Posts filed under 'Travel'
i was feeling a little nostalgic today, so i started rummaging through some of my photos from travels past. then i realized that i’d actually marked some photos to blog about, but had eventually just forgotten about them altogether. so here are the last of some istanbul pictures. at some point, if my memory still serves me, hopefully i’ll get around to putting up photos from paris a year ago, and barcelona from two years back, along with some small stories found in those beautiful cities.
it’s funny but i haven’t been as shutter-happy as i once was, which explains the dearth of photos in this space over the past year or so. i’m not sure why that is. these days i’m content just drinking things in with the eyes, and don’t feel that same need to tell or show anyone what i saw. actually, these days i’m content not talking to anyone at all. which was why it was nice to sit down and stare into space with J the other day, as the chatter of uproarious brickfields moved thickly around us like curls of incense smoke. these are the best relationships — the ones with obligations that don’t feel like obligations, where so much is instinctively understood that not much needs to be said. at some point we asked each other if it was okay to just be quiet and be far away into our own thoughts. yeah it’s okay. the next time i toss a coin into a fountain, or make a wish on birthday candles, i will wish that everyone on earth gets to keep one such friendship with them, on them, always.
photos from istanbul:
(i wrote the above about two weeks ago, but got interrupted while i was resizing photos. in the time between then and now, timtam, who was with me in istanbul, uploaded his own photos to facebook. with his marvelous camera and exquisite eye for a good picture, i really no longer have to share mine, because his photos just outshine any and all that i have. so i’m going to put his up instead :) with his permission of course.
…. BUT!!! not without claiming some credit for most of the shots, cos timtam IS SUCH A PHOTO MOMENT STEALER >:( basically i’ll stop to take a photo of something or someone, and timtam will come up behind me to do the same… except he emerges with the distinctly better photo. life is unfair. everyone, buy an analog camera.)
#1
#2
#3
#4
#5
#6
#7
#8 – my favourite shot
#9
#11 – my second favourite shot
#12
#13
#14
#15
#16
#17
#18
#19
#20
timtam, i support any endeavour of yours to start your own online photo gallery. can’t wait for island creamery bonding time in a week!
August 23rd, 2010
don’t you think, life has a funny way of assaulting you over and over again with a recurrent theme, or pattern, or any thing – as if afraid you’re just not getting it? i’m getting it, okay, i really am. these things all hover over me like some dark shroud, how could i not? they manifest themselves in books, photos, behind posters, and even in back-up vocals when i’m not really listening to the song. but i’ve been having these out-of-body experiences lately. it’s like a bad dream where i keep watching myself intrude this holy space and dirty it with my feet, and i can’t say anything or stop myself, because it’s too late. i’m a frequent hearer of the overbearing phrase, there’s nothing you can do about it, but i always disbelieve it, because i i think it is always possible to do something about anything. if you look hard enough, there will most definitely be a sliver of a space for you to edge your fingers through, or breathe into. creativity and relentless amounts of determination is the answer. but because i’m so lazy i often think it’s not worth the work. if it’s meant to be, it will be easy. but then, i’m a frequent hearer of the overbearing phrase, there’s nothing you can do about it, and i always disbelieve it…
anyway i just realized i’m turning 22 this year. how very old! i’m inclined to believe that my life before i turned 19 was an illusion, and that the beautiful world i lived in with all those kind and loving people so long ago is merely some fluttering veil cut out from the fabric of my imagination. because lately it seems that everyone is breaking away from the system that i (once) understood. so either the world is going renegade, or i misunderstood everything for 19 years. either way, i’m horribly left behind, and i must catch up. so i’ll take the red pill for now.
more photos from Istanbul follow!:
#1 tourists at the Topkapi Palace
#2 haha i love this photo! timtam looks like he belongs in a cologne ad
#3 that must be one emotional audio guide
#4 adorable, camera-friendly children!
#5 awww they all loved timtam!
#6 obligatory tunnel shot
#7 obligatory tunnel shot II
#8 conned a group of ladies into taking a picture with me! i was, by the way, dressed so uncharacteristically ‘decent’ because timtam (practically) forced me to, for fear that we wouldn’t be allowed into the palace grounds -_- (like i couldn’t enter the sistine chapel in Rome because i was wearing a short summer dress……………. )
#9 <3
#10 americano
#11 cemetery in sultanahmet, that housed a little tea garden in its shadows!
