146.5MM
'Eating in Style'
Central Pattana Public Co. Ltd. (CPN) is jazzing up the retail industry with its new "Lifestyle Dining" projects. Three "Lifestyle Dining & Gastro Bar Landmarks," developed with a budget of over Bt1.4 billion -- Groove@CentralWorld Bangkok, The Port@CentralFestival Samui, and The Blossom @ CentralFestival Chiangmai -- are expected to meet the needs of high-spending residents and visitors who love lifestyle dining and partying. Wallaya Chirathivat, CPN’s senior executive VP for business development, design & project construction, says: “CPN sees the growing popularity of the global lifestyle dining trend. Consumers’ dining lifestyles are changing. They are getting more selective when choosing a place to dine after work, resulting in the introduction of hip spots in famous cities. CPN is thus developing three ‘Lifestyle Dining & Gastro Bar Landmarks’ to become dining places that respond to every need. The three projects will surely become the best places to hang out for trendsetters.” The Groove @ CentralWorld will be developed under a budget of more than Bt600 million. and is expected to become a landmark place for nightlife. The Bt450-million Port @ CentralFestival Samui will become the first place where Thai and foreign tourists will think of when it comes to partying and nightlife on the island. The Bt370-miilion Blossom @ CentralFestival Chiangmai will become the first and only place for lifestyle dining and nightlife in Chiang Mai 215 MM
PAINTED IN THE TROPICS, THE UNTOLD STORY OF AN ARTIST
THE LIFE AND TIMES OF SWISS ARTIST THEO MEIER
PAINTED IN THE TROPICS The Life and Times of Swiss Artist Theo Meier by Harold Stephens 305 pages with 83 photographs ISBN: 9780978695170 PUBLISHER: Wolfenden Publishers BINDING: Hard Cover with Dust Jacket LISTPRICE: 650 Thai Baht, US$21.95. Order direct on-line from publisher http://wolfendenpublishing.com Those orders with Thailand mailing address will be shipped same day from Bangkok.
To say he was one of the flamboyant characters of Bangkok and Chiang Mai would be putting it mildly. He was more than life! He was a Swiss artist who had spent 22 years on Bali and the last 20 years of his life in Chiang Mail where he lived in a grand, traditional, old Thai house with his Thai wife, Yattlie. His passing cannot be forgotten; his paintings tell his story. How many times have you heard it said, or said it yourself––“I wish I would have known. I would have bought one.” Yes, you could have bought one for a pittance, and now his paintings sell for up to and over a hundred thousand dollars at Christies auction houses in Asia and Europe. His name is Theo Meier. Theo was one of the most remarkable men who had lived out his adult life in the Tahiti islands and Southeast Asia. We call him an artist, a painter, but he was more than that. He was a bon vivant, an epicure to the soul, who enjoyed life to its fullest and who made everyone around him feel the same. Put him in the dining car on the train from Chiang Mai to Bangkok, and he soon took over the car, with conductors and waiters as well as passengers joining in the merry making. His shouts and cheers, with his glass of Mekong-and-soda held high, and his shouts “salute,” could be heard throughout all the cars. No one slept when Theo was aboard. He was truly a man of the arts. When it came to cooking, he excelled; when it came to music, even complicated Balinese gamelan music, he knew it well and wrote a book about it; he knew his spices, herbs, medicine, and his women. Indeed his women. The paintings of his woman, mostly nudes, hang in art galleries and museums and in private collections around the world. Theo lived high, with prince and princess of Thailand and heads-of-state of Indonesia, and at his parties you might find his tuktuk driver and a shopkeeper from Chiang Mai. Madam Banyen could have been one of them. But there’s more. He was an adventurer. He lived on a remote island in the Tahitian group where Paul Gauguin lived––some say he followed in the footsteps of Gauguin but that is not so––and he walked across China with an easel strapped to his back. And he lived with cannibals in the New Hebrides. Real cannibals! “Painted in the Tropics” is a story that has never been told in its fullest, and could never have been told while Theo was alive. The author goes into intimidate detail about the expat painters on Bali that Theo knew–– Walter Spies, Rudolf Bonnet, Miguel Covarrubias, Le Mayeur, Han Snel, Donald Friend, Mario Blanco, Willem Hofker, Arie Smit and many others. Why was Walter Spies put in prison? And what happened when Han Snel kidnapped his 16-year old Balinese wife? The author, Harold Stephens, knew Theo Meier for more than 30 years and he shared many experiences with him. - Reviewed by David Tanner, Allied News Papers
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