After work yesterday, Steve and I made our way up to Swayambhunath, better known perhaps as the monkey temple. It is one of the oldest religious sites in Nepal and while considered a Buddhist site, it is also important to the Hindu people. It is also a UNESCO World Heritage Listed site. There were indeed plenty of holy monkeys and, my favourite, a whole lot of steps (some say 365) to reach the top. We had a clear afternoon and amazing views across Kathmandu as we made our way to the top.
My Life: Grateful | Gratitude | Thankful After work yesterday, Steve and I made our way up to Swayambhunath, better known perhaps as the monkey temple. It is one of the oldest religious sites in Nepal and while considered a Buddhist site, it is also important to the Hindu people. It is also a UNESCO World Heritage Listed site. There were indeed plenty of holy monkeys and, my favourite, a whole lot of steps (some say 365) to reach the top. We had a clear afternoon and amazing views across Kathmandu as we made our way to the top. It is hard to imagine how life is for the Nepalese people living in Kathmandu. I imagine there is a large disparity in incomes and lifestyles for the Nepalese people. As we travel around the suburbs life appears very much lived in the open and it is difficult to reconcile another person's way of life with that of my Western lifestyle; particularly a lifestyle so different to my own. As an outsider their life seems to be pretty tough, but is that just my perception based on my upbringing and experiences? It is hard to suspend ingrained belief structures to understand a different culture. But it serves as a reminder that luck/fate is all there is when it comes to where one is born - what an impact on one's life.
3 Comments
The Journey: Our Path | The Way | Places We've Been Namaste from Kathmandu! And how appropriate is today's prompt! Stunning views of the mountain range with mount Everest (the dark peak in the centre) from the plane as we came into Tribhuvan airport - which we got to see three times as we had to circle before we could land. I think the captain said something about communication with the tower had been lost ... but we did eventually land safely. A quick and efficient pass through customs, purchase visas, collect luggage and then to the hotel. We changed into more appropriate footwear, which means something solid like hiking boots (thanks for the heads up Juanita), grabbed some jumpers and off we headed. A short taxi drive, no, let me rephrase that, a short travelling distance, but a longish taxi ride through traffic, that, if you haven't experienced it before, leaves you wondering if you will actually make it to your destination in one piece, without your taxi being dinged, dented, or otherwise marked in some way! I think there are road rules and they seem to be something along the lines of: if you honk the horn loudly and persistently enough, are fearless and can push your way through, or around, whatever is in the way, you get to go in the desired direction. Of course every other driver follows the same rules. Lanes appear to optional but traffic does 'flow' in two directions. Merging traffic - I'm not sure what I can say about that as it really has to be seen (and experienced) to be believed, but it does merge, eventually.Traffic moves quite slowly, which is a good thing. A sense of adventure and humour, and perhaps earplugs, makes being driven around a fun experience. This is one of those times when we're quite happy to leave the driving to those who know best. We wandered through the streets until we came to Thamal, the main tourist area and pretty much just soaked in the atmosphere. We found a supermarket and stocked up on some goodies for the room and were completely surprised when we found soy milk on sale. We had dinner at a funky little restaurant called Places. Quite a few westerners had set up with their laptops and drinks etc as wireless internet was free. Being vegetarian in Nepal is much easier then in Europe and the food was delicious. The food prices are mind-boggling low by Australian Standards and the service is fantastic. Such wonderful welcoming people. A few brown outs as electricity was being shed but the generators kicked in quickly. Back to the hotel for an early night as our body clocks were quite out of whack. Monday was Steve's orientation day at the Scheer Memorial Hospital in Banepa (an Adventist hospital) where he will be volunteering. We went down to breakfast early as his pick up was at 7:00am. Unbeknownst to me I was expected to be part of the orientation process, so that was a change in my plans for the day. We were driven out to Banepa by our host Bijuli and went to his house where we met his wife, Sunita and their son, Phillip. Their daughter is currently studying in Australia. We had no idea what was actually planned for the day, so we were very much in Bijuli's hands. We had a look around the Scheer hospital and then joined in the welcoming address to a large contingent of Japanese medical personnel who had come to Banepa to operate on children with cleft palates. This particular program has been going for 18 years and is organised by the Adventist Development and Relief Agency of Japan. We visited a school for the deaf and were introduced to the children as well as some young adults who are deaf and doing handicraft work for fundraising. We