#12 one of many fresh orange juice vendors on the streets of istanbul. they don’t make a lot of money at all
#13 after getting his permission to take a photo, i waited so long for the flag to unfurl so that i could get my shot. but it never did :( hence this is the photo that never was.
#14 lamp shop! where we did The Forbidden according to SATC2 – followed the salesman into a hidden room in the back, where he showed us… more lamps. but he was the ONLY vendor in all of istanbul to correctly guess that we were Malaysian on first attempt! we were getting so annoyed at being called singaporean -_-
#15 on the periphery of the Grand Bazaar
#16 genie lamps at the Grand Bazaar
#17 istanbul is littered with wash basins like this one. at first i thought it was for pre-prayer ritual (actually, it just may be), but i think turks just really like their washing. they’re so clean with everything!
#18 tamtimtamtimtimtam
#19 a funny sight- watermelon vendor that plopped his stand right in the middle of a street that cars frequently went through. so each time a car came by, he’d have to pick up his stand, move aside, and then return to his spot after the car had driven by. ???? but that watermelon looks so good…
#20 a little dustbin vendor
#21 HAHAHA this is the most poser photo ever!!!!!! hat + tshirt combo, check. posing for photo while exhaling smoke, check. reading book on existentialism, check check check! but i still <3 u timtam!
#22 blue mosque at sunset
#23 overfriendly ice cream vendor!
#24 fat cat
June 4th, 2010
finally!- an afternoon caught by its coattails. am currently at my regular starbucks outlet on campus, where many a study evening has been whiled away not-studying. it feels a little strange to be in new york while it’s all hot and the streets are paved with girls in long legs holding together short summer dresses. sherbert carts have sprung up like daisies overnight, and suddenly, out of nowhere, on the corner of 110th and Broadway, there’s a frail old man playing buttery tunes on a saxophone. it’s my first summer here, and it feels much like a different life.
sophomore year has come and gone, taking with it half of my college career. this year has been very long, and in some segments has been as annoying as a bad itch crawling in a corner of your skin that you can’t seem to locate. i’ve engaged so much in this span of time, and have also been moved around unwittingly (like an indignant chess piece) – but one thing remains a constant: that i am still falling into blessings. sometimes when it becomes overwhelming, i try to guess when it is that my luck will run out, but i find that for the most part i am holding my breath for nothing. surely someone as indolent and unintelligent as i am doesn’t deserve all of this? yet at the same time i’m glad that the school year is leaving. i’m a bit of a packrat, but even i can’t bear the taint from what seemed like a dirty kitchen sink that would never wash itself or go away.
summer classes have been quite fun so far, albeit tedious and entailing very many 8am alarm rings. actually, waking up at 8am is easy peas compared to the string of all-nighters that are/were native to regular school semesters– but there’s just something very inhumane and nature-inconsistent about waking up this early in the summer, this time for nautical skirts and frolicking with books in parks! and so it’s always that much harder to get up. though i swear on my Hedonist Association membership that much debauchery has been going downnnn to make up for my ante meridiem discipline. what debauchery? tales soon!
i was in Istanbul last week for a five-day flee before summer classes started. oh Istanbul: an ethereal city with higgledy-piggledy homes, destroyed so often throughout history but rebuilt and restored with such love, where people are shy and generous with their smiles, where coffee is thick and musky, and the sounds of solat punctuate the skies five times a day just like at home. i was reunited once again with my favourite judgmental friend, Timtam – but we timed our visit to coincide with Mesut’s return to Istanbul. Mesut is my other favourite judgmental friend, a fellow sophomore here at Columbia. we were doing so many of the same things and taking so many of the same classes in freshman year that we felt perhaps we should try to be friends. here, i was going to insert a funny joke about him, but i couldnt bring myself to, because he’s left me to study abroad in Paris for a year, and i miss him muchly already :( so i’ll just put up some pictures from Istanbul:
#1 tourist Timtam striking a pose for an audience of Istanbul cotton candy clouds
#2 conned a group of very excitable kids on a daytrip into taking a picture with me. with the Asian Emblem no less :D
#3 gorgeous view of the Marmara sea from a terrace at the Topkapi Palace, framed by an earnest tourist
#4 whaddup
#5 yummy turkish coffee- folds soooo nicely on the tongue. and effectively rousing, too
#6 a shelf of curios at the Grand Bazaar
#7 copper coffee serving pots
#8 this vendor said he’d give me a free shisha pipe if i went out for a drink with him, haha. i politely declined (upon timtam’s angry furtive glares), and then he offered a discount if i were to take a photo with him. why not! (sorry timtam)
#9 but i ended up not buying a pipe from him :P bought it from another store instead, for the irresistible price of $25! the unfortunate twist is that we smoked so much shisha during our 5 days in Istanbul that i now have a very strong aversion to it…
#10 windy day out in town. this is one of the many streetside ice cream vendors, and me, trying to keep my sticky ice cream upright in the wind
#11 fanning stairs of apartments near Ankara Road, against dusty white air!
