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Gazing at the Atlantic Arabian Gulf, Dreaming about the Pacific.

NA Reunion Tour, Final Scenes & Memories

Butterfly on Seawall

Save-On-Meats

Michelle in Gastown

Christmas Lights

IMAG0433

Photo above from Iolanda & Dwight

James Swingset

Garden on Ward's Island

Vancouver - Union Station

Reflection at Art Museum

Don't Know What These Are

Strawberry Snack

Bank Building in Toronto

Orange Barriers

Cloudy NYC Day

Plants on High Line

May 31, 2012 in NA Reunion Tour 2012, New York, O Canada, Travel | Permalink | Comments (0)

Morning Fog

A slender band of fog covered the tops of surrounding buildings this morning, and by the time I returned from my workout, it had evaporated into the heat.

Dubai Fog 05-31-2012

Dubai Fog 05-31-2012

Dubai Fog 05-31-2012

Dubai Fog 05-31-2012

May 31, 2012 in Gazing at the Gulf of Arabia | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sunprints

At the International Center of Photography on the Avenue of the Americas in NYC, I finally found some long sought sunprint paper for sale (along with a pinhole camera kit, hurray, I can't wait to try this!), and in Vancouver, I started to experiment with it.

Sunprints

First, I collected some leaves, branches and pine cones on a walk in Lighthouse Park.

Lighthouse Park Fragments Sunprint

Later, while hanging the laundry outside the backdoor, enjoying the cool breezes and the chirps of hummingbirds alongside the buzz of seaplanes over the harbour, I saw some fluffy dandelions and wondered what they would do to the sunprint paper. I left them out in the sun for a few minutes to see what happens. Pale shadows of the dandelion fluff.

Dandelion Fluff Sunprints

Still working to perfect the sunprint, in Toronto I found a perfect maple leaf and placed it atop the paper in the sunshine, where I promptly forgot about it instead of dunking it in water after the prescribed 1-5 min.

Happy mistake, however, as it was the best one yet, the perfectly outlined maple leaf shape standing out crisply against a nice dark blue background.

Maple Leaf Sunprint from Toronto

Back in Dubai, the sunny locale that first inspired the sunprint purchase, I collected some of the fragrant flowers that we see around the apartment, and placed them out for a longer-than-recommended amount of time (this seems to be the secret, 1 to 5 minutes is what the instructions say, whereas 10 minutes results in good, sharp images).

Dubai Flowers for Sunprint

I love how you can see the overlap of the petals, it's like a subtle watercolour painting. Such a favourite. I will spend the summer looking for other little goodies that can make for interesting sunprints, what a fun project, just how I hoped it would be.

Sunprint of Dubai Flowers

May 30, 2012 in Daydreams, Gazing at the Gulf of Arabia, NA Reunion Tour 2012, O Canada | Permalink | Comments (2)

View From A380

I love booking window seats so that I can watch the changing landscape below, but this was my 2nd flight on the doubledecker A380, a majestic plane, and there's no real point to the window seat because the massive wing takes up about 80% of the windowframe.

View From A380 Window

May 29, 2012 in Daydreams, NA Reunion Tour 2012, Travel | Permalink | Comments (0)

NA Reunion Tour, Part 3: Toronto

From Vancouver, we flew to Toronto for a few days in one of James' former hometowns. It's a city that I have only explored on a few daytrips many years ago, so I was eager to get the guided tour of all the fun places, like: 

College Street, the Islands, Saint Lawrence Market, Kensington Market, Spadina, Queen's Park, Yorkville, Yonge & Eglinton, the tunnels and the Blue Jays!

Toronto

Self-Portrait With Toronto

James and Toronto Skyline

Swingset

Crowds at St Lawrence Market

Fiddleheads

James in Park

Kensingon Market

Spadina

Underground Map

Jays Game

Gameday

CN Tower Reflection

May 29, 2012 in NA Reunion Tour 2012, O Canada, Travel | Permalink | Comments (2)

NA Reunion Tour, Part 2: Beautiful British Columbia

Some of the majestic scenery seen on our travels home to Vancouver.

Lighthouse Park

North Shore Mountains From Stanley Park

Vancouver View

View From Sea Wall in West Vancouver

Shannon Falls

View From Run, Near Horseshoe Bay

Red Leaves in Driveway

May 26, 2012 in NA Reunion Tour 2012, O Canada | Permalink | Comments (2)

Two Weeks Later, Lots of Little Changes

Settling back into the routine here in Dubai, there were so many noticeable changes in the landscape during our few weeks of vacation. New billboards, new signs, new improvements on our usual driving routes.

A little too blurry to read, but there was a) new graffiti on the perimeter of the construction site, reading "The Plot Always Thickens" and b) a circular cricket field had been traced in the sand (you can see a portion of it in this photo as well).

