Japanese man travels across 37 countries on $2

Japanese Keiichi Iwasaki travelled across 37 countries with only $2 and his bicycle as his only means of transportation. Iwasaki, 36, left his home and his air-conditioning job in Japan in 2001. After cycling the country for a year he decided to extend his journey to South Korea and continued to 36 other countries. He cycled over 45,000 kilometres during his marathon adventure and became the first Japanese man to climb Mount Everest from sea level without using any transportation.

He chose to avoid air travel and opted for cycling or ferries for transport in order to soak up the atmosphere.

''I didn't want to use aeroplanes because I wanted to see and feel everything with my own skin. With bicycle, I can always feel the air and atmosphere of the place.''

Mr Iwasaki is in Switzerland and hopes to climb Mount Blanc, Europe’s highest peak, before travelling to Africa and the US over the next five years.

Via The Daily Telegraph

The delightful art of Arghavan Khosravi

Delightful. Youthful. Meaningful.

Three words befitting the amazing art of Arghavan Khosravi, a female Iranian illustrator/traditional artist who has made one of the most indelible impressions in me since I have become a member of DeviantArt four years ago.

Arghavan's illustrations depict a world where hope seems to spring eternal - where one abandons their prejudices - where one rekindles their lost romance with their childhood.

If an artist's work is truly a reflection of his or her inner self, then perhaps it is her beautiful state of mind and perception of life that yields these art works showcasing a world we all want to be in - positive, inviting, lovely and colorful.

Arghavan has truly found that one distinct "voice" in art that is absolutely her own; and her mastery of that "voice" is ever so consistently displayed in her amazing body of work.

Below are some of my most favorite pieces from Arghavan's DeviantArt gallery.

View more of Arghavan's work here.

10 Meaningful and Amazing Animated Short Films

I find short animated films to be a forward-focused medium capable of greatly affecting its audience even though it could only run for a few minutes. They are short but powerful and mostly mind blowing. In fact, i believe that it is the time constraint that essentially helps the message become pure and heartfelt.

Further, the kind of work, the amount of time, effort and creativity that these people, the animators, put out to produce these outstanding animated films is absolutely admirable .

In this breadth, I have decided to share with you 10 animated film treasures and my favorites that are mostly leaning on the more sentimental (I'm a sucker for sentimental themes); those that make one reflect about love, hope, the triumph of the human spirit, desperation,dreams. These videos are incredibly meaningful and has struck something tender and lonely in me and I hope that you take the time to watch them and hopefully be moved by them as well.

The Artist's Model by MattCarter



The Clocktower By Arenyth (Pls click the title to play off site)



Fireflies by Juusan13



I Know You by Robertas



Clouds by FargalEX



Colored for Life by TSnow



Entropy by RhubarbZoo

A new start...

I haven't really blogged much these past months. Though i continue to roam around the internet in search of beautiful and inspiring things, I have not felt the urge, the spark, to actually hit the Blogger Dashboard and write new posts.

The reason, I have been making great changes in life, both in my professional and personal lives. For one, though doing freelance design+corporate pr work since 2002 while consequently handling the marketing of a small restaurant group has been extremely rewarding, I have decided to go back to a regular day job, not here in Manila though, overseas.

So wish me luck peeps. I will be leaving very soon. And I am excited to take my life to a whole new, albeit better, dimension.

Cheers!☺

Office 2010: The Movie

MS Office 2010 (previously codenamed Office 14), the next version of Microsoft's highly successful office and productivity suite is on the verge of its launch. Proof of which is this teaser movie that has been generating a lot of buzz in the web.

Client: Microsoft

Agency: Traffik

Director: Dennis Liu

Producers: Jonathan Hsu, Matt Anderson

Production Designer: Nicole Teeny

Script: Dennis Liu, Jt Arbogast, Gary Roosa

Art Director: Kevin Su

DP: Doug Emmett/Dennis Liu

Edit/Sound Design: Dennis Liu

VFX Company: LOICA