#12 a comedian of a sweets vendor at the Spice Market! quite the camwhore too- we took many funny photos with him
#13 steps of a building that looked like a mosque, but surely it was a marketplace in masquerade because there was a man selling alcohol on its foyer…
#14 cerulean eyes of the man running some famous sweet shop timtam ducked into for a box of turkish delight
#15 at the Eminonu ferry docks, where we boarded a ferry that chugged us along the Bosphorus!
#16 onboard the ferry, sipping tea and feeling excited. portrait artfully composed by Timtam
#17 timtam and mesut
#18 us three. gorgeous day out for us and seagulls! portrait artfully composed by me
#19 mesoot gool, kaninabeh?
#20 whispering couple on the ferry! and our empty glasses of turkish apple tea, which is delicious – like apple juice with a round, thick, heavy finish
#21 flags on women on Istiklal Street. not sure who the dude is. Ataturk maybe? it was a public holiday that day, which explained all the flags around the city, much to Mesut’s displeasure
#22 birdhouse
May 27th, 2010
when i returned from Honduras earlier this year, i had a conversation with someone about the discomfort that dogged me almost every day i was there. there we were, a bunch of bright eyed and bushy tailed kids from an ivy league institution, descending upon the slums of Tegucigalpa and the sloping sides of Joyas, like crows so eager to help. we were but ten inexperienced children with some time during the school holidays, many swollen ideas of public health and what could be done to improve the conditions of these people, and our two hands. school taught us to think about these things- things beyond ourselves into which we could apply our strength and intellect, and do something good for people who didn’t have the resources or opportunities that we had access to. before the trip, we raised money for our own airfare and solicited medical donations from friends, families and doctors, which we would then bring to Honduras and delegate. when we got there, we were to assist in building sustainable structures such as latrines, septic tanks, ceilings, floors and stoves that would, we were told, change the lives of the villagers in Joyas, one family at a time. every morning we would gather and have a reflective talk about the magnitude of our presence and role in this project. i think we were all proud of ourselves and how we were doing this crazy wonderful thing called service work; that we could actually see the results of our toil, one layer of brick and mortar at a time. we took many photos, kissed the cheeks of the families we worked with, shared half of our PB&J sandwiches with the kids and even the stray dogs that would lick our toes hungrily as we ate our lunches amidst the labour.
it was strange, but the whole time i felt quite angry at myself for having gone on the trip and allowed myself the unconscious prescription to an ego balm. what were we really doing there, if it took us three days to build one latrine, when one young strapping Joyas local would take only ten hours to perfectly complete the structure? why were we bringing bags full of Tylenol when the health afflictions of the villagers ran far deeper than headaches and stomach pains? why were we even building these monstrosities if some locals thought them useless, and would take them apart after we’d left, to sell the building materials in the market for some petty cash? it’s easy to feel helpless and deflated when you realize these things. we may as well have put the money that we spent on airfare into capital towards a small construction business run by the Joyas locals, or other such microfinance initiatives. to think that we were so proud at having dipped our hands in cement, when the locals were really just letting us have a taste of what volunteer work feels like. they were, at the very least, kind enough to give us warm smiles and watch patiently as we took way too long to saw planks in halves and mix cement the wrong way.
