In Hoi An, Vietnam, this charming street is adorned with vibrant red silk lanterns that cast a warm, inviting glow on the rustic yellow walls. The scene captures the essence of traditional Vietnamese culture, offering a serene and enchanting ambiance under the night sky.
The ostriches of the Kenyan savannah have never been so prized: first by jockeys, who ride them to the delight of spectators, and then by meat lovers, their flesh being reputed to be healthy.
These birds, which can reach up to 2.60 meters and weigh a hundred kilos, can kill with a single blow of their legs.
The ban imposed at the end of 2003 on the sale of meat from wild animals, apart from ostrich and crocodile, has led to an increase in demand for ostrich meat, which is high in protein and low in cholesterol. Only the meat of the legs is marketed. Ostriches are slaughtered at the age of eight months to ensure that the meat is tender.
Ostriches have a life expectancy of 70 years and females can lay up to 35 eggs per clutch, some of which are never fertilized.
The Masai giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis tippelskirchii), also spelled Maasai giraffe, also called Kilimanjaro giraffe, is the largest subspecies of giraffe. It is native to East Africa. The Masai giraffe can be found in central and southern Kenya and in Tanzania. It has distinctive, irregular, jagged, star-like blotches that extend to the hooves. A median forehead lump is usually present in bulls.
People will wipe down their entire seats, screens and window on a flight because some influencer told them it's the only safe way to travel, yet they don't wear a mask despite experts begging them to. When will the mind stop being boggled? #Travel#CovidIsNotOver#MaskUp
D'Arnaud's barbet is a small East African bird that feeds on insects, fruits, and seeds.
It grows to about eight inches, and is equally at home in trees or on the ground. A vertical tunnel two to three feet into the ground with a sideways and upward turn leads to the nest chamber.
In a striking dance the male and female face each on nearby twigs and twitch, bob and sing like mechanical toys.
Great Rift Valley is part of an intra-continental ridge system that runs through Kenya from north to south. It is part of the Gregory Rift, the eastern branch of the East African Rift, which starts in Tanzania to the south and continues northward into Ethiopia.
The Mau Escarpment is a fault scarp running along the western edge of the Great Rift Valley. The top of the escarpment reaches approximately 3000 m (10,000 ft) above sea level, and is over 1000 m higher than the floor of the Rift Valley.
Things spotted on market day in a small city in Aotearoa New Zealand:
A small human pressing the button at the traffic lights just as the pedestrian signal goes green. His expression on discovering that he has newfound magical powers is pure glee.
A man in his 60s/70s on a pushbike riding down a hill behind a woman of the same age. He yells out "I love you!" She yells back "What?" He yells back "I love you stupid." She yells back laughing. "I know. You don't have to be rude about it. Idiot." They cycle on.
A man in his twenties swiftly walking through the markets with a cloth shopping bag tightly packed with at least 4 large bunches of celery. He's grinning to himself like he has secret exciting celery business to attend to.
A man in his 50s/60s saying to a woman that he went to the beach and didn't like how people had made pictures in the sand. He says emphatically, "It's not natural". The woman shrugs and says, "But the water washes them away so what's your problem.". He replies "But I know they were there!"
A small human ordering a hot chocolate being given two separate marshmallows. There's a moment of crisis while he looks from his hot chocolate to the marshmallows in his hand and back again. Then he shoves the marshmallows in his mouth as if making the problem go away, swallowing them whole. Seems content with solution.
The Cité de Carcassonne is a medieval citadel located in the French city of Carcassonne. It is situated on a hill and dominates the banks of the River Aude.
With its castle and ramparts, the city seems straight out of a medieval fantasy novel.
I shot this photo from a very shaky 4-wheel drive vehicle on a bumpy dirt track, so I made sure to have the fastest shutter speed by using my ƒ/1.2 lens…
Sometimes I find myself casting around in my files for interesting window shots for a #FensterFreitag post. When I do, it's amazing how often I end up selecting something from France. The French really seem to have a way with such things...
Now free for all to read... I'm a fan of the humourist author PG Wodehouse, and have occasionally visited places connected with his life and work. Here are four of them:
Lake Nakuru joined in 2013 the list of other lakes in Rift Valley whose water levels have abnormally increased endangering the lives of residents and the ecosystems around the lake.
Some lakes are recognized as Wetlands of International Importance, and all are Important Bird Areas, with several being within UNESCO-listed World Heritage Sites.
The lake level rises are worrying because of the destruction to homes, livelihoods, industry, and infrastructure, and loss of terrestrial wildlife habitat.
The effects on lake ecologies are a concern as flooding increases lake turbidity and dilutes the saline waters of alkaline lakes. Alkaline lakes like Nakuru provide unique feeding habitats for East Africa’s famous lesser flamingos.
Fushimi-Momoyama Castle (伏見桃山城) is on a hilltop in southeastern Kyōto, and not easily accessed, so very few Japanese or inbound tourists go there. It makes a good hike for the same reason. The #castle is a reproduction of the intended retirement residence of the national unifier Toyotomi Hideyoshi, but it was near the end of the turbulent Azuchi-Momoyama period (1568-1600), to which the castle contributed the Momoyama part of its name. Although I am mostly interested in the relatively peaceful palaeolithic to Heian periods, this castle is nevertheless elegant, as befits a predecessor of the Shōguns.
Q: Someone asked if I saw a reproduction of Hideyoshi’s gold-leafed tearoom.
A: Visitors aren't allowed in. There never seem to be staff there. The place has an unfortunate history!
Q: The Meiji Emperor's mausoleum is very close by. Why was this location chosen?
The original site was taken for the tomb of Emperor Meiji! The castle is now nearby.
Lake Nakuru is well known in Kenya for its rhino population, and it has one hundred white and fifty black rhinos to be seen.
Black and white rhinos naming has created confusion because both species of rhino are in fact grey… I hope I didn't make a mistake identifying this one as black!
The Augur Buzzard is a large, stocky hawk, which usually perches in full view on the ground on a prominence of ground or on a perch (tree, rock, post,…) and is not shy, so that one can often observe it at leisure.