01 Saturday Jun 2013
Saturday, June 1: This week’s WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge is The Sign Says.
Signs. Funny, poignant, symbolic, incorrect, informative, foreshadowing…there are so many signs in the world.
Like so many signs translated from another language into English, I can’t help but wonder if this one was done by Google Translator. This sign is at the entrance to the village of Misfat Al Abriyyen in Oman.
I don’t know who translated this sign into English, but it’s a mess!
25 Saturday May 2013
Saturday, May 25: Friday’s WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge is In the Background: The places that we pass through day after day, or even once in a lifetime, leave in their small way, echoes and traces of themselves upon us. But so often when taking self portraits or pictures of friends, the places themselves become a soft blurred mush of indistinct semi-nothingness, the limelight stolen by our smiling faces. In today’s challenge, let’s turn the tables. Take a picture of yourself or someone else as a shadow, a reflection, or a lesser part of a scene, making the background, or — as in the example above — the foreground, the center of attention.
I’m not sure I really “get this” challenge, but here are a couple of attempts. Adam, with his mouth watering, is the blurry background with the tofu sandwich as the center of attention.
there’s Adam, all blurry in the background, mouth watering over his vegan sandwich
In this one, taken at the Sahab Hotel on Jebel Akhdar, the blurry background of the Sahab is shown upside down and in the foreground, in the glass of wine.
The Sahab Hotel in the background, and again in the foreground, upside down in the glass of beer
Alex is in the background, covered completely by the glass, but you can see his face in the foreground in the glass of beer
And finally, in this picture of a vintage shop window in Carytown, Richmond, Virginia, it’s hard to tell the background from the foreground.
Vintage Shop window in Richmond, Virginia
And finally, in Dubai, UAE, the Burj al Arab in a mirror, though we’re still in the foreground!
Us in the mirror with the Burj Al Arab in the background
19 Sunday May 2013
Sunday, May 19: The WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge is Escape: Depending on your current mood and headspace, or time in your life, this word can evoke different emotions and conjure a variety of images. Maybe the end of your semester is near, and you yearn for vacation and release: the desire to disappear and run away, the need to unplug and shut off. Or perhaps you imagine quite the opposite: Lost in a maze. Stuck in a room, feeling boxed in, with the worst company. Frustrated in your own thoughts, wondering what to do next.
This week is final exams and then the spring semester is over at the University of Nizwa. I still have 39 days left until my last day of work, and I’m not sure what the university will give me to do to keep me busy. All I know is that I’m waiting to escape my job here in Oman and return home to the USA for good. On the way, I plan to make a month-long stop in Spain and Portugal.
Here are some pictures of the good old U.S.A., taken last summer at Deep Creek Lake in Maryland. We won’t be going to Deep Creek this summer, but it does represent the quintessential escape for me. Lots of green, cool weather, a beautiful lake, boating, swimming and kayaking. Hanging out with my family playing games and just general relaxing. Oh, how I yearn to escape!
Life jackets and kayak paddles ready to go
these feet are ready for an escape
kayaks at Deep Creek Lake
Deep Creek Lake
an escape into a nice relaxing hot tub on the deck of the cabin
perfect escape, a drink, smoke and computer on the deck at Deep Creek Lake
10 Friday May 2013
Friday, May 10: This week’s WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge is Pattern. Patterns are everywhere. Patterns are sometimes intentional and sometimes accidental. They can be decorative or merely a result of repetition, and often patterns can be in the eye of the beholder to discover them.
Sometimes man makes patterns out of nature, as in these tea farms in Boseong, South Korea.
Boseong Tea Plantations in South Korea
And sometimes nature makes its own patterns, as in these wetlands in Suncheon Bay Ecological Park in South Korea.
Suncheon Bay Ecological Park in South Korea
At other times, man makes patterns to show reverence at places of worship, such as this Buddhist temple in Maisan, South Korea.
a temple in Maisan, South Korea
Or to show reverence to Allah, as in the Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan Mosque in Abu Dhabi, UAE or the Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque in Muscat, Oman.
Mosque in Abu Dhabi
Mosaic at Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque in Muscat, Oman
And sometimes, man makes patterns to show his own ability to create opulence, as at Emirates Palace in Abu Dhabi.
