Bang on it Burger
Another one of my apparently ever growing list of passions is to make tasty food, and these burgers were damn tasty indeed. You’ve got to unhinge your jaw to gobble down these bad boys. The gently toasted fresh buns add a nice crispness to the juiciness of the handmade steam fried patties and the asiago cheese caesar sauce. Slap some fresh tomato and a couple of leafs of iceberg lettuce on there and bang, you’ve got yourself a tidy burger.
City Fencing
Last night I was invited to take photos of the City University London Fencing Team. Some of the photos from the shoot would also be used as a feature in a new magazine for the university. I wanted to move the sports photography genre away from the norm, and create a more conceptual style, which would show the key themes of fencing, the whiteness of the dress, and the metal of the sword. Let me know what you think.
Knitting on the U-Bahn
Berlin is without a doubt my favourite city which I have been to in Europe. The U-Bahn is a great way to get around, each station has its own history and individual charm. One of the things I love about living in London nowise watching people on the tube, wondering where they are going, what their lives are like. One thing I have come to notice on the tube is that people travelling on their own generally seem to feel like they become invisible to others. Nobody gets embarrassed on these quick few minute journeys where their faces will soon become lost in the crowd, and this brings out an inner self in such a public place. This is a place to relax, and why not do a spot of knitting on the way home?
P.s. I hope everyone likes to read, currently I’m working on an account of my time in China, Its taking a while (hence no posts of late), but when It arrives it’ll hopefully bring out a few smiles and laughs.
Thailand Gallery – Set 2
On my first day in Thailand I forked out the same amount of money as I spent in two months in India, and all I got was a couple of Visas, and a Scuba Diving course. I had mixed apprehensions about the whole ordeal after my first few hours in Bangkok, most of which had been spent asleep in the back of a taxi cab, and later passed out on the bed of my seemingly luxurious hotel room after 85hrs (yes thats Eighty Five) in the lowest class of a train crossing India.
Koh Tao bounced in front of me as the ‘high-speed’ catamaran pulled into the dock. I had arrived on one of those Thai islands which are famed for their perfect white sand beaches, clear blue water, and excellently cheap diving qualifications. I had been promised a week in paradise.
While the diving was excellent, and the group course turned into private lessons seeing as nobody else had booked up, the looming full moon lay just a few days away, and travelling in a duo meant I had compromises to make. Don’t get me wrong, I do love to party, I started clubbing almost half a decade before I was of a legal age, but when the party is 10,000 morons on a beach, i’d rather be counted out.
I went nonetheless, it was everything I had expected and more (and worse). So I was glad to get back on Koh Tao and continue the Scuba course. I love the sea, I live a stones throw away from it in Brighton. So spending hours on a boat, and seeing what lies in the ocean was a dream.
Thailand Gallery – Set 1
Thailand is no doubt a busy country, even when entering from India the streets of Bangkok have a bustling life to them, The colours show a vivid tone to them against the more natural hues of India. Another culture shock hit me as the people I met changed from real, worldly travellers of India, to the party gap-yearers who thrived, or decayed, on the streets here.
Tuk Tuk drivers ran the streets, organising deals to take young tourists to bars and shops in the hope of earning a little commission. However it is really the tourist bureaus that run the place, attempting to sign the gap-yearers up to expensive and exciting ‘adventures’. I’ll admit taking a scuba diving course.
The noise was constant, the humidity was constant, and so was the stress. I wasn’t sure If Thailand was the place for me. Any journey here seemed to have been crossed a thousand times, there seemed to be no jungle left unexplored, and no tourist attraction possibility which hadn’t been exploited.
But then again, life is never dull in Thailand.
I will upload more photos in the coming days, including some shots from Koh Tao Island.
Four Thousand Islands, Laos
After four months of rushing around the world I found myself in the south of Laos, and I was in desperate need of a bit of relaxation. I had just met these two awesome guys from Liverpool, Jamie and Mike, and they were heading for the Four Thousand Islands, in the Mekong River, Laos. I was in Pakse, I had to meet somebody there, but the town had little going for it, and the guys thankfully persuaded me to go with them, a move which turned out to be probably one of the best I made on my travels. We arrived at the port to get to the Islands after a three hour ride in the back of a pick up truck, our bags being drenched with rain from the impending monsoon, and the three of us had made the mistake of bringing absolutely no money with us, well I think at the time I had the Laos equivalent of twenty something pence. After a few hours of speaking to confused locals, we managed to scrape enough cash together to afford the boat fare to the islands, where there was apparently some dodgy guy with a card machine who was willing to give us cash. We took the chance and went for it. Paradise awaited us on the other side. The weather cleared up the next day, perfect blue skies all day, and sunsets which left the most manly of men gasping for breath. I fell in love with this place, and it’s somewhere i’ve promised myself i’ll go back to. After a week Jamie and Mike had to move on, I stayed a few more days, my camera had decided to recover from serious salt water damage it had picked up in Noosa, Australia, and I wanted to take photos.
These photos don’t do the place justice, I almost feel bad posting them. This place is Paradise. All the photos were taken with a 18-55mm kit lens, damn I needed a wide angle and marco lens with me!
India Gallery
I visited India for a couple of months at the start of summer 2011, I hadn’t a clue what to expect ,but it exceeded my thoughts in every way. They say Incredible India! and it really is, may that be good or bad. I flew to Chennai (Madras) and travelled through the centre up to New Delhi and onto the the Himalayas in Himachal Pradesh, then retreated down through the deserts of Punjab and Rajasthan, further south I hit the bustling city of Mumbai (Bombay) and down to the beaches and jungle of Goa, Just inland from Goa hides Hampi, a gathering of temples many thousands of years old. I then went back to Mumbai and caught the train for half a week to Darjeeling up in the mountain on the north east province of Assam, then down to Kolkata and onto the next leg of my journey.
Australian Cat
I drove up the east cost of Australia to Brisbane last year, one of my friends was living there for a while. I never really liked cats, but this one came to lay on my stomach every day as I read on the balcony, and we got on well, one day the cat scratched my arm so we fell out, until one day the cat came back and we made friends again.
LongTimeSpent 