A Full Moon

Hello all. I realize that it's been about three weeks since my last post. I've been busy doing things but oddly, I've not really had the opportunity to take a large amount of pictures. That said, I've got a neat few for today.

I've always been fascinated by low light, long exposure pictures. I had built up a fair amount of nighttime shots before the whole cat fiasco in which I lost all of my pictures. One night recently, I spent some time up on my roof. The moon was out and it was very pleasant outside. The view from my roof lends me a nice vantage of most of downtown.


One of the crazy things I noticed upon reviewing my pictures is just how much dust is in the air. I remember thinking to myself, "Wow, what a clear night, this'll make for some good pictures." Yet, looking at the glowing halo around the brightly lit moon shows just how hazy it can be with the dust/sand being blown up. And like I said, this night was quite clear in comparison to other nights. What's crazy is that all those points of light probably only represent about 20% of the entire city.


From our apartment we can easily see the old Palace that rests atop a hill between two valleys. It's always quite impressive when it's lit up at night with the skyline behind it.


Here is a close up of the Palace with the city in the background. Sometimes when I'm out running late at night, I take a path that winds right by here and I just sit and take it in. It still amazes me that I actually live here.


This is a enlarged section of the town that was far off in the distance in the previous wider shots. If you click on it you should be able to see lots of little details.


Finally I end with a shot of the moon.

Nighttime here is really a wonderful thing. The temperature drops considerably from the daytime highs, and the people come out. Not that it's too terribly bad during the day (I think San Antonio is quite regularly much hotter in the day), but when you have no air conditioning, the nighttime temperature drop is a godsend when trying to sleep.

Saida! Saida! Saida!

Saida is the Arabic name for the city of Sidon. Tyre is in the far south of Lebanon and my route back to Beirut took me right through Saida. I only got to spend a few hours here, but the time was well spent. The city felt bigger and more alive than Tyre. It was incredibly beautiful, as Lebanon tends to be.


The big tourist site to go to is the seaside castle which lies about 100 to 200 meters out into the ocean from the shore. As you can see in the photo there is a long stone walkway that leads out to it.


Almost immediately upon entering the castle I come across two local boys with whom I begin talking in Arabic. This surprised them and we chatted for a while. When I got up to continue on they just followed. I had three shadows that afternoon. One of them insisted that I take his picture; he's the one above, I can't remember his name.


Climbing through the innards to get to the upper ramparts I came across this beautifully lit room. I can only imagine what this might've looked like when it was originally being used.


The view from the top was truly spectacular. The castle, the deep shadows, the coastline, the skyline - it was all too perfect.


Before I left, I made sure to get a picture of myself sitting on the castle walls looking out over the city.


When I got back to the shore I walked a ways down and just soaked it all in. I've noticed I really like to soak in my surroundings. I came across lot's of interesting people, but I seem to always atract younger males. These guys were neat. The one on the bike is actually from Germany but he now lives in Lebanon.


Naturally, there is alot of fishing going on along the shore. As I was walking past I saw this group of kids gathered around a guy about my age. I walked up to find that he had (unintentionally) caught an eel and they were trying to figure out what to do with it. I love the look of almost pained curiousity on the face of the kid in the red shirt.


As I said, there were many groups fishing. I'm not sure these guys were ever even aware that I took their picture. The sunset provided amazing pictures at the harbor.


This is the last picture I took of Sidon before I loaded the bus back to Beirut. I would absolutely go back to Sidon any time I have the chance. It was too much to get in one trip.

$8 to Tyre and Back

(The above shot is a panoramic wide shot of the city of Tyre following the curve of the Mediterranean sea ; I am standing on the ledge to the far left of the shot.)


As promised, this post will focus on my day trip to Tyre. To get there from Beirut required me to take a minibus about 2 hours south. I know some foreigners would dread the thought of having to be crammed into a minibus with locals for a 2 hour journey, but things like that excite me. I feel like I'm not really experiencing a culture unless I'm doing things how the locals are doing it. Anyway, it was really cheap; like $8 total for there and back. (Oddly enough, they use US Dollars as much as their own currency in Lebanon; the exchange rate is static and fixed so everyone will accept either currency or even a mixture of both.)


The first thing I noticed and was drawn to was the amazing harbor. It was so picturesque, like a postcard almost. I just sat on a ledge and took it all in for a while.


While sitting there I noticed a guy decked out in scuba gear slowly wading into the water. I have no idea what he was trying to do in the harbor, but it was fun watching him. Also check out the father and son fixing up this old boat. It always amazes me when I consider how different life must be like for people growing up in these different locales.


Directly behind me, overlooking the sea, was an old building that was in the process of being restored. It was incredible.


I began to walk around and explore the city and it's inner streets. I came across this neat little alley way where a group of kids were playing. I believe it was in the old Christian area.


