Ann-Christine led the week with Circular Wonders in this lovely post:
As soon as I read the post I kept thinking about the domes in the Islamic Art Museum Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur, which I wrote about in my older post. Here are some photos re-edited:
Still in Kuala Lumpur, from Sri Maha Mariamman Temple:
Road signage and maintenance access covers in South Korea:
And, of course, sunset and sunrise! I picked a few lucky shots when the Sun wasn’t too covered by clouds:
As today (Monday) coincides with Nyepi (Balinese Day of Silence), I got a day off from work and enjoying my break (doing nothing) to the fullest. So here I am able to blog two days in a row! Hahaha!
As there were comments of seeing the color version of my previous black and white photo over here, I thought why not post about the whole sequence of adventure that day?
It was November 1st, 2023, my last day in Seoul. My friend and I planned a last meetup dinner after her work and before I left for the airport. She recommended a place called Bongchu Jjimdak, in Seoul Square. The building was strategic as I was going to take the airport train from Seoul Station and there was underground passage straight to the station and all.
Continue readingFor this challenge, John mentioned to focus on these four: Shape, Form, Texture, and Light. Check out John’s original post here:
First photo’s focus is Shape. These flat humanoid shapes were installed at a little distance in front of one wall, creating a crowd of them along with the reflections on the ceiling and on the shiny floor. The installation is actually very colorful, but I made it black and white to focus on the shape.
Continue readingLens-Artists Challenge #288 – Window Shopping
For #288 Ritva led the challenge with “Window Shopping”. Somehow it wasn’t something I took photos of consciously, so after digging through some years of gallery, I found a few photos, although most of them were showcasing their goods in front of the shop instead of from behind the window.
First photo I took because this shop in Miyajima Omotesando Shopping Street sold some of my favorite Ghibli characters. This frontmost creature here (also the smaller ones behind) is called “Totoro” from the animation My Neighbor Totoro. It’s name is the first half of my blog address “totoryan”.
Continue readingWhen I said I wanted to allocate more time to blog, it’s really easier said than done 😅ðŸ˜
Finally got some free time last weekend. I would usually read and try to catch up with the ever growing content on my reader tab, but instead husband and I joined Pokemon Fun Run! It was a 5k run (not a race). Afterward I spent the whole day catching up with a friend from Jakarta and watched a few Pikachu shows.
Overtime nights at work were (are) continuing, with the lack of physical rest and mental condition on the brink of a burnout, it was an achievement to keep at my usual jogging + walking pace (which is average 9min+++/km), hahaha… I kinda thought I would went over 10mins in average.
Donna led us this week with the theme: Sound 🎵
It’s such an interesting POV to choose photos that evoke certain sounds within myself. Looking at these photos is like pressing the play button on the videos of my memory, replaying in my mind eyes.
Previous week’s challenge was led by Anne in this beautiful post:
I’ve been overwhelmed by work (worked until late nights, haven’t had an off day for so long, was thankfully saved by the Lunar New Year holiday and got one day off) and trying not to drown in my own puddle of mental struggles. Since the start of this week, which is yesterday, somehow I start to feel better-ish. Yesterday I left work at 17:30 without feeling guilty whatsoever even though most of my colleagues were still on site, some of them stayed until almost midnight (again). Enough is enough. If something happens to me because of overwork, the office will soon find someone to replace me, but I will forever regret it and my family will bear the brunt of the blow. I need to set some boundaries.
So, anyway! Enough rambling… Even though I’m late, I’m here!
Living in a tropical country, it’s clear weather with bright blue sky, or it’s cloudy, or it’s raining. There might be fog in places with higher altitude, there might be haze in metropolitan cities like Jakarta, and the rain comes in various intensity, but I suppose that’s about it?
I’ve been feeling down most of the time since we kickstart 2024, a lot of it coming from work stress, some of it coming from unmet expectations, etc. I could see myself spiralling down the mess and asked for a little timeout (one day paid leave) yet it wasn’t granted because of “situation at work”. Even knowing why, sometimes it’s still hard to control what’s inside my messy mind. I’ve been having bad, bad thoughts. I’ve been behaving quite unkind, too, in some instances. I so badly need a real break, but I feel so unsupported by people around me, and by the situation at work, at home etc to the point I keep repeatedly feeling like running away, escaping this life, restart afresh somewhere where noone knows me, where no one expects anything from me. As such, I caught myself and of course remember of my responsibilites and why I can’t just leave everything. Lately though I’ve been imagining the content of my goodbye letters. I keep falling asleep thinking of those; how to break the news, how to keep anyone from searching for me, how to keep everyone placated and let me be, how to keep in touch with only my parents to let them know I’m fine wherever it is I am…. what words should I use so they won’t feel angry or neglected… it goes on and on. In the end I never managed to complete writing any in my imagination. Perhaps just thinking about that imaginary freedom already helps me to let go some of that burden so heavy on my shoulders. I don’t know. I’m still in the very middle of this mess and trying to crawl out while still functioning as usual. Goodluck, me.
Egidio leads this week’s challenge of “Warm Colors” over here: link!
As I so frequently took photos of sunsets and sunrises, actually I challenged myself to find something else that is not sunset and sunrise. I found a few in my gallery that I like:
Days of Dreams and Whims 