walked around the town while Bijuli explained many aspects of Nepalese life and culture and answered our questions. After lunch we caught a local bus up to another hospital where Steve had a chance to speak with the Emergency Consultant about various aspects of emergency care in the area. Bijuli and his family have been hosting volunteers in their home since 2001. The volunteers come from all over the world; many are young people who want the chance to volunteer, and to experience another culture, another way of life. Some are much older. Some stay for a week, while others stay for 6 months. The volunteers have a variety of professional backgrounds, yet the common thread is the desire to volunteer and to help the people of developing countries, such as Nepal. At the moment Bijuli's family have six people staying with them. Four are from Australia. There is a high school maths teacher, a medical student, a physiotherapist and a young girl who has just completed a Diploma of Justice. Next week I will spend my time volunteering in one of the schools. Around Banepa Boundless Spirit: Joy | Exuberance | Joie de Vivre
Sorry to post yet another photo of one of the dogs, but …no, actually, no I'm not sorry, they're worth the extra photos. Bella is 9 and her enthusiasm and joy in chasing the ball is unlimited. And even when I think she's had enough and I go over to take the ball, she's up and ready to go again. Zimi on the other hand, while totally besotted with the balls, and beside himself when it's getting close to "throw the ball time", cannot bring himself to let me take the balls away from him to throw again. I see Bella and Zimi bring such total commitment to what they're doing, their joy and ability to be in the moment is something to learn from, to aspire to. As Wikipedia puts it: "… joie de vivre may be seen as a joy of everything, a comprehensive joy, a philosophy of life …" I think that sums it up quite nicely, and I'm pretty sure Bella is smiling in this photo. Whimsy: Quaint | Playful | Fanciful
Oh I was so tempted to use the little fairy again as she is just so whimsical ... What is whimsy anyway? According the free dictionary online whimsy is "anything playful or fanciful, as an artistic creation". After taking a few shots of various things I liked this wrought iron frog that hangs on our outside wall. It was given to us by our daughter when we lived in Cairns and lived on the internal post of our pole home. A little bit of a play around with post editing and this is my take on whimsy. And there it is, a short post for the prompt. Photography: The Gear | The Processes | The Pictures I didn't spend a lot of time with this prompt as I've already done a few photography shots of my camera and associated gear, and didn't really put much effort into thinking of more creative ways to meet the prompt. Perhaps it's just the end of the year, and the motivation starting to wane a little, or wear a little thin or it's the time of the year that is just getting busier. Perhaps it's also that I've a heap of photos to look through and choose at the moment, as I'm doing up photo books for our grandchildren for Christmas. I'm starting to realise the value in using keywords and having a better workflow in Lightroom - I imagine it would make finding photos a whole lot easier. As you can probably imagine there are literally thousands of photos in my 2013 folder (over 12000). And while it's organised into months that doesn't really help when I'm looking for a nice photo of Oliver, for example. What I decided to do quickly with this photo was to set up the camera looking into a mirror on a stand, so I could get a photo of the camera I use almost all the time. This is the first shot I took and I realised that I didn't get my finger away from the shutter quickly enough. I then used the self-timer on the next couple of photos. Turned out that I actually liked the one that had my finger on the shutter, as I think it tells more of the story. The white around the bottom is the mirror frame. I would have preferred to not have as much white. I did crop the image and used a couple of presets on it, but then I also made other adjustments to get the effect I wanted. On Saturday I discovered the hard way that this camera is remarkably strong and robust. It can deal quite well with being pulled off the table by a jealous four-year-old German Shepherd who wanted to get my attention, and landing on the floor, lens first! (I was brushing Bella and had separated the two of them). I remain incredibly thankful that the lens on the camera was my inexpensive 'nifty fifty' and not one of my more precious lenses. However, the 50mm nifty fifty was not as robust and did fare well in the fall, and now needs to be replaced.
Lesson learnt: do not leave the camera strap anywhere Zimi can reach and probably put it even further away than what I think it's even remotely possible to reach! And, yes, he did get my attention. Entertainment: Amusement | Fun | Diversion In a way I suppose this is entertainment. We had a thunderstorm pass through in the afternoon with dark rolling clouds, thunder, lightning, rain and wind. Quite exciting actually, I thought, but my two fierce German Shepherds were hiding behind me. After the storm passed, we were presented with amazing colours in the sky and clouds. I couldn't resist! And yes, I did miss yesterday's photo.
