It’s this time of the year again! An amazing Vivid Sydney festival is happening for the forth time and this year it’s bigger and more exciting than every before. Vivid Sydney is the celebration of light, music and ideas and the most accessible aspect of the festival are the outdoor light sculptures and light projections on buildings, with Opera House being the center of attention. I went out last weekend to check the festival out. Here are some of the photo I took.
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If I was to name just one thing that I love about Vanuatu I would have to say it is the people. Vanuatu is a beautiful country with great beaches, amazing jungle, colourful reef and exciting volcanos, but it is the people that make this place what it is. I wanted my trip to Vanuatu to be mostly about people, so I decided to follow friend’s recommendation and visited the village of Port Orly on Espiritu Santo.
Port Orly is located on the east coast of Espiritu Santo, about 60km from Luganville. It is the biggest village on the island and with its stunning location in a small bay, it is hard to understand why so few tourists visit it.
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June 2009. Litang, China.
Litang is located in the Chinese province of Sichuan, but culturally, ethnically and historically it is 100% Tibetan. It was supposed to be the highlight of my trip to the provinces of Sichuan and Yunnan, but it rained pretty much non stop during my stay in town. So I didn’t get the see as much as I would like to. But what I saw was very Tibetan. The people looked Tibetan, the houses were built in Tibetan style, the food was Tibetan, the clothing was Tibetan and the monastery was Tibetan.
There was just one ‘but’. Because Litang has been the centre of Tibetan secessionist activities, the place is full of police and military. It is really hard not to notice them as you walk through the town. It didn’t look like they were disturbing anyone, they looked like they were just keeping eye on things. But it just felt really unnatural to see those uniformed men in such a place.
Despite the police and the military, this part of China is truly stunning. If you always wanted to see Tibet, but going through the red tape to get the permit to go there is too much for you, then Litang and the rest of Sichuan could be the solution.
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December 2011. Cockatoo Island, Sydney, Australia.
Outpost Art From The Streets Festival
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November 2011. Palm Beach, Australia.
Peter is 74 years old. He arrived in Australia in 1961 in a cargo ship and he was supposed to stay just for a few months, visiting his sister, and then going back home, to the Netherlands. But plans seldom work out. It was the same in Peter’s case. He was offered a job in Australia, then another one, and somehow what was to be just a few months in Australia turned into 50 years.
Peter has been sailing since he was 6 years old. And he always dreamed of his own yacht. So he decided to build one himself. Sometimes in the 70s he set up a workshop in his own backyard and spend next 38 years constructing a yacht of his dreams. He wanted his yacht to be a large one. And it is huge! It requires a crew of 14 to operate it and can carry up to 27 people. Unfortunately, the dream of having such a large yacht has worked against another of Peter’s dreams – a dream of sailing around Pacific Ocean. It is simply very difficult to gather a team of 14 people, who would be able to work and live together for many months.
But Peter is not giving up his dream. He keeps trying to find his crew. In the meantime, he gathers his family and friends and organises sailing trips around Sydney for them. I was lucky to take part in one of those trips last weekend.
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