weekly photo challenge: lunchtime

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Greece, Nepal, Oman, postaweek2013, South Korea, weekly photo challenge

Saturday, March 16:  The WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge is lunchtime.  Michelle of WordPress writes:

Time to show us your lunchtime. This might seem like a pretty narrow task, but if you think of “lunchtime” as a theme, there are lots of places you can take it:

• Show us what you actually had for lunch.
• Show us what went into your lunch — a stunningly saturated pile of red radishes at the farmer’s market, or the process by which you construct the Ultimate Turkey Sandwich.
• Show us what a mealtime is like at your house. Who’s there? What are they doing?
• Show us a photo of someone truly enraptured by what they’re eating and capture the deep satisfaction of an enjoyable meal.
• If you don’t have time for lunch or eat on the run, show us that.
• Show us your favorite place to sit while you eat lunch, or your favorite place to prepare food.
• Capture a candid photo of the guy behind the counter of your favorite greasy spoon.

This is meant to be another phoneography challenge, which I’m not at all keen on since I don’t have a camera phone.  Since I usually eat lunch at my desk at work, and since I didn’t feel like hauling my camera to work to take a boring picture of me eating lunch at my desk, I thought I would post some of my favorite lunchtimes I’ve experienced in my travels.

I’ll start with the smoked salmon, cream cheese and caper baguette I ate for lunch on Thursday at the Blue Marlin at Marina Bandar al Rowdha in Muscat.  I have to say I didn’t find the lunch all that exciting.  On the contrary, I found it totally uninspiring.  I probably wouldn’t go back to this place again to eat.

Smoked salmon baguette at the Blue Marlin

Only one time in the whole year and a half that I’ve been in Oman was I invited to an Omani’s house for lunch.  First they brought out this.

the snacks before an Omani lunch

Those beans on the left hand bottom corner of the large tray were delicious.  So were those French fry-like things.  I ate and ate, thinking this was our lunch.  After I was fully stuffed, they brought out this.

the main course, rice and chicken and salad

Needless to say, I tried to eat as much as I could, but it was hard because I wasn’t hungry at all after eating all those beans.  (nakhal fort, lunch with an omani family & a wild drive up wadi mistal)

Here’s a hole-in-the wall lunchtime place, similar to many such places in Oman, that Mario and I encountered when we went exploring wadis on a rare day of flooding in Oman.

a “restaurant” on the way to Wadi Damm

Here’s a “restaurant and coffee shop” (they don’t seem to believe in naming restaurants in the interior) in Ibra, where my family and I ate lunch while they were visiting Oman in January.

a typical Omani restaurant like most you will find outside of Muscat. This one is in Ibra.

My son Adam eats lunch with his hands, Omani style, in Al Hamra.

To be honest, I’m not all that crazy about Omani food or Oman’s Indian food, the only alternative outside of the capital.  I normally like Indian food, but in these types of restaurants, the menu is limited to Chicken Biriyani or Chicken Masala.  Both Omanis and Indians in this country are really fond of chicken.

Neither did I care much for Korean food when I lived in South Korea, but here is a typical Korean lunch of bibimbap I shared with my son Alex when he came to visit me in Korea.

Korean lunch of bibimbap

Koreans have to wash a lot of dishes for breakfast, lunch or dinner

However, in most of my travels, I adore the local cuisine.  Turkish and Greek food were my favorites, but I also loved the food in Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam.  Here are some pictures of my Greek lunches.

Sardines and caper leaves in Fira, Santorini, Greece.

Eggplant rolls in Fira, Santorini, Greece

Greek salad for lunch in Akrotirion, Santorini, Greece

Bruschetta with feta cheese and olives & Greek beer in Fira, Santorini, Greece

the owner of the Meteora Restaurant, who serves her customers right from the huge pots as we bring our dishes around

My delicious meatballs at the Meteora Restaurant in Greece

Here is a lunch I enjoyed at a riverside restaurant in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.  I love this kind of food.  It seems so healthy. 🙂

Cambodian lunch of steamed fish with dipping sauces 🙂 YUM!!

