Francis at Rhino Retreat puts out salt to encourage animals to come near the property.
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Francis at Rhino Retreat puts out salt to encourage animals to come near the property.
Walking home from work in Nanyuki, overlooked by Mount Kenya - at 5199 metres, the second highest peak in Africa after Kilimanjaro.
A bodaboda in Kenya is a motorcycle taxi. In high-altitude Nanyuki, you regularly see passengers carrying bicycles while riding back up the hill from work on bodabodas, having freewheeled it into town in the morning. Unfortunately, I didn't get any good photos of these, so I had to make do with this shot of the bodaboda shed, where they wait in the shade during quiet periods.
Brightly painted shopfronts are a common sight in Kenya. Shops that sell Crown's range of paints, tend to paint themselves in adverts for Crown paints—"If you like it... Crown it!"
Escaping from the gathering heat at morning gives way to midday on the Corniche in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
Mid-morning light on the square outside the famous Souq al-Alawi in Jeddah's "Al Balad" old city. The streets in the Souq are quiet in the morning and even quieter in the middle of the day, only really coming to life at sunset.
Poking above the shops are the upper stories of the Nasseef House. The Nasseef House is a stunning example of traditional Hijazi architecture, built in the mid-19th century around 1872 by Sheikh Omar Nasseef, a prominent merchant and member of a well-respected Jeddah family. This grand, multi-story residence was constructed using coral stone from the Red Sea and timber imported from East Africa, a hallmark of the region’s building style at the time. What makes it stand out is its sheer size—boasting over 106 rooms—and its intricate design, including beautifully carved wooden balconies and rawasheen (ornate latticework screens) that allowed for ventilation and privacy while keeping the interior cool.
The house wasn’t just a family home; it was a symbol of status and a hub of activity. It served as a gathering place for merchants, scholars, and even royalty. King Abdulaziz, the founder of modern Saudi Arabia, is said to have stayed here in 1925 during his campaign to unify the kingdom, marking its historical significance. One of its most famous features is the massive neem tree that once grew through the center of the house, with its trunk piercing the floors—a natural marvel that became a local legend (though the tree is no longer standing today).
Over the years, Nasseef House fell into disrepair, but it was meticulously restored in the early 2000s by the Saudi government as part of efforts to preserve Al-Balad’s heritage. Today, it functions as a museum and cultural center, offering a glimpse into Jeddah’s past with exhibits on the city’s history, traditional furnishings, and artifacts.
Mid-morning light on the square outside the Nasseef House in Jeddah's "Al Balad" old city. This part of the old city has the most consistently and thoroughly restored collection of buildings.
Actually, this square doesn't seem to have an official name, but it does have a nice display of historic cannons. The cannons, likely from the Ottoman era or earlier, are historical artifacts from Jeddah’s time as a fortified port and pilgrimage hub, protecting the city and signaling events like the Iftar during Ramadan.
I'd heard all stories from expats about the terrible things to expect in Jeddah, but actually I found the Saudi people to be very friendly and chatty, and often keen to be photographed.
I'd heard all stories from expats about the terrible things to expect in Jeddah, but actually I found the Saudi people to be very friendly and chatty, and often keen to be photographed.
When I went to worship at the Cathedral in Somerset West, Roy was very keen to welcome me, and he let me take his photo.
蛇年首攝·打破常規
🚌69000(TZ9333)@914
📍深水埗
📅20250129
🎥 NikonD7000
#城巴69000 #CTB69000
#城巴914 #CTB914
#ManA95 #猛獅A95 #猛獅A9512點8米 #ManA95ND363F #ManA9512Point8Meters
#歐五 #歐盟五型 #歐五排放
#GemilangBodyWork #Gemilang #Lions_City_DD
#男人 #猛獅 #MAN #MANBus
#樣辦車 #Demonstrator #神獸
#城巴 #CityBus #城巴有限公司
#香港巴士 #HongKongBus
蛇年首攝·打破常規
🚌69000(TZ9333)@914
📍深水埗
📅20250129
🎥 NikonD7000
#城巴69000 #CTB69000
#城巴914 #CTB914
#ManA95 #猛獅A95 #猛獅A9512點8米 #ManA95ND363F #ManA9512Point8Meters
#歐五 #歐盟五型 #歐五排放
#GemilangBodyWork #Gemilang #Lions_City_DD
#男人 #猛獅 #MAN #MANBus
#樣辦車 #Demonstrator #神獸
#城巴 #CityBus #城巴有限公司
#香港巴士 #HongKongBus
🚌69000(TZ9333)SP2
📍啟德
📅20250118
🎥 NikonD7000
#城巴69000 #CTB69000
#城巴SP2 #CTBSP2
#ManA95 #猛獅A95 #猛獅A9512點8米 #ManA95ND363F #ManA9512Point8Meters
#歐五 #歐盟五型 #歐五排放
#GemilangBodyWork #Gemilang #Lions_City_DD
#男人 #猛獅 #MAN #MANBus
#樣辦車 #Demonstrator #神獸
#城巴 #CityBus #城巴有限公司
#香港巴士 #HongKongBus
On the corniche, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The Indonesian influence in Jeddah isn't dramatic and obvious, but it's all around if you keep your eyes open for it; Indonesia has the biggest Muslim population in the world, and as Jeddah is the gateway to the Islamic holy cities of Mecca and Medinah, there are many Indonesians and Indonesian-run businesses in the city.
