Night Perspective

Long Exposure Workship, Tel Aviv, Israel. Taken by Flavio@Flickr

tree - which knows how to live

Podkowa, Lesna, Poland. taken by lidia.g

Stretching

"One of our wild monkeys in Taiwan". Taken by Squitten

Snowfall

"26.11.2010 Russia. Novosibirsk". Taken by Valery Titievsky

Gone Fishing

Waterfall Bay, on the coast of Wah Fu Estate, Southern District, Hong Kong.
Taken by W_Kho.

Black Buffalo at the Red Door

"Black buffalo at the red door to Dezhung Rinpoche's house, Tharlam Monastery courtyard wall in background, Boudha, Kathmandu, Nepal in 1990". Taken by Wonderlane

Lost in a Maze

I've always thought hedge mazes only exists on TV, but it looks like I'm wrong! Apparently, at the Enchanted Maze in Mornington, there are about 5 mazes and several brain teasers; Life size!



The entrance of the place looked amazing! I mean, they actually 'carved' images onto the hedge and I think it takes a lot of maintainance and creativity to make it last so long.

And there's the maze!

Of course, my favorite maze was the hedge maze.


So off we go into the hedge maze to find the buddhas and the Japanese garden!



In the end, we've found only 4 buddhas... oh well...




Ok, so I lied. We found 3 buddhas. Damn...

But every turn almost looks the same and its hard to tell which direction we should go to like its either left or right and stuff so it did take some time to get to the garden.


And when we got to the garden, I was kinda disappointed because it was really small. I was like, "That's it!?"

I was sorta expecting a bigger garden with a pond and ducks swimming about and a little hut in the middle of the pond with a bridge connected to dry land. Oh well...

Moving on to the other mazes, there are plenty of other things to see along the way!

Don't you think the garden looks fab?

Geez.. Samuel always have to ruin such a good picture!

So we've found another maze and this time, its impossible to get lost!



See? Nonetheless, its still a maze.

So what I've learnt about this maze is its the kind of maze the Buddhist monks would take a stroll in. You choose one of the paths and you must be able to make it back to your starting point through the maze.

Of course, its obvious that you can cheat, but it takes the fun out of it. Don't you think so?

Also, by the time you finish the entire maze, you would have covered 450 m.

And so, we all took different routes in the maze.

But in the end, all the routes leads to the starting point. So there is no right or wrong routes. Just right.

Then there was one of the most fun mazes... Snakes and ladders!

It was great to play one of my childhood games, but you know what sucked the most by the time we got there?

My camera's memory card ran out of memory. Dammit!

So anyway, after deleting a few lousy pictures, we found a maze/brainteaser!

So here's how the maze goes; see the wooden planks connected to every tyre? Each plank is painted in either the colour red, blue or green.

The goal is to make it to the center of the entire maze, BUT! You have to go along the coloured planks according to the colour sequence red, blue, then green.

Sounds simple, right? WRONG!

I'm telling you, I had a hard time trying to get to the center, until it was time for us to leave. So, I left unsuccessful... :(



There's also a few other brainteasers like this stringy maze above. This time, you don't exactly need much brains to finish this, you just need to be more flexible and most importantly, small.

All you have to do is to choose one of the coloured strings and attach your belt which will be provided to the chosen string and you must start from one of the posts, follow the string and get back to the post you came from.

Easy peasy (unless of course, you're as tall as my little brother Daniel who is more than 6 feet tall)!

Ahh! Its good being a 5 foot 6er.

Rain Path

Scotland. Taken by virtually light

Gettysburg Remembrance Day

"He looked so dreamy and thus caught my eye". Taken by Peet64

Mansions are Romantic

I've always thought that mansions have stories of romance and tragedies. So the Werribee Mansion that I visited last week definitely proves my point!



The best part; there IS a romantic story behind this mansion!

Ok, so its like this. There was this Scottish man named Thomas Chirnside who first came to Australia with his younger brother, Andrew Chirnside carrying only a few hundred pounds. During that time, they worked as farmers and became very rich.

After awhile, Thomas went back to his homeland of Scotland in 1838 for a few years where he fell in love with his first cousin, Mary Begbie. As expected, he wanted to marry her, but their parents did not approve because they were first cousins. Duh!

