Greetings from Istanbul

It's spring awright!!!





Location: Istanbul Istanbul

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The Banaue Rice Terraces: A Living Cultural Landscape

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My interest in exploring the northern part of the Philippines started from looking at a piece of art at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco, California.   Among the display of ceramics and pottery engraved with gold and other decorative stuff,  a wooden carving of a male figure squatting on a platform with the lower arms on top of each other, resting upon his knees, caught my eye.  According to the docent, the wooden sculpture was called "Bului" which literally means "granary guardian" in the "Ifugao" tribe dialect. The carved wooden sculpture was set on a platform on top of another platform, a mortar.   Our docent explained the significance of the wooden mortar (which was used with the pestle, to separate the husk from the rice, sort of rice mill) and linked the story to the Rice Terraces in the Cordillera Mountains of the Philippines built 2000 years ago by the “Ifugao” tribe. So two years and three hundred kilometers north of Manila later, we explo...
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Bali, Part 2: A Place of Culture

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The Lure of the Sunset Photo by the author As our Toyota MPV crept uphill, the landscape suddenly transformed into what seemed like a completely separate world from the bustle and hustle of Nusa Dua. Our vehicle took a turn off the smooth pavement to the parking lot. I thought we were the only ones going into this secret place. But when we got there, the lot was full of tour buses and MPVs (Multi-purpose Vehicle – a type of rental car common in Bali). An entire town, it seemed, was there to watch the sunset. Our driver/guide told us that when visiting a temple in Bali we had to wear modest clothing or dress appropriately. He pointed towards the entrance for us to pay (sort of rental) for sarongs and sashes. One of my traveling companions had to wear a sarong over his shorts. I wore a sash around my waist. We quickly ascended into a walkway where we were greeted by monkeys. We continued on and followed a foot path towards the edge of the cliff. Looking westward, there was noth...
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Transylvania, Romania: The Land of Dracula

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When we hear the place Transylvania, we almost always think about Dracula, the bloody vampire, that always makes a good Halloween story. So, when I visited Transylvania early this year, it's hard not to associate the places, like the Bran Castle to the famous novel "Dracula" by Bram Stoker.  It’s said that Bram Stoker’s inspiration for the Dracula was a historical character Vlad Tepes or Vlad III, the ruler of Wallachia in the 15th century. During Stoker’s research on the region of Transylvania, he came across the brutal accounts of the atrocities committed by Vlad III, also known as Vlad Dracul, aka Vlad the Impaler. He was known for committing brutal acts of war and was under constant threat of attack from the Ottoman and Hungarian forces. During his infamous retreat from the Ottoman forces, Vlad the Impaler had the bodies of his enemies and his people alike impaled on large spikes in the field surrounding his county.   The inspiration for the made-up character ma...
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