I came out onto a little path that ran along the shore. There was a little peninsula jutting out into the water connected to the path by means of a sandbar. It was too inviting not to walk out onto it. I sat there and again just soaked it all in for a good while. The above picture was the view I had from the rock I was sitting on. (See my knee?)


I kept walking and made my way to the first set of ruins. These are the remains of an ancient Roman promenade which extended out to the sea.


Here you can see the mosaic tiled street which lined the walkway. Pretty incredible.


I continued to explore the city and see all its intricacies. It was a blast. This last picture is a shot of me with the sea and the rest of the city in the background. It was crazy how windy it was by the shore.

The next post will highlight my stop over in Sidon. Highlights will include a castle on the sea, local children galore, and an unwelcome eel.

Beirut-iful, you read that correctly

Last week I was gone. Where'd I go? Well I had the opportunity to travel around Lebanon for a few days. It was amazing. The next few blog posts I do will focus on different parts of the country I saw. (I promise that at some point in the future I will get around to writing the promised post about the Dead to Red Race; right now I'm too anxious to share about Lebanon.)

I started out my trip in Beirut so that's what this post will feature pictures of. Lebanon is so different from what I'm used to in a wide variety of ways. First of was the amount of GREEN things.


Being in the Middle East I've grown accustomed to not seeing much plant life, but Lebanon was full of it! It was beautiful and a nice change of pace. The above picture is taken from the campus of the American University of Beirut which I was kindly given a tour of by a student I met while near the campus. And yes, that IS the Mediterranean Sea in the background. Speaking of the Mediterranean...


The Sea was incredible. Coming from a country where we have mandated water rationing, I was dumbfounded by the beauty of the sea. Other places definitely had prettier views and vistas of the Mediterranean which I will show in a later post, but this was my first look. And I was mighty impressed.


Walking up and down the Corniche I got to take in a lot of the seaside sites. (From Answers.com: the word (corniche) typically describes a waterfront promenade usually paralleled by a main road, such as the renowned Corniche Beirut. I didn't know that either, but that's what all the locals called it.) There was a lot to just sit and take in on the Corniche. Admittedly I was a bit sad I didn't pack running shoes as a run up and down the coast would've been great.


These old boats were just littered along the rocky portions of the beach at points. They had a lot of character that I couldn't ignore; they were practically begging me to take their pictures. Later at other places I got kind of "boat obsessed" as you'll see in later postings when I post several harbor shots.


Something that I always have an eye out for is anything with a distinctly non-Arabic origin but which has been appropriated INTO Arabic culture, whether that be language or something else. Let's call it a melding of the foreign with the familiar. So, I suppose that's why it really interests me to see things like "Henry Ford Street" transliterated into Arabic.


This building was along the shorefront and looked like it had seen better days, but it still had so much life to it. I love the older architectural feel combined with the plants and palm trees. It kind made me feel like I was in a movie.

Alright, I have much more to come from Lebanon. Next time will feature scenes from Tyre.

Purposefully Getting Lost

So last week I made a point to get myself lost. I decided that this would be the best way for me to accomplish a few things:

1. Get to know my neighborhood first hand.
2. Test my knowledge of the area by seeing if I could find my way home.
3. Appreciate the complex simplicity of daily life for the locals.

Thus, I set off on my journey. I took my camera (surprise, surprise) and got what I thought were some interesting pictures. Not wanting to bore you with details of how my afternoon consisted of mainly walking and looking, I am hoping that these pictures will give a better story.
This was a view from my neighborhood before I descended further down into the city. There are a plethora of interesting looking buildings in this city, and this is but one of them.

This was some wall graffiti I saw while walking down a side street. I was enthralled by the fact that someone had spent such time putting detail into drawing on a cracked wall. This picture only shows a small amount of the total "flock" drawn. In total, there were probably 200+ birds drawn over a 40 ft span. If this is what graffiti usually consisted of, I'd probably like it more. Just neat.

These two boys were running around about the neighborhood. They weren't really playing any specific game other than "tag." I had fun getting out of their way several times.
The city was under Roman rule for some time and the effects of such are still visible. This happens to show the Roman Amphitheater that was left behind which is now surrounded by a large residential area.
These boys were so funny. After noticing that I was taking pictures, they made sure that they were suitable subjects. They are clearly cooler than I can ever hope to be. And I think they know that.I have yet to be anywhere near this mosque, but even just seeing it from afar, I think this is the coolest mosque in the city.
This is another of the Roman ruins left in the city. This is an ancient Citadel built on an extremely high hill that overlooks most of the city.
These guys followed me for like 3 blocks and kept saying the same English phrases over and over again. I tried to talk to them but they seemed more interested in following and laughing. I finally took a picture of them and they cheered. After checking out the picture, they then trotted along.
Big Flagpole. That's right.
Another one of the city's many cool buildings. This is overlooking a poorer part of town.

On the walk I went to an art type place. I hesitate to call it a museum, but it was interesting. Hopefully I can post some of those pictures in another post later this week.