liking' it. Click Here)

Elephant safari in Melbourne - Mali in the City

To celebrate the Melbourne Zoo's 150th anniversary, many artists painted fibre-glass statues of elephants (50 in total) to exhibit around the city. I decided to spend this afternoon taking photos in the city.

Ming Vase Elephant,
Queen Victoria Market entrance

Patch,
Queen Victoria Market

Mali is Listening to the Earth,
Cnr Peel & William Sts near Flagstaff Gardens

Frank Realities,
The University of Melbourne - Medical School Building

Lotus,
Gordon Reserve

Ranee,
Old Treasury Building - Treasury Reserve

Spot,
Centre of Treasury Gardens

Mali's Crimson Song,
Fitzroy Gardens

Harmony,
Melbourne Marriot Hotel Entrance

Rusty Mali,
Chinatown, Cohen Plaza

Interesting fact: an upright elephant trunk is good Feng Shui

Baroque Baby,
Bourke Street Mall

I think this is Jimbo,
but I didn't come out of the car to check
(It was getting dark, freezing cold and raining)

Yes, I did spend 3 and a half hours taking photos of elephants in Melbourne's busy traffic. I did get some strange looks for stopping to take a photo. 

Overall, going on an urban safari was worth the traffic and strange looks by others to find and capture 11/50 elephants.

Well Done Melbourne Zoo.

Mali in the City

Vote for your favourite elephant and win a trip to Thailand (Melbournians only, sorry)

Maps and info about Mali in the City (I printed out the info to find them)

Adopt an Asian elephant (Zoos Victoria)