Giant Penis in Japan

What more can I say, it's a penis, its 475 kg and it's 3 m 20 cm long and in the middle of nowhere.


Well there actually is more to the story.  These little shrines dot the countryside of Japan and there are even festivals to celebrate the penis.  As you can imagine, there are shrines to the opposite sex too.


These shrines are for fertility and people often go to pray for their child's or their own fertility.  People might need to start praying a little hard in light of the fact that Japan's population in shrinking.


Either way, these shrines provide a little entertainment and head scratching for non-natives when they happen upon them for the first time.

Malaysia & Other Travels

            

Above are four pictures from Mabul island off the coast of Borneo Malaysia.  The diving around there is great, but the real gem is the island Sipidan, which is 30 minutes by boat and has a mass of marine biodiversity that will blow astonish you.  It is ranked as one of the top dive spots in the world and without a doubt worth a trip.  I bumped into a number of dive masters who came from Thailand just to dive here.  It is wonderful.  Below is a video by one of the local dive shops:



I have filled in a map below showing the places in the world I have been fortunate enough to visit.  I have to thank my family and my choices so far that have let me experience delectable foods, hike in the rain forest, climb ruins, and dive under the sea.  I hope to keep traveling and exploring close to home and across the seas.

I hope you too are seeing all the places you longed to see and remember you don't have to be rich to travel the world you just need the will and the desire.

Cheers! fellow travelers and explorers.

visited 17 states (7.55%)

Quenching Weathered Hands

A railroad line runs right through the middle of Hanoi.  You could almost walk right over it and miss it.  It is such a part of city-life and little heed is payed to the proximity in which bikes are parked to it or buildings are built to it.  Its path through the city is little wider than a small alley.  The above picture captures a moment that is as ordinary as it is extraordinary. 

Children of Cambodia - Unguarded Moments

Each photo captures an unguarded moment. The first one a private moment of weariness  and the second an unreserved smile.  For children in Cambodia, these emotions are ever present in their eyes.  Their success selling souvenirs each day effects that night's dinner.  You can see the urgency in their eyes as they go from tourist to tourist and the weight on their shoulders.  However, in moments where no one is looking the immature child within bubbles through and lips curve and teeth flash.  Though only fleeting these moments reveal a self that is free of the  burdens of reality.

Kids in Cambodia - Guarded Smile

This was the cutest girl I saw in Cambodia. She was only seven and had a sweet attitude. In between her performance on a toy flute she stopped so I could take her picture. You could see she still had her innocence in a country where children are forced to grow up fast for their and their family's survival.

On Her Way

I took a lot of photos on my trip in Southeast Asia. About 1,300 clicks of the shutter to be exact. I went through them and I marked just over 500 as being worth editing. That is a lot of work and will take time--maybe even a year. The problem is that I keep taking pictures in the meantime :). It is fun however to see how I have improved and changed in my photographic style. Even since I have started using my first dSLR just over three months ago. So in a way, I am happy I have such a backlog of photos to go through.

Now the photo above. Of the photos I have edited so far, this is among my favorites. Someone else might not give it two looks when looking at a set of my Cambodian pictures, but to me it special. It is hard to quantify what keeps my thinking about and my eye exploring this photo. When I look at it, my eye follows the thin and weathered grandma and her bike out of the frame and my imagination suddenly takes over. I imagine where she is going, the countless hardships and moments of joy that have made up her life. I wonder how she got to such an old age, when I saw so few elderly people in the country. What have her eyes seen? How did she survive the Khmer Rouge? Does she tell her grandchildren stories of that time or does she hold those nightmares close knowing they are more horrifying than any ghost store they have ever heard?

This photo takes my eye and my mind on a journey that it would never have gone on, and this is why I treasure this photo.

Bayon - Tower of Faces

Bayon is a beautifully eerie place. The temple is huge, but it's halls and rooms are constricting. Scrambling up stairways you run into huge faces 1.5 times your size staring at you. As you walk past, you look back to make sure the eyes aren't following you.

Thinking of the time and labor required to build these temples is mind-paralyzing. The scale of them and shear number of them spotting the countryside are amazing. Why did they only teach us about the pyramids in school?

Kids in Cambodia - Free Hospital in a Land of Abundant Need

As we were on our way to Angkor Wat, we stopped at this road crossing. At first nothing was happening, but soon this baby was being wheeled across the street. It turns out we were on a road that goes right through a free children's hospital. It was a little shocking to see, but at least this one was getting cared for. The longer we were in Siem Reap the more children we saw and most of them weren't this lucky.

Kids in Cambodia - I Am More Than My Possessions

A kid loses her sandal and another finds her meal for the day.

Going to the 3rd world where people have few possessions causes use to look past these when judging and valuing a person. This is something we lose living in the developed world where people worry about having an iPhone that is a generation old.

Kids in Cambodia - How You Doing

This kid had a fun attitude and as the sun was setting, he was more interested in having fun then selling anything. I got two nice shots of him. You can see the other one here.

Kids in Cambodia - Off to the Races

A little tyke in Cambodia sprinting to catch up with his sister as she runs after tourists trying to sell postcards. He's just a little too young to start selling.

Buddha's Parasol

Curls of Buddha

Kids in Cambodia - Offering

This scene was heartbreaking. While I was exploring one of the outlying temples near Angkor Wat, she came up to me. She was rail thin and only knew the words "one dollar" in English. She picked a yet to bloom flower and offered it to me. It was the last one within eyesight and all her hope has riding on it.

Kids in Cambodia - Lost in the Land of Giants

Kids in Cambodia - A Beautiful Moment

Kids in Cambodia - Hey

Alone

Midday Nap at Angkor Wat

Kids in Cambodia 2