o hark, o hear

travel is discovery, and travel is rediscovery, and both touch deep.

i have photographed this cliffside house at happisburgh before, but every encounter
sees it sadly closer to its tumble into the sea.

hip, hip...

hooray, for me, today, even though i stopped celebrating my birthday a few years ago, when i stopped counting the fleeting years.

above, the vaulted sky

it's time to get this show back on the road.

or, at least, it's time to try.

the world's a forest

when we travel, we wander a lot, absorbing local sights, and sounds, and smells.
every now and then, though, something needs to be accomplished, and that something, this particular day in singapore, was the purchase of bus tickets to melaka.

we got lost, of course, and - in a side street - happened upon this.
staying on path can be so overrated.

the rising of the morn

"Faith is the bird that feels the light and sings when the dawn is still dark."

- Rabindranath Tagore (Indian Poet, Playwright and Essayist, 1861-1941)

we thought they'd never end

I took ballet lessons as a wee pony-tailed-spindly-legged lass, and, when my hour was over, I pirouetted myself downstairs to Lattimer's Drugstore and perched myself on a stool till my Mum or my Dad picked me up to take me home. I was given 35 cents to buy a soda or a sundae while I waited, and I remember spinning, alone, to the hiss of the fountain, in my leotard and my ballerinas, on scarlet leatherette, and feeling very Grown Up indeed.
I thought of this, decades later, in Penang, when I saw these fluted coupes: my mind jeté'd back to then, when "chocolate" or "butterscotch" was pretty much the most important decision I had to make.

so, so semiprecious

I've almost finished writing tripadvisor reviews of all the guest houses and hotels we stayed at during our month away. Only two remain: this one

(the beautiful Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion in Georgetown/Penang), and our final-night splurge, the fabulous Pan Pacific in Singapore...which still, in all its glory - and with a buffet breakfast the sumptuous likes of which I have never seen - cost less than a mediocre 3* hotel in Amsterdam on a weekend night.

Yes, I'm still in a nostalgic state of mind, and this is still Southeast Asia. Hey, it's still Penang, even. Bear with me.

een lentesymphonietje

Sophie is so beautiful that all the pictures taken that afternoon at Schiphol are stunning.*

I just know, though, that she is going to see them and sigh, and drat that errant lock of hair and that ever-so-slightly crooked necklace.

The young lady is a perfectionist; I hope they please her despite.

*well, except for the ones shot on Retro 80s: I optimistically loaded the GW with it and then the day turned very dim, and then I neglected to slow the shutter speed down, so those are a wee.bit.underexposed..

i guess that's why they call it

The Cameron Highlands is a kind of Malaysian Escape to the Country : temperate climates, stunning panoramas, and decidedly non-tropical vegetation, like roses, and strawberries, and tea.

And morning glories.

stilted redux

The Clan Jetties in Penang reminded me very much of Tai O on Lantau Island (HK) - much smaller, of course, and more urban - but reaching the latter involved the kind of bus ride that gives me nightmares for months, and reaching the former involved a leisurely morning stroll through irresistible Georgetown.