Jiezi Ancient City, Sichuan.
A site of both mass tourism and intense religious devotion, the Yonghe Temple is one of Beijing’s most significant historical landmarks, and a great survival of the golden age of peace and prosperity that marked the early part of the Qing Dynasty in the late 17th and 18th Centuries.
The Yonghe Temple (Chinese: 雍和宮 or yōnghé gōng, “Palace of Peace and Harmony”), also known as the Yonghe Lamasery, or popularly as the Lama Temple, is a temple and monastery of the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism located on 12 Yonghegong Street, Beijing’s Dongcheng Borough, around 4 km north-east of the Forbidden City. The building and artwork of the temple is a combination of Han Chinese and Tibetan styles. This building is one of the largest Tibetan Buddhist monasteries in China proper. The current abbot is Lama Hu Xuefeng. Yonghe Temple was the highest Buddhist temple in the country during the middle and late Qing dynasty.
Building work on the Yonghe Temple started in 1694 during the Qing dynasty on the site where an official residence for court eunuchs of the Ming dynasty originally stood. It was then converted into the residence of Yinzhen (Prince Yong), the fourth son of the Kangxi Emperor in 1702-3In 1711, Hongli, the fourth son of Yongzheng, the future Qianlong Emperor, was born in the East Academy in this building.
Prince Yong ascended the throne as the Yongzheng Emperor in 1722, and the palace was renamed the ‘Palace of Peace and Harmony’ (雍和宫). After the Yongzheng Emperor’s death in 1735, his coffin was placed in the temple from 1735 to 1737. In 1744, the Qianlong Emperor issued an edict of converting the Palace of Peace and Harmony into a lamasery.
Subsequently, the monastery became a residence for large numbers of Tibetan Buddhist monks from Mongolia and Tibet, and so the Yonghe Lamasery became the national centre of Lama administration. Since 1792, with the foundation of the Golden Urn, the Yonghe Temple also became a place for the Qing dynasty to exert control over the Tibetan and Mongolian lama reincarnations.
The temple was the site of an armed revolt against the Chinese Nationalist government in 1929.
After the Chinese Civil War ended in 1949, the temple was declared a national monument and closed for the following 32 years. It is said to have survived the Cultural Revolution due to the intervention of Premier Zhou Enlai. Reopened to the public in 1981, it is today both a functioning temple and highly popular tourist attraction in the city.
This description incorporates text from the English Wikipedia.
A site of both mass tourism and intense religious devotion, the Yonghe Temple is one of Beijing’s most significant historical landmarks, and a great survival of the golden age of peace and prosperity that marked the early part of the Qing Dynasty in the late 17th and 18th Centuries.
The Yonghe Temple (Chinese: 雍和宮 or yōnghé gōng, “Palace of Peace and Harmony”), also known as the Yonghe Lamasery, or popularly as the Lama Temple, is a temple and monastery of the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism located on 12 Yonghegong Street, Beijing’s Dongcheng Borough, around 4 km north-east of the Forbidden City. The building and artwork of the temple is a combination of Han Chinese and Tibetan styles. This building is one of the largest Tibetan Buddhist monasteries in China proper. The current abbot is Lama Hu Xuefeng. Yonghe Temple was the highest Buddhist temple in the country during the middle and late Qing dynasty.
Building work on the Yonghe Temple started in 1694 during the Qing dynasty on the site where an official residence for court eunuchs of the Ming dynasty originally stood. It was then converted into the residence of Yinzhen (Prince Yong), the fourth son of the Kangxi Emperor in 1702-3In 1711, Hongli, the fourth son of Yongzheng, the future Qianlong Emperor, was born in the East Academy in this building.