In Nepal, I ate a wonderful traditional Nepali lunch outdoors while enjoying a view of the Langtang range of the Himalayas.  This was my most recent special lunchtime break. 🙂

traditional Nepali food for lunch

my view of the Langtang Range of the Himalayas during lunchtime in Nagarkot, Nepal

I love taking lunchtime breaks while traveling, but if I make the mistake of having a beer or wine with my lunch, I get really lazy in the afternoon.  I try to save wine or beer for dinnertime, but I’m not always successful. 🙂

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travel theme: circles

Friday, December 7:  Our new travel theme challenge for this week from Ailsa of Where’s my backpack? is Circles.  She writes: Circles have a similar effect to leading lines in photos – the eye can’t help but follow the line of the circle, usually tracing around it several times, which draws attention to both the circle and whatever it encloses.

Here are some circles from my travels:

a dinner of circles in Siem Reap, Cambodia

circular little thingies in a Japanese shop

a date palm, ubiquitous in Oman

wallpapers full of crazy circles in a Korean “Love Motel”

circular lanterns at a temple near Daegu, South Korea

miniature little flower balls

circular art from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Before I went to Korea, I ate my meals on one plate.  Maybe two.  But in Korea, they serve their meals on multiple plates and everyone eats off of them communally.  Every one of their meals is like this.  They do a LOT of dish washing in that country!

circles & circles (& ovals) of Korean food

I’ve posted pictures of my favorite place in Korea, Suncheon Bay before, but the ones I’ve posted were taken in December, when all the grasses were brown.  On this trip, taken October 2, the circles of grasses were green.

Suncheon Bay in South Korea in early October.

my world in five colors

Tags

#capturethecolour, @travelsupermkt

Saturday, August 18: I was nominated a while ago by Madhu from The Urge to Wander for the Capture the Color photo competition run by TravelSupermarket.com.The rules entail that I publish a post with five original shots from my travels, each one representing the colours blue, green, yellow, white and red. I then need to tag five other bloggers and link back to TravelSupermarket on Facebook or Twitter (with the tags @travelsupermkt and #capturethecolour).

Here is my world in five colors.

BLUE: THE FAN, RICHMOND, VIRGINIA, USA.

A blue house in The Fan district in Richmond, Virginia

Richmond’s Fan District is a lovely residential neighborhood that consists of late-nineteenth and early twentieth century homes. It has beautiful tree-lined avenues, historical monuments and row houses built in Victorian, Edwardian and Revival architectural styles. Many houses are also built in the American Craftsman style.  Many of the houses are painted in cheery colors with surprisingly delightful doors. (Richmond’s Fan District)

GREEN: OEDO BOTANIA, GEOJE-SI, SOUTH KOREA.

Oedo Botania

Oedo Botania is an island that’s been cultivated since 1963 by Korean couple Lee Changho and Choi Hosook; it’s the first island in Korea ever to be owned and developed by an individual.  Every inch of this island is abloom with gardens and punctuated by statues.  I walk along the pathways with hundreds of other Koreans who have taken boats from other locations in Geoje.  I check out the cactus garden, the Venus garden, the flower garden, the bamboo road, the Hope of the World garden, the Dreaming Heights, the Stairway to Heaven, and the Eden Garden.  It’s like a fairy-tale land bursting with beauty.  The island itself is gorgeous with gardens, but the view of the surrounding ocean doesn’t hurt it one bit.  Most definitely, Korea does nature right! (geoje: rough seas & caressing grasses (& random thoughts on memory, sensuality & friendship))

YELLOW: THE ROYAL PALACE, PHNOM PENH, CAMBODIA.The Royal Palace is a complex of buildings that serves as the royal residence of the King of Cambodia. The Kings of Cambodia have occupied it since it was built in 1866, except during the tumultuous period of the Khmer Rouge.  The Royal Palace is lovely, all yellow buildings with curlicue roofs, in classic Khmer architecture. (phnom penh: wats, royal palaces, & killing fields)

WHITE:  OMANI MEN WITH RIFLES, NIZWA, OMAN.