So Thomas went back to Australia alone... Aww....

Then! His brother Andrew was about to go back to Scotland and before he left, Thomas asked him to bring Mary back to Australia, no matter what.

And so, Andrew and Mary came back to Australia in 1852... wait for it... MARRIED!

Poor Thomas was single for the rest of his life.

But anyway, Thomas didn't kill his brother... or Mary because he loved them so much. Too much that he wanted Mary to live a luxurious life in an exquisite 60-room Italianate Mansion, which he built from 1874 to 1877 in the Werribee park.

THE END

But after they were dead and gone, their children (Andrew and Mary's kids, okay?) who were too damn lazy to take care of the mansion because they don't know how to make any money, sold it away and the entire property now belongs to the government. Which is also open to the public.

My favorite part of the mansion is the Rose garden!


Its almost summer time, so its the perfect season for roses!



Everywhere I go, I see roses! The things love can make people do...


And there's even a little hut in the middle of the garden. I swear its the perfect place to get married; walking by the roses with your lover, its a lovely weather with cool air and its sunny.

You know what? Maybe I will get married there!




There's just so many roses! We were surrounded by hundreds of roses!



I can't get enough of it! I was really enjoying myself.







I don't know about Mary, but I'd definitely fall for that someone who did all these for me! (Unless its a girl. Because then, that wouldn't be romantic; that would be creepy...)



And one more rose before we move on!




I'm not exactly sure how big is this mansion but I have a feeling that its as big as 10 football fields! After the rose garden, we went to yet another garden!

Look at mom trying to climb up a tree!

Followed by Daniel...

Ok, so eventually I also cannot tahan and I climed up the tree as well!

There's even a friggin vineyard! Honestly, I felt like as if we were in a movie or something. Give me a vintage dress, a pair of white gloves, a bonnet and a parasol and I'd be part of the story (minus the corset)!



Then there was the lake...


Isn't it pretty? That's probably where the ladies have their afternoon tea, eating crumpets and scones, with a butler by their side, waiting to serve them.

Ahh... what luxuries...




By the time we've finished looking at the garden, it started raining..

And now, on to the mansion!


Check it out! These furnitures are the original ones Thomas imported all the way from England to this very mansion! This would be the library I think.




This would be the drawing room. This is where the ladies hang out during a party or when guests arrives. They'd play the piano, read a book, or just chat.



And here's the dining room...




I'm sure you don't need me to tell you what the people do in there, right?



And this is where the family eats on normal days.



I don't weather its true, but I heard that this is a portrait of Mary Begbie!


At the servant's headquarters, this is the courtyard, where the maids and horsemen and all kinds of servants wander there with the laundry and stuff.

Check it out! Its a real antique toilet!

I wonder how do you sit on that thing...

Remember that I've mentioned the sitting room where the ladies hang out earlier? Well, this is the Billiard room where the gentlemen hang out during a party. Here, they'd have a smoke and play billiard and stuff while the ladies are at the drawing room.



As for this room, I have no idea what's it called, but anyway, isn't it pretty?


Gosh, can you imagine that the couple slept in this tiny bed?? I bet not even Daniel can fit in that bed, let alone two people!



Those were the clothes they wore back then. I also found out that these people from the past are much smaller compared to the people today. More nutrition, perhaps?

Here's the kitchen!

You thought they were real maids didn't you?

Going upstairs...

If you're wondering, this is a corset. The very first lingerie for women. Its used to make your waist as small as possible. Get this, the ideal waist size is... 20.

Anymore than that, the mother would be very angry with their daughters because they were too 'FAT'. WTF..


And this is what 'normal' women are supposed to look like after years of corsets. You wanna know how does a corset feels like??

Put both hands on your lower ribs, just above your waist, hold your breath and squeeze as tight as possible.

And they do this everyday...


NOTE: Ok, some of you maybe wondering why Andrew married Mary even though they both love Thomas. FYI, Andrew was not being a traitor or a bastard, kay? Its because back then, it was strange for a man to bring in a single woman to another country. So, Andrew had no other choice but to marry Mary in order to bring her to Australia.

Hope that cleared the air.