Emirates Palace in Abu Dhabi
dome at Emirates Palace
04 Saturday May 2013
Tags
Greece, Jebel Akhdar, Jordan, Nepal, Oman, weekly photo challenge
Saturday, May 4: This week’s WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge is From Above: Change your perspective on something. Share a photo of a subject which you shot from directly above.
From above at the Monastery of St. Barbara, Meteora, Greece
Looking down at Kalambaka from the Monastery of St. Stephen at Meteora, Greece
from above: Nepalese Vegetarian food: basmati rice, black lentils, vegetable curry, spinach green curry, pickle, papad (some kind of mushroom curry?), salad and curd.
the view from above at the Hotel View Point in Nagarkot, Nepal
From above: flowers at Pokhara, Nepal
the view from above at the ancient Crusader castle at Karak, Jordan
from above: the curving staircase at Eikan-do, Kyoto, Japan
From above in a hot air balloon over Cappadocia, Turkey
From above: the “fjords of Arabia” in Musandam, Oman
Omani children at Jebel Akhdar, from above
19 Friday Apr 2013
Posted in Eiffel Tower, France, Paris, Photography Challenges, postaweek2013, Weekly Photo Challenge
Friday, April 19: Today’s WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge is Up. Up can be a direction, an orientation, or even a movement.
Here’s looking up at the Eiffel Tower in Paris.
Looking UP at the Eiffel Tower
looking up at the Monastery at Petra, Jordan
Looking up at the Jebiwon Buddha in Andong, South Korea
Looking up at the ruins of Munisifeh in Ibra, Oman
climbing up the watchtower at Wekan in Oman
part of the Acropolis in Athens, Greece
Looking up at a Buddhist temple in Gongju, South Korea
Looking up at the huge Reclining Buddha in Bangkok, Thailand
14 Sunday Apr 2013
Sunday, April 14: I have been struggling for three days now to come up with something for the WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge: Change. I first thought I would post a picture of my children and how they have changed, but I realized that would take hundreds of pictures. Then I thought of posting about how my life has changed since I decided to live and work abroad, and still, that would have taken too many pictures. I thought of posting one photo of me in my graduation gown accepting my Master of Arts degree. Or at my first wedding. Or my second. Or, I could have posted pictures of the change of seasons, flowers growing, leaves dying, snow falling. The possibilities were endless.
The problem, of course, is that EVERYTHING CHANGES. Every minute of every day, change happens.
Finally, after spending hours looking through my archives for something that would inspire me, I decided to show something that is ALWAYS changing but NEVER changing. This is my friendship with four women, Louise, Martha, Rosie and Charlene, that has spanned decades. Four of us met in 6th grade, in 1966, when my family moved to Yorktown, Virginia and I attended Yorktown Elementary School for the first time. I moved from the “big city” of Newport News to the rural Yorktown, and it was a rude awakening. I arrived on the scene wearing a plaid dress with layers of crinoline, delicate lace-bordered ankle socks and patent leather shoes. The girls I met at Yorktown Elementary wore A-line skirts, button-down shirts, athletic socks and tennis shoes. My friend Louise always tells me she can never get that picture out of her mind of me arriving in that dress with those black shiny shoes.
Louise & Martha have been my friends since that time. I was elected to be Vice-President of the SCA (Student Cooperative Association) in 6th grade, and Rosie was elected President.
I’m on the left as Vice-President of the SCA, and Rosie, second from the left, was President.
When we merged with another elementary school in 7th grade, at Yorktown Intermediate School, we met Charlene. Though I had known Rosie ever since I arrived in 6th grade, our friendship didn’t solidify until we were in 10th grade, at York High School. Since then, the five of us have been good friends.
Yearbook staff at York High School: bottom row: Louise, Rosie, me, Martha, and Charlene standing back, second from the right.
Rosie, Josh, and Charlene in 1973
Rosie, Martha, me and Louise at a party in 1973
me, Rosie, Louise and Charlene at Lake Gaston, 1973
partying in 1974. I’m the one with my mouth open. Rosie’s sitting beside me
Building pyramids at York High School, 1974. Me top tier on right, Charlene and Louise middle tier on left.