Omani men at Nizwa souq

As I walk down toward Nizwa souq, I see a large group of older men affectionately handling, inspecting and playing around with rifles.  Some are sitting on a bench around a tree and I ask if I can take a picture of them.  They are friendly enough to let me do so.  But when I try to ask them questions about their rifles and what they are doing here, it becomes obvious that, first, no one speaks English, and second, I am an interloper among these men. Still.  They are an easy-going brotherhood, having a good time and laughing, a kind of Sunday social hour. (exploring the backroad to nizwa souq)

RED: TEMPLE OF LITERATURE, HANOI, VIETNAM.

Inside the Temple of Literature, Hanoi, Vietnam

The Temple of Literature, dedicated to Confucius in 1070 by Emperor Ly Thanh Tong, was later established as a university for the education of mandarins.  It has 5 courtyards, with a serene reflecting pool in the front courtyard, roofed gateways, and low-eaved buildings. (hanoi: city of motorbikes, enthusiastic buddhists & ho chi minh)

And here are my 5 nominees.  I know time is running out, as the contest ends August 29, but I hope they’ll still participate.

tahira’s: shenanigans from the edge of the world

blueberrie journal

Miranda from My Own Horizons

Finola of travelola.org

Lynne of On the Go with Lynne

7 super shots

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7 Super Shots

Wednesday, July 25:  FrizzText (FrizzText: 7 Super Shots) nominated me to take part in HostelBookers 7 Super Shots.  It’s been 10 days since he nominated me, and I’m just now getting around to taking part in the challenge, 8 days before I leave Oman to return to the USA for one month! (But who’s counting?)

The challenge is to choose 7 of your own photos, one for each of the following categories:

• A photo that…takes my breath away
• A photo that…makes me laugh or smile
• A photo that…makes me dream
• A photo that…makes me think
• A photo that…makes my mouth water
• A photo that…tells a story
• A photo that…I am most proud of (aka my worthy of National Geographic shot)

Here is a photo that takes my breath away.  In Cappadocia, Turkey, we wake up at dawn for an hour-long hot air balloon ride.  As 40 balloons lift off simultaneously, everyone is silent.  The experience of rising, feeling the land pull away, seeing the multitudes of other balloons in the sky, all at different heights, of different colors – it takes my breath away.  It takes everyone’s breath away.  We are awed into silence.  The only sound is the blast of the fire overhead, the rustle of people moving around in the basket to search out the best view.

hot air balloons in Cappadocia, Turkey

As we relax into the ride, we make noises, exclamations of wonder.  We love the other balloons floating in the sky with us; they’re our companions.  Seeing them is the only way we can see ourselves.   Below are the white pinnacles of Cappadocia, the fairy chimneys, the pointed volcanic rocks, tufts of greenery.

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Here is a photo that makes me laugh or smile.  This is a picture of one of my closest friends while I lived in Korea, Anna S.  We all went to the Trick Art Exhibit in Daegu, South Korea.   Here is Anna, hanging on for dear life.

this photo really makes me smile! 🙂

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Here is a photo that makes me dream. This is a photo of Houhai Lake in Beijing, China.  This was such a peaceful and beautiful place; it made me feel all dreamy when I was there.  After a rickshaw tour, our guide Grace walks us over to the lovely Houhai Lake.  This is my favorite place in Beijing…the Summer Palace being a close second.  Houhai isn’t necessarily a tourist place, although it draws plenty of tourists.  It’s a thriving commercial area with funky and cool shops, restaurants with outdoor cafes and live music, weeping willow trees, paddle boats, bicycles galore, and a cool breeze blowing off the small finger-shaped lake.

Houhai Lake in Beijing: the stuff of dreams

My friend Suzanne and I wander around the lake.  It is so lovely, with a cool breeze sweeping the weeping willows on the lake’s edge, like soft woolen fringe on a Nordic sweater.  The lake is filled with dancing points of light, effervescent.

———————–

Here is a photo that makes me think.  Before I went to Cambodia, I read a number of gruesome books about the Khmer Rouge.  It really made me think about how, during the time millions of people were suffering under a cruel and murderous regime in Cambodia, I was living a carefree life as a teenager in America.  Visiting Tuol Sleng Prison in Phnom Penh, as well as the Killing Fields, really made me think about how oblivious we can be sometimes to other people’s sufferings.

