The area outside Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris is BUSY! My suggestion is to go at night, when you get to see what a real Parisian sewer rat looks like (literally Pamela saw one and said…TELL ME THAT WAS A CAT….THAT WAS A CAT RIGHT)! Nope, that was Not a cat. Or get up early, this isn’t REALLY early, but the crowds are not crazy yet. Honestly, I would suggest going at various times around Ile de la Cite and Ile Saint-Louis. The area is absolutely beautiful and the rats really only come out at night (well at least the kind that live in the sewers).
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I have visited this location many times. Every time I go, I visit this tree on my hike. I have always loved this spot…it’s one of my favorite places in the world. That has to do more with how it makes me feel than anything. It’s part of my ritual, I get up early and drive down a “road” no car should ever go down. I laugh and curse the whole way. I sit alone on a small beach. I hike.
Hawaii and the ocean make me contemplate the cycle of life; of impermanence. You can hardly help but notice, the whole place is a giant battle. Birth, life and death.
Here you have the sea, peaceful.
One day comes fire and pain and birth.
Slowly the sea calms the fire, but it has torn a hole in her.
She patiently spends eons breaking back down the scar the fire left.
Eventually, the sea will win, but few will remember.
I haven’t been back recently and I fear my tree is now gone. Everything returns to the sea.
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I often get tired during international trips. The time changes, though I like to think myself a good adjuster really throw me for a loop at times! I am often back in my room before dark, and often get shots out the windows, especially if I am high atop the city with a fantastic view. This is one such nite in Tokyo, Japan.
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This beautiful statue stands on the grounds of one of the most beautiful villa‘s in Italy. She longingly stares out across Lago Como, waiting. The canopy tree keeps her shaded in the hot Italian sun. She is beautiful, surrounded in luxury, but strikes me as so utterly alone.
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They tend to wind and flow in ways that make me, as well as spirits apparently, confused. They are, however terribly beautiful in a specific way that often reminds me of China itself. That is probably because I spend so much time when I travel visiting museums and gardens. My impression of a place, tends to be shaped by the history and nature they prefer to show. Regardless, I saw these two dragons in Yu Yuan Garden in Shanghai peaking over the top of this covered walkway. The sun was low in the sky, and the view standing there was quite majestic.
All of the photographs on this site are released under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike. You are free to use these on your blog or as a personal wallpaper, as long is they are used in a NonCommercial fashion and you adhere to the terms of the Creative Commons License. We will even host the bandwidth for the files for you!
You must, however, do the following:
Link back to this site at https://www.batteredluggage.com/.
Give credit to W Brian Duncan.
Copy this text and past to your blog. To learn about resizing this image, more about the license requirements or about commercial licensing visit the License Page.
All of the photographs on this site are released under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike. You are free to use these on your blog or as a personal wallpaper, as long is they are used in a NonCommercial fashion and you adhere to the terms of the Creative Commons License. We will even host the bandwidth for the files for you!
You must, however, do the following:
Link back to this site at https://www.batteredluggage.com/.
Give credit to W Brian Duncan.
Copy this text and past to your blog. To learn about resizing this image, more about the license requirements or about commercial licensing visit the License Page.
It is terrible and wonderful thing to be in the Annex, the place that sustained Anne Frank, her family…several families. The boards creek beneath you feet in a way that you feel, viscerally the fear of movement, of discovery. It is sobering to see through slivers of window to the outside and dream of the normal world before the Nazi’s occupied Amsterdam.
Most everything from the Annex has been removed…was removed right after the families arrest. Otto Frank, the only Frank survivor of the concentration camps wanted the rooms left open, but small accents still exist. Walls, and sinks and wood hold memories long after the people are gone.
I was fascinated by the sink in the kitchen. I stayed there, losing time, just feeling the world of it’s texture. I LONGED to climb the stair to the attic because I knew this was one of the places Anne was able in the early morning to see the world through the high window.
The whole place is suffused with this boredom, isolation and fear, but at the same time it is so terribly wonderful to feel a small bit of this. The atrocities of the past, must never be allowed back into our world. They must be remembered as must the people who’s beauty was taken all to soon from this world.
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I have been to Meiji Jingū every time I have visited Tokyo. There is a peacefulness to the place that I love taking in, its also suffused with Japanese spiritual practice. Shinto is fascinating to me, and I love to watch all the comings and goings…especially the marriage ceremonies. This is one of the outer torii gates on the east side of the expansive park the Shrine is built on.
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This scene caught my eye walking back “home” (hotel) while in Amsterdam from Anne Frank Huis. The yellow bicycle against the mostly monochrome row homes really stood out in my mind in this way. It was only later that I noticed how fun the most prominent home number is here. I also saw my first Banksy in the wild nearby. Amsterdam is a wonderful city for cycling and walking, you can’t get away from the general humanness of the place…which I just adore.
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Continuing my theme of BIG PLACES, I give you the temples of Cambodia! This one I believe is Ta Prohm, but given the maze-like winding I did at somewhat breakneck speed, I am doing good to recall where I was at all! There are throngs of tourists, but you still can’t help but sometimes seeing the place through the lens of western video games.
All of the photographs on this site are released under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike. You are free to use these on your blog or as a personal wallpaper, as long is they are used in a NonCommercial fashion and you adhere to the terms of the Creative Commons License. We will even host the bandwidth for the files for you!
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Give credit to W Brian Duncan.
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