perhaps it is cynical of me to approach volunteer work from this angle, but i wished that in Honduras we could have done something real with our intentions and energy. it would be nice to know that time and resources were being optimized, instead of being expended unnecessarily and at a sub-optimal rate, just to… what exactly? i’m still not sure where the benefit lies– be it on our part, or that of the villagers, or that of the organization we traveled with. sure, we take away valuable life lessons about the importance of teamwork, service work and what it means to play a small role towards sustainable development, small steps big change etc, but what about the people we were told we were there to help? they get this brand new cement floor, latrine, ceiling or stove. that’s really nice but apparently they could have built it faster and better themselves. why did we fly all the way there to do it? it also seems that they may just dismantle everything to sell the scrap metal. further, latrines just weren’t their way of life, and there’s really not much point putting a small band aid over a large wound if other public health problems (such as the lack of clean drinkable water) weren’t first addressed. correct me if i’m wrong but the most valuable benefit seemed to have been taken home with us instead of being left there with them. how did volunteer work come to have so little real impact, and become almost self-serving?
for some time i struggled to understand our place and purpose there. during some nightly conversations with the team, i would carelessly and insensitively rain on everyone’s parade by expressing my slight dissatisfaction surrounding the aforementioned conundrums. who were we really there to help? how much exactly were we helping in terms of what we thought we were there to do? could we think of ways to be more useful? could we push the envelope a little further? can we address some of these questions before we clap on our proud arsenal of shovels and saws?
there are many ways to answer these questions that would make sense of why we went and what we did. some popular ones: (1) it doesn’t matter that we essentially went there to play in sand, as long as we show people that our intentions are good and that we care and are willing to take steps to help; (2) we take away the important lesson of understanding how small our roles were in Honduras, and it will push us to think about bigger things that we can do to truly make big and helpful changes; (3) our mere presence entails expenditure on airfare, accommodation, food, and building supplies that will directly stimulate the local economy; (4) we can bring back to New York the eyewitness account of an impoverished community, and spread awareness of problems beyond our borders; (5) some effort is better than none at all… and so on and so forth. while these responses are highly relevant ones, a quick glance and some thought will quickly reveal the problems with each, and how ultimately they just do not answer the question of why we went there to do what we did without actually doing what we thought we were doing. yes, residual effects are important, but so is the main task at hand, which was to directly improve the state of public health in the villages of Honduras.
i don’t regret the trip. it wasn’t the fairytale volunteer experience that i’d thought it would be, but it stretched my mind and my heart so far, even despite the realization that we hadn’t been all that effective as a brigade that championed public health. it forced me to reflect on every single volunteer work experience that i’d had, and to pick out all the plausible reasons why we did each one and why we were made to do it (big distinction). it was a clear lodestar towards what was important, and even further towards the understanding that ‘what is important’ isn’t something static.
ultimately, being in Honduras taught me that the best way to help people is to allow them the knowledge that our helping them helped us back more than we helped them, or just as much as. in that way, they have done us the big favour of gratuitously helping us even though we were originally there to help them. this, i think, empowers the Honduran a whole lot more than some latrine hastily constructed out of misaligned bricks. we may have done this one small thing of building one family a stove with a piping system, but they did us the bigger real deal of educating us. the crucial ingredient however is that they have to know they did us this favour, otherwise that potential is wasted. they have to know that they did so much more for us than we did for them in the short time we spent there. that despite being ‘impoverished’ and ‘uneducated’, they are equipped with the ability to teach and do many things better than these random americans who fell from the sky with secondhand clothes and free medicine. such knowledge, even if unfurling from a very small flicker of pride in showing the random malaysian volunteer how to mix cement the right way, can be so powerful if harnessed correctly. i only wish i knew how to convey this information to them at the time, but alas i think i was either too shy or too stupid to recognize what my real role in Honduras was.
there was a girl from the family we built a latrine for who patiently kept refreshing my memory of the spanish words she’d taught me earlier in the week. her husband showed us how to hammer a nail into a plank in 3 hits and smiled encouragingly when we kept breaking the nails. they shared their food with us. explained the religious script on their doors. the women of the sanitation committee first bore children at the age of 11 and then raised many more in the years to come. the young boys that moved like greased lightning on the football field could kick a ball harder and faster than any of us could. all so awesome in their own right– why are we the ones who get to say that we are ‘helping’? what exactly were we doing with our hands in Honduras that is worth more than what they know and can do? i still dont have the answers but for all the above gifts from Honduras and for the questions they inadvertently raised, i’m grateful that i had the opportunity to go, and that we did what we did.
we’re going to Panama this year, hopefully with a bigger and better brigade with clearer goals!
