Weekly Photo Challenge: Escape

Travelling is our escape from the bustling city where we live.

What else can be better than an escape to the seaside of the blue Adriatic sea?

We escaped last year to the sunshine of Dubrovnik, Croatia – to the fortresses by the sea.

The medieval fortresses helped us cast our minds back many centuries, to a time when Dubrovnik was almost as strong as Venice.

Gazing out to the enchanting blue Adriatic with the castle on our right, our minds escaped even further when we saw a boat speeding out to the open seas; a man rowing a small boat  leisurely near the castle waters and, sitting on the rocks of the rocky shore, was a man reading his book.

Sometimes, we would like to escape, doing several things we like  or to be at different places we enjoy at the same time. . . . . .  speeding out to the blue sea, rowing leisurely and sitting quietly on the rocks by the seaside. I know we can’t physically escape immediately from where we are, but the mere thought of escaping already lightens me up!

PS  Please click on photo to enlarge as necessary.

Yellow Monday (5)

Even in my retirement, I want something to cheer up when starting on a new week.

After several weeks of rain, the kind Sun did show his face yesterday, However, this could be brief; forecast is that it will be followed by at least several rainy and cloudy days.

My mind still wanders back to February / March when our hearts were uplifted by the yellow rapeseed flowers in Luoping,  Yunnan of China.

I hope you don’t mind me posting a few more images showing similar but not identical view of the yellow fields.

What a joy it was to walk among the yellow fields. We felt blessed to be there strolling the fields when the flowers were in full bloom.

While I tried to take pictures without tourists in the images, but sometimes I feel that their presence would further remind us of the happy time when we were down at the fields.

Have a great week

A Word a Week: Mountain

This is the first time that I make a submission to the “A Word A Week” challenge.

The “Word” for this week is “Mountain‘.

Mountains loom large in many people’s mind. I used to think of them being majestic, mysterious and sometimes even sacred.

In my travels, sometimes, the best scenery are the ones that I miss while travelling in a car or a coach. When there is no way you can stop and take a picture; may be because it is a single lane road with many cars behind you and /or there are no places to stop. Perhaps, this is just like the river of life, the best view are those you see on the road. ……… life just goes on and on and cannot be stopped somewhere in between.

But this does not deter me from taking pictures while the car / coach are moving, while risking the fact that objects in the forefront may look blur when the images come out.

While travelling in Yunnan, high up in a mountainous area where even taller mountains appeared before my eyes, I took several images while the coach was on the move. More than half of the images came out alright; some of them suffered from the glare reflecting from the coach window.

I like the way the clouds have come down in an almost triangular shape, hiding parts of the mountain but leaving the peaks exposed. I also like the several distinct bands of colors of the mountain, the land etc.

I just couldn’t forget the lonely and dreamy house there too and the feeling that this couldn’t be China – this could just be anywhere in the world ( or out of this world)!

Weekly Photo Challenge: Patterns (3)

In big contrast to my second submission on “Patterns” which was multi-colored, this image is rather plain but contains a lot of details.

The image was taken in Angkor Wat, Cambodia. All patterns on the wall were hand carved hundreds of years ago.  There are many repetitive details, ranging from flowers to people. Some of the carvings go quite deep into the stone, while others are more superficial.

The patterns cover the walls, the columns and the lintel. In fact, they are everywhere.

The carvings were exposed to the elements ( although lost in the jungle) but still standing after all these centuries.

Weekly Photo Challenge : Patterns (2)

How could I have forgotten this image when posting on “Patterns”?

As part of the Three Gorges Cruise in China, we stopped by this temple and have a good look in the interior.

Apart from the following which caught my eyes:

* four red timber columns supporting the roof with beams painted blue on the underside framing into them.

* four figures jutting out from the columns each with musical instruments in their hands.

* a Chinese lantern slung in the middle.

what attracted me most were the colorful patterns everywhere: on the ceiling, on the beams, gold-plated wood carvings near the bottom of the image.

Fantastic and colorful patterns!

Weekly Photo Challenge: Patterns

Not knowing exactly what are patterns, I looked up for the meaning in Wikipedia:

A pattern, apart from the term’s use to mean “Template“, is a discernible regularity in the world or in a manmade design. As such, the elements of a pattern repeat in a predictable manner.

As someone who likes taking photos of landscape, seascape and architecture, I don’t have a lot of photos showing how nature at work  which shapes many of the living and non-living matters into patterns of different scales.

I suppose as humans, we like breaking down things into manageable elements and assembling them to become bigger pieces. Like nature, we like them to look pretty and pleasing.

Here are a few examples of man-made patterns.

The photo shows the roof of a temple at YungGang, China. The glazed tiles which are already having their own patterns, are supported by two layers of rafters, the lower layer of circular beams and an upper layer of rectangular beams. On a bigger spacing, the columns heads are interesting decorated with what I believe Dragon Heads!

The picture below taken at Sofia Mosque, Istanbul shows the pattern to a gateway. The repetitive pattern of the ironwork and the gold colors on them are just amazing, not to say anything about the patterns above and around them.

Architects are so good at providing patterns on buildings to render them aesthetically pleasing.

The façade of the palace building at Dolmabache contains many repetitive and symmetrical patterns at different scales.

Can’t help being fascinated by patterns – both man- made and natural!

Street of Seville, Spain

After viewing the medieval bridge at Carhors, France, we passed through San Sebastian and entered into Spain.

We went as far south as Seville;  a place of immense beauty that I will never forget.

We roamed the streets of Seville as if any tourist did. We were in a maze of tiny, city-center streets which were little changed since medieval times.

In this part of the old town, I was particularly awed by the cobble street and the architecture on the sides.  The horse-drawn carriages and the shadows added to the atmosphere.

The color photo below brings my memory back to 1985, the year the trip was made.

The yellow wheels of the carriages stand out from the image which otherwise looks quite plain.

While the color photo brings back memories of 1985; the sepia below brings back how I felt when I stood in the street taking the picture, surrounded by houses that were built many centuries ago.

Again, another journey back in time  . . . . . . . . . . . I know as a retiree I now have all the time to go back in time  . . . . . . . . . . .