Street poetry in Prague

Poetry and street art are certainly… addicting!!!

Street art in Sofia

During the break between the Aikido classes on Saturday at Kuribayashi sensei seminar in Sofia, a good friend, Stancho (local Bulgarian but currently living in Stavanger and practicing in the same place where I practiced, Jūshinkan Aikido) took Masha (good Russian Aikido friend) and I to visit some parts of the center.

Interesting walk through the streets of central Sofia and in particular “Tzar Shishman” street: a location that has been almost preserved as it was at the beginning of last century, typically visited for the architecture of the buildings that used to be from the local government. Also famous the old Sveti Sedmochislenitsi Temple, firstly built as a mosque and then became an Orthodox church. At the beginning of the century Tzar Shishman street was indeed still quite similar (with 2-3 stories building, differently from Sofia after WWII, past the destruction, of course, but where the buildings started getting higher).

But what I found extremely interesting has been the street art:

Since my good friend Vittorio introduced me to stencil and street art artists, I admit that when I travel especially to new cities (mainly I do it for Aikido, and now a “new” passion got linked to that!) I always keep an eye (or two) out for street art. To the point that I ask to residents where to find some hot spots for this kind of art. This time I did not ask before, but I was certainly very lucky!

Thanks Stancho for the great time!

The colors of Oslo

After an interesting session at Tenshinkan Aikido dojo this early morning I got plenty of time to kill before going at the Kuribayashi sensei seminar site for helping with the mats.

So I went for some walks and some tram trips using up my day card for public transport and not letting the crappy rainy weather confining me in a cafe…. At least not until now!!!

An evening walk in Trondheim

Last weekend I was in Trondheim for Jorma Lyly Aikido seminar and after a wonderful time on the mats and watching on TV a lucky victory of my favourite football team, Vittorio, my best friend living in Trondheim, took me for an evening walk around the city to show me some of the street art he has been discovering lately.

Vittorio is becoming an expert of stencils and street art in Norway (and not only) and I have started enjoying as well looking for these cut-off of real life!

After the nice exploration of the local street art, we went up to Festninger to enjoy the amazing sky that just another Norwegian sunset was offering, and even without a real camera but only my terrible iPhone 3Gs I managed to capture some of that wonderful show:

Best way to leave Trondheim, in the very early morning, was another wonderful sunrise show:

So long Trondheim! I’ll be back soon, I hope!