Would you ride this?

So far, Ive had nothing but positive experiences riding the low- cost carriers. But when I saw this Pegasus Airlines plane I had a few....hesitations shall we say?

Sunset over the Golden Horn

Sunset with, fittingly, a mosque minaret and a modern light fixture (unless you chose to see the resemblance to the monsters in War of The Worlds) with the seagulls massing overhead (or The Birds, if you prefer to see that movie)

Taken from the North side of the bridge linking the two sides of the Golden Horn, the river that divides the European side of Istanbul in two *(Istanbul is further divided into Europe and Asia by the Bosporus)
(Dedicated to Mutlu, that gentlest of geniuses)

Yın Yang Converted

A unique pattern on a Ming (or was it earlier?) dynasty pottery at Topkapi Palace, Istanbul

Istanbul, Crossroads between east and west

This Turkish girl is wearing a half-length jean jacket, cut with a high midriff. Since I often proofread for people involved with Korean traditional clothing, I couldn't help but notice the striking similarity of this style with Koreas 'hanbok' jackets, which are also cut with a high midriff.

Stuffed Bell Pepper (Paprika)

A Turkish chef greets customers at a 'See Your Food' type cafeteria establishment on Istiklal Street, in the Manhattanesque Taxmin Square district of Istanbul. These bell peppers are stuffed with meat and rice, and topped with cheese and tomato....they taste as good as they look; but eating in a cafeteria is by no means cheap....a typical meal here costs about 7 euros, or about 10 dollars.

an angel, not sure which one, from the left side of the altar inside of the Greek Ortho church, which was full of images of St. Theodisius

the gate of a Greek Orthodox church near my apartment in Istanbul - loaded with symbols (does anyone know what the triangle is?)- I believe the swastika is the doing of 'turkmen aryan' skinheads - that is, not aryans per se, but turkish borrowing from Hitler's pure race ideology. They may have chosen this church to deface because the Greeks, their hated enemies historically, are actually the same bunch of people, give or take a few empires...probably causes their skin-tight heads to ache a little bit.

Baba Joe, AKA Banana Joe

This Classic Trash Film poster decorates the room I now rent in Istanbul. Someday I will have to obtain this film just to see what sort of Neocolonial Exploits Banana Joe gets up to (by the way, those of you who have seen the way bananas grow on a 'branch', and who have attempted to lift one of these branches, probably realize that the load of bananas depicted is not only too heavy (about 100 kilos) but would never balance (three stems in evidence) on one shoulder, no matter how wide.

I'm not the only one.....

Yes, its a bottle of fermented carrot juice. And you thought I was strange.....

parade of the Ottomans

A random parade on Istiklal street in Istanbul, is headed up by some local 'boys' dressed in some of the traditional Cashew-fruit hat, and carrying the curvy scimitar that we always associate with arabs, but which actually belong more to the period after the middle ages...

This guy has got a bit of a beer belly but is a great example of the helmet with the neck covered by chain mail *(as is the rest of the corpulescense)

From the rear a good example of the tiny tiny shield and bow, which apparently was an adaptation of the powerful mongol bows, but just before gunpowder made the whole outfit rather redundant. So in between the period that knights roamed the earth and the appearance of armorless musketmen, these guys were wreaking havoc in the east (and they stopped at the gates of Vienna, thus changing the history of the West forever). This was also about the time of the French Rout in Agincourt, where the supremacy of the English longbow and of guerilla strategy over the might of the horseman was proved once and for all- that is, until the Nazi tanks cut down the Polish cavalry in 1939.

Had my cake....and I 'et' it too!

This is a picture of a typical Slovenian pastry called Kremna Rezina, sort of a custard cream cake, topped by filo leaves and powdered sugar. It is served at the lakeside resort of Bled, a beautiful location with an island church in the middle of a lake, towered over by a fairytale castle. Schweppes bitter lemon optional (I washed mine down with Laska Pivo - the local brew!)

Save from What??

the lifesaver of a vaporetto is a little ironic; the canals of venice are so full of human waste material that I doubt this device could prevent you from the real problem of falling in the water: human caca

Murano

hot, hot, hot....definately a ten-beer day on the canals

Stinkin Canals of Venice

Photo taken just moments before a fight breaks out between English kayakers and Gondoliers in the stinking green waters of Venice. The Gondoliers, who regularly make about 100-200 Euros per hour, are a sort of trade union, and no longer do their own singing - rather they contract out for musicians. Most of them are middle aged and distinctly middle class, and they pretty much act as if they own the waterways - so when freebooters (or is that freeboaters?) like these pull into the waterways there is inevitably friction.

Coming in to the city by vaporetto

approaching St. Marc's square...

ıntegratıon

I caught this lovely combination of skin and fabric pattern on a lady's arm on the shuttle bus goıng to the Easyjet airplane on the way to Venice. Im not sure she understood my intentıon to photograph more than just the tatoo itself.

The Pıcture speaks for ıtself.....

on the wall at Schonefeld airport, berlin - makes you wonder what fundamentalist 'hellfire and brimstone' preachers would make of this

SWEPT CLEAN IN BERLIN....Almost

A typical superclean German street in the East German side of Berlin, giving only scant evidence of last nights solstice revelings.....this shot taken only meters away from the Reichstag on the river Spree

Where the rivers are clean, and you can...into the stream

Like that old Firesign Theater song goes,

Im back from the Shadows again

Where an Injun can be your best friend

Where the rivers are clean,

and you can PEE into the stream

Im back from the shadows again.

Since its probably a capitol (pun intended) offence, I wont tell you what I did from an overhanging bridge involving the beautiful River Speer in Berlin. This is a picture of the crime scene which is just a two minute walk from the famous Reichstag....

Noısy Dreams

When I went to sleep ın thıs Berlin Kunsthotel, I had just finished walking around all night and thus my dreams seemed to have a strange effect on the room.... thıs place was quıte a bargaın for 50 Euros even though ıt had a shared bathroom

mystery image

I think you, dear reader, can guess What this is, and Where this is, even though my LUMIX portable totally sucks at night shots. The question for my viewers is,

How large is the structure? Bigger or smaller than the Arc de Triomphe or the Washington Square Arch? Which vehicles would/would not fit through the portals?

and, ...how far from Hitlers former bunker site is it?

High over Mongolia

The distinctive wingtips of an Air Berlin Airbus 330 from Shanghai to Dusseldorf (where I left 8 packets of kimchi rushing to make the connection to Berlin) make a nice contrast with the vast plains of western Mongolia

A picture that needs no comment

End of Lunar New Year

A performer wearing an LED light suit, framed by green lazers, performs onstage at a nightclub in Apkujeong, Seoul.

the sea near 'Macondo'

Sunset over the Caribbean, January 2007. This little bay of Tagatana, near Santa Marta, Colombia, was one of the loveliest little beaches I had seen in Colombia. Unfortunately, the water isn't caribbean blue like next door in Cartagena, and it's actually quite deep - better for looking at than for swimming. The mountains drop quite steeply into the sea here, and this village is not far from Gabriel Garcia Marquez' home town of Aracataca, a.k.a. "Macondo"