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Katoomba
or: nature sold as amusement park Come and discover the Scenic World of Katoomba in the Blue Mountains! With the Scenic Skyway (photo) one moves at 270 metres above the floor of the Jamison Valley in the highest cable car in Australia! If next you don’t go down into the valley with the Scenic Railway…
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Yak horns
The turning of prayer-wheels as in last week’s post, and prayer-flags in the wind in an earlier post, are efficient ways of multiplying and spreading the positive effects of the sacred texts they contain. Another very ancient custom is the use of engraved stone or animal skull and horn for spreading the mystic mantras over the face…
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As the world turns
Praying while you chat with friends on the square ….. for Tibetans this is possible thanks to their prayer-wheels. Sacred formulas like “om mani padme hum” can be written down repeatedly in great number on paper and put on a role inside the wheel. If turned around it is believed to have the same effect…
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Tibet café
We notice in this simple Tibetan café a not necessarily hostile mixture of human beings and their cultural expressions from China and Tibet. The big flasks and at least one of the guests are clearly Chinese, while the lady with the impressive silver buckle is a typical traditionally dressed Tibetan woman. The flasks usually contain…
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Waitangi Day
On the 6th of February 1840 representatives of the British Crown and some 500 Maori Chiefs signed the Treaty of Waitangi (after the place where it was done), which guaranteed the Maoris right to their land and gave them the rights of British subjects. This sounds nice and generous, but the main thing was of…
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Bathing in paint
We’re back at the Italian pavilion of the Venice Biennale in 2011. In an earlier post I had called it a sort of junk art shop. The larger than life portraits of a man and a woman bathing are impressive. Look how true-to-life the water is flowing in plenty over their heads! The open mouths, looking…
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Bathing at the pump
Life of the seasonal migrant workers in the brick kilns is all about hard work, eating and sleeping in tiny huts and, as we see on this picture, cleaning of body and clothes at the common hand-pump. What pleased me in last week’s pictures of women at work in the kilns pleases me here again:…
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Pillars of strength
That’s what they are, the working poor of India! Especially the women. Without their constant effort and care the entire structure of society would collapse in no time. Prone to exploitation and even bondage, these migrant workers in the brick kilns have one advantage over their middle class masters. Their physically demanding work in relative…
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Happy new year
Hope you’ve all made a kiss landing into the year 2015 Photo of the week: Prague, Czech Republic 2007
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White elephant
Sometimes you meet after many years an old acquaintance who greets you with the exclamation “You haven’t changed a single bit!” The same applies to the Indian Ambassador car. Since its birth in 1957 as a clone of Morris Oxford its looks have hardly changed during all those years that it has been in production. But the “sick…
καιρός remembered
… the right moment, position chosen, shoot …
καιρός remembered 