Charlene, Mickey Mouse and Rosie at Disney World, Spring 1974
me, Donald Duck and Louise at Disney World in Florida on our senior class trip
Louise and Gary, me and Paul in 1974
We have each constantly changed: married, divorced, had children, had grandchildren (except me), and moved to different parts of the country and the world.
At Charlene’s bachelorette party: Rosie, Louise, Charlene and me
me and Louise (and our mothers) at Charlene’s wedding
Our bodies have gotten older and chubbier. Yet. Despite all the changes we have gone through, one thing has remained constant: our friendship. Despite 40 years, we are still best of friends. Whenever we get together, it as if nothing has changed, even though, in reality, EVERYTHING has changed.
Louise, me and Charlene in New York City
Rosie and Charlene in New York City
me, Rosie, Charlene and Louise in Yorktown, September 2007
Louise, Charlene, me and Rosie in Yorktown in February 2009
Rosie, Louise, Martha and me in Yorktown in April 2009
Charlene, Rosie and me in Yorktown in June 2009
Rosie, me and Martha at Rosie’s brother’s house in August 2009
Charlene, me, Rosie and Martha in May 2011
Louise, Rosie, me, Martha and Charlene in May 2011
Martha, me and Rosie in front, May 2011 at a York High School reunion. (Standing in front of a port-a-potty, not the best choice for a photo!)
I know without a doubt that our friendship will be something we’ll have for the rest of our lives. 🙂
06 Saturday Apr 2013
Posted in Istanbul, Japan, Kathmandu, Kyoto, Nepal, Phewa Lake, Photography Challenges, Pokhara, postaweek2013, Seoul, South Korea, Turkey, Weekly Photo Challenge
Saturday, April 6: The WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge is Color. Splashed on the walls of cities, in batches of flowers in gardens, in the doodles of students, and on the palettes of artists, color is everywhere: it may represent our mood, and it can affect our mood. In photography, you can use a spectrum of colors to bring a place to life, or focus on a single shade to make a bold statement. Conversely, you can shoot in black-and-white or remove color in editing mode for a different effect.
Click on any of the pictures below for a full-sized slide show.
Finally, in honor of South Korea, which is having a few problems with its bellicose northern neighbor right now, here are some colorful lanterns from a lantern festival in Seoul.
colorful lanterns at a lantern festival in Seoul, South Korea
Let’s hope everyone takes a deep breath and tries to diplomatically solve the problems between North and South Korea.
30 Saturday Mar 2013
Saturday, March 30: The WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge asks us to create a tiled gallery of A Day In My Life.
What does your day look like? Here’s your chance to share with everyone a day in your life! Here are some suggestions to get started: snap a picture once an hour and share what your day was like, walk us through a typical day for you, or even just what happened today!
Pick the best pictures which give your readers a sense of a day in your life and share them!
Since I’m 9 hours ahead of the east coast of the United States, I always get the photo challenge late on Friday afternoon. So for this challenge, I started taking photos on Friday evening. So my day is from Friday evening at 5:00 to Saturday evening at 5:00.
16 Saturday Mar 2013
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:
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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Notebooks from a trampfest. Travel tips, tales and images, online since 2006.
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inspired by the colours of the land, sea and sky of Cornwall
A blog about expat life and travel adventures written by an Slovenian girl living in Switzerland
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Personal blog about running adventures
exploring New York City one adventure at a time
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You can learn a lot from Lydia...(It's a song, not a promise.)
My site for offering my alcohol ink arts
Blessed be the ones that see beauty where others see nothing
Debra's Excellent Adventures in Reading and Travel
Traveling & Blogging Near and Far
Jane's Lens
Notebooks from a trampfest. Travel tips, tales and images, online since 2006.
Wrestless Word Wrestler
Encyclopedia Miscellaneous - 'quality' blogging since August 2011
Stories and tips from home and far away
A German Expat's Life in Fredericksburg/Texas
inspired by the colours of the land, sea and sky of Cornwall
A blog about expat life and travel adventures written by an Slovenian girl living in Switzerland
Can I have a bite?
Personal blog about running adventures
exploring New York City one adventure at a time
Notes on Seeing, Reading & Writing, Living & Loving in The North