Prince Yong ascended the throne as the Yongzheng Emperor in 1722, and the palace was renamed the ‘Palace of Peace and Harmony’ (雍和宫). After the Yongzheng Emperor’s death in 1735, his coffin was placed in the temple from 1735 to 1737. In 1744, the Qianlong Emperor issued an edict of converting the Palace of Peace and Harmony into a lamasery.
Subsequently, the monastery became a residence for large numbers of Tibetan Buddhist monks from Mongolia and Tibet, and so the Yonghe Lamasery became the national centre of Lama administration. Since 1792, with the foundation of the Golden Urn, the Yonghe Temple also became a place for the Qing dynasty to exert control over the Tibetan and Mongolian lama reincarnations.
The temple was the site of an armed revolt against the Chinese Nationalist government in 1929.
After the Chinese Civil War ended in 1949, the temple was declared a national monument and closed for the following 32 years. It is said to have survived the Cultural Revolution due to the intervention of Premier Zhou Enlai. Reopened to the public in 1981, it is today both a functioning temple and highly popular tourist attraction in the city.
This description incorporates text from the English Wikipedia.
A photo of Rocky and texturd with smoke .. Wish You all a nice week and thanks for the visit.
Dude enjoying a Sunday afternoon beer and standing by the St Lawrence Hall on King St East in downtown Toronto.
St. Lawrence Hall is a meeting hall located at the corner of King Street East and Jarvis Street in Downtown Toronto, across King from St James’ Cathedral. It was created to be Toronto's public meeting hall home to public gatherings, concerts, and exhibitions. Its main feature was a thousand-seat amphitheatre. For decades the hall was the centre of Toronto's social life before larger venues took over much of this business. Today the hall continues as a venue for events including weddings, conferences, and art shows.
It was built in 1850-51, in the reconstruction after the Great Fire of Toronto. The new Renaissance Revival style building was designed by William Thomas.
It was here that prominent politicians such as John A. Macdonald and George Brown, Fathers of Confederation, addressed the people of Toronto. It was the main venue for musicians and other performers who came to the city. By the 1870s the growing city had a number of larger and more suitable performance venues and the Hall entered a long decline. The City of Toronto government fully restored the hall in 1967 to mark the Centennial of Confederation (and rebuilt the east wing which had completely collapsed). That same year it was designated as a National Historic Site.
This description incorporates text from the English Wikipedia.
The smaller of the two organs in the Hallgrímskirkja is the choir organ. It is a 10-voice choir organ built by Th. Frobenius and Sønner Orgelbyggeri A/S in Lyngby, Denmark and was inaugurated in December 1985. It has ten mechanical voices with a svelte on both playing boards. When I took this photo it has just been returned to its place after spending a period at its manufacturer in Denmark where it was repaired and expanded. The gentleman at the console was tuning it. I did not know this at the time. Its rededication concert took place on 19 May 2024.
“Hallgrímskirkja is the largest church in Iceland and towers over the centre of Reykjavík. It also houses the largest organ in the country.” Completed as recently as 1986, its 74.5 metre-high spire, distinctive brutalist-expressionist Gothic style, distinctively curved spire and side wings, and prominent city centre site have ensured it is already “an important symbol for Iceland's national identity”.
The church is named after the Icelandic poet and cleric Hallgrímur Pétursson (1614–1674), author of the Passion Hymns.
State Architect Guðjón Samúelsson's design of the church was commissioned in 1937. He is said to have designed it to resemble the trap rocks, mountains and glaciers of Iceland's landscape, in particular its columnar basalt "organ pipe" formations (such as those at Svartifoss). The design is similar in style to the expressionist architecture of Grundtvig's Church of Copenhagen, Denmark, completed in 1940, which has been described as a likely influence, alongside the expressionist Kirche am Hohenzollernplatz in Berlin, Germany (completed in 1933).
Architecturally, Hallgrímskirkja consists of three parts: The tower with the distinctly curved side wings which house service facilities, a nave in more traditional architecture, and a sanctuary at the other end of the nave, whose cylindrical shape has been described as evoking Viking war helmets.
It took 41 years to build the church: construction started in 1945, but the landmark tower was completed long before the whole church was finished. The crypt beneath the choir was consecrated in 1948, the steeple and wings were completed in 1974, and the nave was consecrated in 1986. The church was originally intended to be less tall, but the leaders of the Church of Iceland wanted a large spire to outshine Landakotskirkja (Landakot's Church), which was the cathedral of the Catholic Church in Iceland.
The church has a carillon of bells at the top which ring on the hour.
This description incorporates text from the English Wikipedia.