Colour: Yellow | Red | Blue
I really love how running shoes, footy shoes, soccer shoes etc, are no longer the plain and dreary colours they used to be, but are now rather bright and colourful. I've been amazed to see boys sporting bright pink shoes and think it's just great! I've just bought myself a new pair of runners and there is no way you will lose me in a crowd (now to get the clothes to match). Mine are the pink ones. Duh! The blue runners I bought earlier this year will now replace the rather dead ones I was using to walk with the dogs each morning. They had really reached their use by date and were doing nothing to protect my feet. And seeing that I want to be using them (my feet, that is) for quite some time to come, they needed replacing. I grabbed my shoes as well as Steve's and had a bit of a play around with colour saturation in post editing just for fun. Nourishment: Fruit and Veggies | Dinner | Ingredients Another storm threatened this afternoon, and we received warning alerts for a particularly fierce storm, but thankfully that didn't eventuate. What we did get, however, were some really great clouds (and just a touch of rain). My daughter had sent me a message about the potential storm, and her message also included the reminder to get the camera ready! I did. Amazing how on one side of the sky we had these amazing rolling dark clouds and opposite were blue skies with large white fluffy clouds. But onto the prompt for the day (well Friday's prompt as I am writing this on Saturday). Another prompt where I knew what I wanted to photograph. I had planned to do a long run (10km) this morning so had decided on a one pot pasta for dinner. Nice and easy to prepare and cook, as well easy to photograph, or so I thought. Not so. When I looked at the photos I took I didn't particularly like any of them. This is the best of them, and as you can see, that's not saying much. Anyway I went ahead and did my run this morning and when I got back I decided I wanted to bake something, anything. I found a recipe on my Pinterest site - Banana almond baked oatmeal cakes (the recipe can be found here) made it up and left it to bake while I had my shower. They were ready in time for morning tea. Kind of like an alternative breakfast really as they aren't a muffin. The only ingredients are rolled oats, bananas, almonds, almond milk, honey, vanilla extract and almond butter (I used Nuttelex Olive Oil spread). They were a nice way to refuel after my run. As for the run, I was quite happy with how I went, as I haven't done a 10k since the Bridge 2 Brisbane on September 1. I took it nice and easy and the only part I found hard were the hills going up Glen Osmond Road. However, I actually only managed 9k because I got a phone call around the 8k mark from some people who had picked up Bella. Yes, she had escaped ... yet again. Obviously there was more thunder around than what I thought, and even though the dog door to the house was open, she felt the need to get out of the yard, I imagine to look for me. So I cut my run short, went back to the car and then to pick her up. Another km wouldn't have been a problem, so I feel good knowing that I haven't lost the fitness I gained for the B2B. Seeing that our next run is the Resolution Run on January 12 which is only 8 weeks away, and I've signed up for 11k, I think I'd best be getting back into some training. Gee, I can't believe that we're so close to Christmas and before we know it 2014 will be good to go.
I have a few goals already in the works for 2014, including another year of CY365, but I would also like to do a makeover of my blog and website. I welcome ideas of what I could do to it to improve it or to make it more interesting. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Is there a way I could make it more interactive? What needs to go? Feel free to suggest away :-) Thanks Valmae Progress: Forward | Movement | Continue
Today's email was about how to capture movement, in particular, someone running, so for those who are interested ... Photographing Runners Have you wondered how to create more interesting running photos? Follow a few steps to get the best running photos:
Over the past few months I've done quite a lot of photography involving movement, not only of the dogs, but also of my grandchildren playing football, and I have numerous photos I could have used for this prompt. However, today was a rather stormy day, with lots of thunder, lightning, rain, wind and hail. Not really the most conducive for being outside and taking photos of the dogs running. Actually, I don't think I would have been able to convince Bella to chase the ball while there was thunder, as she has become increasingly more and more frightened of the electrical storms since we've been down here, and doesn't like to leave my side - literally. I was reading while it was raining at one point in time, and couldn't work out what was making these strange noises I was hearing. Being from far north Queensland and not experiencing hail, it took a few minutes to realise what was happening. First stop - close the roller doors to the garage and other windows in the house, second stop - grab the camera! Wrong. Camera is in the shed so it was back to using the iPhone. Unfortunately I didn't manage to get any "good" shots. In my defence it was windy, raining and hailing, and I had two dogs underfoot while I was getting wetter and colder. Not a lot of time to experiment with angles, focussing, apertures or depth of field. |
ARCHIVE CY365 -2014
This blog started out to be about my first 365 day photography project - one photo each day - through Katrina Kennedy's Capture Your 365 challenge Blogs I followThe more I start looking at blogs the more I find that are interesting. This is not good. I can never remember where I found them. Not to mention how time consuming they can be ...
Food Blogs and recipesGreen Kitchen Stories
Veggie Num Num Kothiyavunu: Indian The Post Punk Kitchen: vegan Apron Strings Sprouted Kitchen: Mainly vegetarian foods with a focus on seasonal products and clean eating Keeping it kind: Vegan recipes The Sweet Life: Vegan recipesCoffee & Quinoa: Mainly vegetarian recipes Monthly listsArchives
January 2014
Categories
All
|