#1 putting the tin roof on an almost finished latrine
#2 laying the base for the latrine
#3 starting on a water storage tank
#4 an average Honduran water storage tank, where the locals store water for cooking, cleaning and bathing as there’s no proper pipe system in the mountain of Joyas. also a big contributor to mosquito breeding
#5 nino!
#6 the men of the house helping us with the cement, which they mixed 10x faster than we did!
#7 G working on smoothing out a cement floor. most of the homes in Joyas don’t have floors, which renders the family members (who often walk around barefoot) very susceptible to the fatal Chagas disease which is caused by parasites from the ground.
#8 stray chickens doing a run
#9 M and B making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for us and the kids of the house. isn’t this picture super adorable :)
#10 playing games with the rest of the Joyas kids, who really love games
#11 young man with perfectly sculpted double eyelids, proud to receive a Superman sticker
#12 evening soccer with the boys, who run and play like superstars
more photos soon!
April 19th, 2010
“your book not captivating you?”
and this is how it always begins. i took a split second to consider his choice of verb — why captivating and not something else? — but the truth is that i was immediately taken. i could repeat the umpteenth iteration of my affinity theory, but there was no need for such formalities when there was only one hour left in the streets of old san juan, and time was sliding away indifferently even as we exchanged quick opinions of our books. i had been waiting for the vintage store on the corner of calle de san francisco to open, but this stranger convinced me to get up and leave the vain endeavour. i’ll take you to the shore, i’ll show you the ghetto, you’ll be back before you know it. i went. i saw the shore, i saw the ghetto, and slummed it for an hour with the locals. everything moved very quickly and i wasn’t allowed to take any photos of people or houses. then he took me back to the vintage store and the hustle and bustle of the tourist avenues, and we parted ways, and i boarded the NYC-bound plane out of puerto rico. and that’s always how it ends!
but what a deliriously exciting hour.
spring break photos from old san juan:
#1 steph in her broad white hat, lending some modelesque quality to the streets of san juan
#2 narrow cobblestone walkways and dangerously asymmetrical homes
#3 nicholas and nicole outside the pablo casals museum
#4 plaster models of the doors of old san juan, found in an art shop
#5 a wedding was happening one of the days we were there. such gorgeous bridesmaid dresses!
#6 doesn’t this feel like a place to make a bond movie?
#7 these slot game machines are everywhere in puerto rico! usually found where fat old men are wiling the hot afternoons away
#8 a bar that was filled with pictures of marilyn monroe
#9 all curbside bars serve mofongo – a most scrumptious dish made out of mashed sweet plantains and meat. sounds gross but it’s not
#10 us on the sloping green hills surrounding the el morro fort. it’s the fort where amistad was filmed!!
#11 kites – popular pastime at el morro. remember when the skies at KL parks used to be full of kites?
#12 rolling down the hills in a race to the bottom – another popular pastime at el morro
#13 another picture for good measure
#14 view of old San Juan from el morro. check out the coastal cemetery! on this day i only saw the crashing waves from afar, and thought that they may just be the biggest waves i’d ever seen
#15 crow
#16 a strange sculpture outside the church that made me miss jovann!
#17 one of the many eccentric sets of windows
#18 the very retro ben & jerrys shop
#19 calle del sol at night; very quiet and domestic
#20 the bars with their gates thrown open to welcome the spring night crowds
#21 at one of the bars that had some very cool old beer and Coke ads on the walls. was tempted to ask if i could have one…
#22 party on the balcony!
#23 and finally- led by the hand to the slums and the unwelcoming coast
#24 the shore on rocks. i was so close! is it really that dangerous?
#25 graffiti at la perla, which was really all i could take pictures of
#26 couldn’t even take pictures of the ground cos of you know what :(
#27 sometimes a skateboarding haunt, sometimes a swimming pool, apparently!
#28 i still can never tell the difference between geese and really big ducks
#29 my oh my
more soon!
March 18th, 2010
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