At the Killing Fields, I face the entrance gate and a giant commemorative stupa.  I discover later that the stupa is filled with the skulls of 8,000 victims who were murdered here.  I go directly to the tiny museum where a film is in progress about the history of Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge regime and of this place.  The film is brutally honest and doesn’t try to gloss over the barbarity of this horrible regime.  I find often in my travels that museums try to downplay the despicable actions of their country or to gloss over history.  For example, in Musée de l’Armée in Paris, there is hardly any mention made of the Americans liberating Paris after WWII.  You would think when visiting there that the French single-handedly defeated the Germans.  Revisionist history.

the Killing Fields of Cambodia

The film here at Choeung Ek  is truly sickening and brings me, and many other tourists, to tears.  After the film, I collect myself, and walk around the grounds where I see some of the mass graves that were unearthed.  There’s a grave where only naked women and children were found.  Another grave contained headless corpses. Yet another only miscellaneous bone fragments. There is a tree where the regime would hold babies by the feet and bash their heads against the trunk.   Their rationale for killing babies was so that the children of victims wouldn’t seek revenge on the regime when they grew up.  One sign says that this particular tree held a loudspeaker to drown out the screams of those being bludgeoned, so as not to disturb the neighbors.

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Here is a photo that makes my mouth water.  This is warm goat cheese wrapped in pastry and smothered in cranberries at the Left Bank in Muscat, Oman.

cheese always makes my mouth water

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Here is a photo that tells a story. Here is a picture of the view out of the auto-rickshaw that pulled our broken-down car nearly 10km somewhere between Chandigarh and Rishikesh, India.   India was such an incredible hardship, especially on this day, which took the cake.  I love this picture because it tells the story of a grueling 14-hour day on what should have been a 3 hour drive from Chandigarh to Rishikesh, India.  To read more about this crazy day, check out: chandigarh >> to delhi (???) >> to rishikesh….14 grueling hours.

pulled by an autorickshaw about 10 km somewhere between Chandigarh and Rishikesh

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Honestly, I have a hard time coming up with a photo I am most proud of (aka my worthy of National Geographic shot).  I love many of my photos because they bring happy memories to me, but as far as being National Geographic-worthy, well, I’m just not that great a photographer!  I really can’t say I have a favorite, but I have some that I really like, similar to ones I’ve seen in National Geographic.  This one was taken when my son Alex came to visit me in South Korea and we went to Suncheon Bay.  This was one of my favorite places in Korea and when we went together, it was my second time there.  There are so many beautiful shots, but I think this one is interesting.

three boats in the Suncheon Bay EcoReserve in South Korea

Suncheon Bay is a coastal wetland with a large tidal flat, reed beds and salt marshes nestled between mountains and ribboned with rivers.  Further inland are glowing chartreuse rice fields.  I walk through the grasses along the wooden walkway and see fiddler crabs in the mud and some beautiful cranes.  It’s warm but a breeze is whipping the sea grasses around.  I love these grasses against the backdrop of the mountains and the rivers.

Here’s my post about my trip to Suncheon Bay: digging deep: edgy korean bus culture, tea bushes & wetlands, & the surrendered.

Now, I’m supposed to nominate 5 other bloggers to come up with their 7 Super Shots.  Here’s who I nominate:

Where’s my backpack?

the unbearable lightness of being me.

On the Go with Lynne

travelola

East of Málaga

weekly photo challenge: unusual

Tags

postaweek2012, weekly photo challenge

Saturday, March 17:

Anything that excites me for any reason, I will photograph; not searching for unusual subject matter, but making the commonplace unusual. ~ Edward Weston

one of 54 figures in front of Angkor Thom in Siem Reap, Cambodia

In front of each gate at Angkor Thom in Siem Reap, Cambodia are statues of 54 gods to the left and 54 demons to the right.  These gods and demons are taken from the story of the Churning of the Ocean of Milk.  It’s some kind of story where a mountain is used as a churning device, and the king of serpents is wrapped around it.  On one shore, one person held the tail of the serpent and on the other shore, another held his head.  They they pulled the serpent back and forth, churning the ocean.  These are some of the unusual 54 demons.

