This is Saint Patrick’s Church in Bangalore in honor of St. Paddy’s Day.
The inscription reads: “Through this breach the British assault was delivered March 21, 1791.” I guess that means that the 223rd anniversary of the British attack on Bangalore is right around the corner.
Bangalore Fort is a tiny piece of the 16th century Vijayanagar fortification that remains intact–it’s all that remains. It’s located between city market and Tipu Sultan’s Bangalore Palace. As it takes only about 10 minutes to walk through, a lot of people don’t even realize it’s there.
These billboards are all over Phuket, which isn’t to say that it’s one identical billboard (or even just one shooting range), but billboards showing ALMOST the widest possible demographic enjoying their arms. I say “almost” because for some reason they don’t include any old folks. I’m a little offended by that. Do they think that seeing crotchety elders holding guns will scare their potential customers, or are the old just not sexy enough for the advertising world?
I wonder if there was irony intended with the little girl with the Hello Kitty! shirt, bows in her hair, and gun bigger than her head in her hands?
At Wat Chalong there is a big, brick kiln that is shaped somewhat like a beehive. Loud and long strings of fire crackers are frequently set off in it. I had read that this was done to drive demons out. That turns out to be patently false, but it’s such an awesome explanation that I can see why it had traction. The firecrackers are actually set off to signify a prayer has been answered. (That makes much less sense than driving away demons… I know, right?)
True story: When I was there a guy actually stuck his head up into the kiln to see where they kept the fireworks. Natural Selection was not put to work that day, but I wondered what would have happened if a string went off just then. On the other hand, the dogs seem to be able to completely ignore it. I know they’re probably deaf, but you’d think the falling paper would unnerve them.
I’ve seen butterflies and moths that had patterns evolved to mimic the eyes of other animals at a butterfly house in a botanical gardens, but this is the first time I’ve seen it in the wild–which is to say in the stairwell of our central Bangalore apartment building. This moth thought the perfect place to exploit its owl-like eyes and “feather pattern” would be on the white marble floor inside a building. Evolution only gets one so far.
Kuala Lumpur (KL) City Centre Park is a little–but immaculate–park located between the Petronas Towers and the KLCC (KL Convention Centre). This is taken from a bridge inside the park. One can see the KL Tower in the background as a directional reference (i.e. the photo is taken facing roughly west.)