Local fruit and vegie shop

 After five o'clock on week day.   

At the fruit and vegie shop in Ascot Vale.

The shop is eight months old and a mature aged couple is working effortlessly inside.

The man is talkative yet not-so-good salesperson and the woman is a hard-worker - kicking sack of oranges into the shops when closing the shop. 

 

Bananas always welcome locals at the ridiculously cheap price and their freshness.

Layout of fruits and vegetables is rearranged regularly and so does the color of display. 

Limited selections of flowers seem to attract more attention than many - yellow of carnations, snow white of lilies and red of tulips - is this the man's sales strategy? 

Customers exchange greets and small talks while shopping - so do they with the shopkeeper

 

Competitive local shopping area - after five o'clock on week day. 

Melbourne, a Friend and Photograph

One night in Melbourne - comfortably humid air with occasional spring breeze leaping through the hill

A spontaneous catch up with a friend and talk about future dream

The moment you treasure for life

Inle Lake

On the second day at the Inle Lake, six of us hired a boat together for a day tour around the north part of Inle lake.

The guy wearing yellow pants was the first 'leg-rowing' Inle traditional fisherman we sighted. Though it is called a 'lake', it spreads forever.  The engine noise is rather big, but its monotone and somehow nerve comforting noise makes you feel like being invited to the peaceful dreamland.
    

* Quick Memo from Wikipedia - Inle Lake

Local fishermen are known for practicing a distinctive rowing style which involves standing at the stern on one leg and wrapping the other leg around the oar. This unique style evolved for the reason that the lake is covered by reeds and floating plants making it difficult to see above them while sitting.

One more hill to go to the Inle lake

The trekking is approaching to an end. 

This is the last break point – get another bottle of water, coke and 'a tiger balm' to finish off the 3 day iron-man/woman adventure (by this point, my sighs and calf had been sore and in a constant pain!). 

This shop is relatively larger than others and the owner is a young guy who finished studying business degrees in Mandalay.  

It just started raining outside.    

In the small plastic boxes lining up behind us, there are variety of little (exotic) nibbles. You don’t see many shops that sells chocolates here - damn. 

Couple of teas are served. 

The young owner is catching up with Robin, a Trekking guide who, I assume, brings various information on what’s going on the broader area of the town.  It seems like that they know how to laugh at harsh and oppressive politics of their country and their situations.

Relaxing time before the finish

Muddy on your face..

 

 

There are so many challenges in the world, but when it comes to the challenges that 

we experienced during the trekking was RED MUDDY CLAYISH trekking road.   

You don’t really have to worry about the soil conditions if you go trekking from Nov to Feb as 

it’s dry season, but if you dare to go in the  raining season, make sure to enjoy that you could 

be a bit taller from now and then, and you can be heavier from now and then :)

Bloody Muddy on your boots!

 

One morning, Cars and Freeway

1st thing of 1st of August 2012

Sometimes, people think that you need to get away from the city to feel fresh and relax. It is true. At the same time, it is not entirely correct. The photo above looks nothing special, every day life scenery from the bridge overarching the highway in Fawkner in Melbourne.

Image the followings in your head.

1. the air is very chilly with crisp air, but you see blue sky coming out of the fog with rays of sunshine. 

2. You are standing on the bridge by yourself, there is no one around you. it is just big road with few cars on the road. There are bushy bush around, you can see the fish & chip shop in the distance.

3. You cycled all the way to here in the chilly condition. Your breath is visible and spreading away into the air for a few seconds and disappearing. You inhale crispy sharpy air from the nostrils that sting within, and feel you are one of the luckiest person to have such a great morning. Your cheek is slightly red.

4. you wonder how many drivers notice you taking a photo from the bridge, then you think 'maybe none' in such a busy rushy morning.

5. Then you have a second thought, 'wait a sec, if there is a guy like me who is taking a photo of traffic on Wednesday morning, then there is no reason why there aren't some who do the same from ground'.

You hit a road again to move on to work.

Bliss!

One Sunday Afternoon

'phew' moment on Sunday avro

 A dandelions spot at the neighborhood. On the way back to home on one Sunday afternoon.

Spring is not that far???

Town of Kalaw

Town of Kalaw from the top of mountain. Winding mountain path that we came through.

This is the parolama view of Kalaw town.  It takes 1.5 hours to get the top of the mountain. You can talk to the monks at the temple behind us (behind the scenery), but there was no monks around when we got there. You also can oversee the small villages scattered across the mountains. If you want to have a practice run (trekking) before 3 day trekking, this route is the best and pretties one that I recommend!

Small village across the mountains

Pao lady that we came across while she was working at the veg garden

We were on the clay-muddy road on the trekking road.  On such road conditions, you tend to walk with your head down all the time, thinking where you put forward your next step to. But this does not apply to the trekking guide, Robin, who walks 3 day trekking routes twice in the week.  Walking way ahead of us most of the time, he found another Pao locals to talk to, who were working on the vegetable patches.

As I said in the previous post, they were very shy first, but once the camera is set to photograph them (with permission), they turn into like a model. 

The girl on the above, she quickly fixed and adjusted the Pao traditional scarf on the head, and gave a artistic pose to a camera! Gosh, she knows what she is doing!  

During/after the photo shoot, her mother asked us all if we were partnered or single. I was only single male person, and quickly she displayed great deal of interests in me!  

 Hope they had a fun moment with us anyway!

Pao ladies working on the veg garden

Pao kids (look at the girl's pants at the back! it's Pao design) at one of the small villages on the way of trekking

We passed through numerous small villages while trekking. As all villages disperse over a wide area of the mountains, they are not accessible to 'city electricity', 'city water' nor 'city gas'. Plastic items in the area, therefore, very valuable for them to re-use as reliable containers for rain water etc.

You can see the girl waving at us in the picture. They often don't say 'hello' to us, just say 'bye bye'. The narrow dry soiled main road of the village must be a busy trekking path and they see many tourists passing through every day and remember the English greeting. Most occasions, we end up having a short conversation with these kids like this:

us: hello.
kids; bye bye :) bye bye :)

Scenery 10 mins walk from the village above