Beijing, China

An unusual little vehicle on Houhai Lake.  This is my favorite place in Beijing, China…the Summer Palace being a close second.  Houhai isn’t necessarily a tourist place, although it draws plenty of tourists.  It’s a thriving commercial area with funky and cool shops, restaurants with outdoor cafes and live music, weeping willow trees, paddle boats, bicycles galore, and a cool breeze blowing off the small finger-shaped lake.

Korean kids drive these little motorized cars around in a frenzy in Gyeongju, South Korea

What’s so unusual about this is the fact that these kids are around 3-4 years old and are driving MOTORIZED vehicles, randomly and in a frenzy around this little park.   It’s absolute chaos and somewhat dangerous, with kids running into each other and hurting each other in mini-accidents!!  It’s pure insanity.  Who would let a 3-year-old drive a motorized vehicle in a place like this, with scores of other kids doing the same thing??

And last but not least: What can be said about this?  This is South Korea for you!!

a sculpture garden in Seongju, South Korea

Unusual?? An understatement…. 🙂

weekly photo challenge: indulge

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postaweek2012

Travel is my biggest indulgence. I visited Cambodia in January 2011, and I have to say Cambodia is one of my favorite countries, right up there with Turkey and France.

The Angkor Palm in Siem Reap, Cambodia is a lovely colonial-type restaurant that spills out into the street.  After a long bus ride from Phnom Penh, I indulge myself here, sitting outdoors on the sidewalk so I can watch the people walk by.  I order the Angkor Palm Platter for One.  It’s a sampler of Khmer food: fresh spring roll, green mango salad with special smoked fish, local pork spareribs roasted with honey and spicy sauce, homemade green curry with chicken, cha’ta kuong or stir-fried morning-glory with oyster sauce, steamed rice, and a Khmer dessert of white pumpkin with a sugary sauce.  As usual, I have a glass of red wine. Ah, indulgence!!  It’s pleasant here on the street of this quaint town, sampling delectable food and watching the tourists and locals traipsing past.

when i travel i love to indulge myself with fresh local food 🙂

Still in Cambodia, this time in Phnom Penh, I see the word indulge put into action on a scale unimaginable in Western culture.  Indulgence of the Buddha.  At Wat Phnom, meaning Hill Temple, the locals swarm all over the place.  Buddha worship is taken to extremes; it’s big business.  On the far right of the temple is a production area where people arrange flowers, cut fruit, burn incense, slice raw meat and offer these items for sale. Here, to indulge the Buddha will bring karma, I guess, or some kind of good fortune.

indulgence of the buddha ~ taken to the extreme

There are easily 25-30 people within the temple busying themselves arranging or collecting or distributing the multitudes of offerings.  Others are on their knees praying.  Inside the temple are hundreds of Buddhas, each of which is holding on its crossed legs or in its arms several Cambodian Riel, bananas, oranges, flowers, or little skewers of white flowers that smell like freesia (I can’t find the names of these flowers anywhere!).  I walk behind a young Cambodian guy who devoutly walks around the perimeter of Buddhas, bowing and placing a Riel on each Buddha.

INDULGING the Buddha in Phnom Penh, Cambodia

To read about my travels in Vietnam & Cambodia, please visit my blog rice paddies and papayas.

weekly photo challenge: regret

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postaweek2012, weekly photo challenge

Regret.  This is inside Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, a former high school turned prison and interrogation center in Phnom Penh, Cambodia’s capital.  It served as Security Prison 21 (S-21) for the communist Khmer Rouge regime from 1975-1979, the years when that regime was in power.  It’s such an incredibly distressing place.  So dark, you can almost feel the evil that once lurked here.  These are rows and rows of tiny rectangular cells, the size of long skinny closets, where prisoners were shackled to the tiled floor.

Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum in Phnom Penh, Cambodia

I think former members of the Khmer Rouge, who apparently slipped back into Cambodian society unpunished, must have great regret at their actions during those horrible years.  They must live with that regret every day, suffer through their nightmares every night.

Yes, it is depressing.  Regret is depressing.  In a broader sense, the picture also represents all the doors opened for us in life that we never went through; we possibly regret that we didn’t.  Or the doors that we DID go through and wish we hadn’t.