New Graffiti

In the photo below: An older photo, showing in the upper right-hand corner a portion of an entire set of buildings, the headquarters for construction, the parking area for the managers, and a place where the ubiquitous white buses would line up to pick up the labourers at the end of their shifts.

Rainy Patches on Sand Outside

And now, it's just GONE.

Construction HQ GONE

Elsewhere, construction has continued to quickly rise in the sky.

Fast Construction

And a bulb that was just sprouting when we left has also shot higher in the sky.

Skyscraper Bulb

Also, note in the garden photo the Venus flytrap that I planted in my garden today, a sudden stroke of inspiration at the Garden Centre, as it will no doubt be well-fed in our window.

(We came home to a confetti scattering of little tiny gentle flies, dead along the windowsills, having hatched somewhere in our air conditioning ducts during our time away and flown into our apartment towards the beckoning glorious sunshine in the windows. They're not annoying like mosquitos or common houseflies, rather they're little softies. They fly like little seaplanes, apparently struggling to take off and then quickly coming in for a landing. Easily swiped with a hand, they are easy to clear away, but now we'll see if our Venus flytrap can take care of the task. It's like getting a cat in a mouse-ridden apartment.)

Little Flies

May 26, 2012 in Gazing at the Gulf of Arabia | Permalink | Comments (2)

NA Reunion Tour, Part 1: Brooklyn, Manhattan, Rutherford

I love little notebooks and journals, and at a favourite stationery store in Granville Island, we found the "One Line A Day" diary, wherein you write a sentence once a day for the next five years. This will be really neat a few years in, when I can compare one day's summary to the previous years.

As there are way too many stories and photos to share from our North America Reunion Tour, I'll copy the daily summaries that I wrote for the NY part of the journey here. Seeing how much we did leaves my breathless once again, what an exciting city, what a terrific reunion back with such great friends!

May 4 - DUBAI TO NYC: Landed at JFK, taxi to Brooklyn Heights, met Shaleen & Ian at S&Shanty's amazing apartment. Subway to Village, High Line walk, Amy's Bread lunch (fake $50!), Tim Hetherington exhibit, Standard Biergarten, Mets game, Delta Club Seats and sleep.

Chelsea Market Lanterns

Heaven - Amy's Bread

Counterfeit Fifty

NYC Folks in Chelsea

The Gang Heads to Citi Field

Mr Mets

May 5 - NYC: Woke early, James and I walked Brooklyn Heights Promenade to Dumbo, Almondine Bakery. Brunch at Felix, back to High Line, strolled Bleecker, Suresh & Kay joined us, saw Alison. Over to Chuckie's Kentucky Derby party. Dinner @ Momofuku Ssam.

Neat Colours in Dumbo

Foggy Brooklyn Bridge

Dumbo

View From Chuckie's Rooftop

Derby Party

James, Fred and Me

Fred and Laura

Ian, Shaleen and Shanty, En Route to Momofuku

May 6 - NYC: Woke early again, James and I walked to Smith St. Brunch at Spitzer's Corber. Quiet afternoon at Moma. Back to Bowery for drink at The Wren and dinner at Hecho en Dumbo.

Device Users at Moma

Suresh, Fred and Kay at Hecho

Chuckie and Laura at Hecho

May 7 - NYC: Caught bus to Rutherford, did my banking, bus back to Port Authority. Lunch at Amy's Bread, subway to Washington Square, saw Monsieur Lazhar @ Angelika, dinner at Spotted Pig. Photo Institute pinhole camera gift.

Brooklyn Bridge

Empire State Building From High Line

May 25, 2012 in Family & Friends, NA Reunion Tour 2012, New York, Travel | Permalink | Comments (2)

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    Book Shelf

    • Oliver Sacks: Oaxaca Journal

      Oliver Sacks: Oaxaca Journal

    • Sarah Manguso: The Guardians: An Elegy

      Sarah Manguso: The Guardians: An Elegy

    • Harper Lee: To Kill a Mockingbird

      Harper Lee: To Kill a Mockingbird

    • Edited by Bill Buford: The Best American Travel Writing 2010

      Edited by Bill Buford: The Best American Travel Writing 2010

    • Edited by Anthony Bourdain: The Best American Travel Writing 2008

      Edited by Anthony Bourdain: The Best American Travel Writing 2008

    Cruising Tunes

    • Broken Social Scene - Sweetest Kill

      Sweetest Kill
      Broken Social Scene: Forgiveness Rock Record

    • Grimes - Genesis

      Genesis
      Grimes: Visions

    • Aloe Blacc - I Need A Dollar

      I Need A Dollar
      Aloe Blacc: Good Things

    • Gal Costa - Baby

      Baby
      Gal Costa: Gal Costa

    • Major Lazer featuring Amber from Dirty Projectors - Get Free

      Get Free
      Major Lazer featuring Amber from Dirty Projectors: Guns Don't Kill People: Lazers Do