Lijiang, China

This was the outskirts of Lijiang, a quaint little village in Southern China with a Unesco world heritage site designation. The younger woman was pulling the cart full of rice stalks, the older one was running behind and here am I running after them to take their picture. I couldn't keep up, I was so out of shape, I was panting so hard. This was a few years ago. Today I'm fitter than I was then. Thank God.

Jerusalem

We takes many things for granted as Americans, that our government will take care of us, take care of the security concerns and keep us safe. Keep us free from diseases like Ebola. In Israel, there are so many concerns that most of us are not even aware of. There are terrorists threats every day and at every corner. In the old city of Jerusalem especially, Jewish women and children are aware of the dangers they face everyday. Three Jewish boys were kidnapped by Hamas and murdered and that sparked a war between the Palestinians and the Jewish people. I took a visit to the underground city under the Western wall. Here is an unexposed part of the Western wall and Jewish women and children come down here to pray. Our visit took us the whole length of the wall and we emerged on the other side into the Arab quarter. While we tourists can do that, the Jewish women and children are not allowed to come out into the Arab quarter, they must walk back where they entered into the Jewish quarter for safety reasons.

My book

 5 am Sunday morning I was at a printing store making copies. I don't recommend this, the cost was too prohibitive. I'm looking for cheaper options, much cheaper options.

 Here am I using my home printer. The only thing is I have to flip the second page over and feed the same copy back into the machine to print the other side. Its a lot more work but cheaper and I found some cheap generic ink which I have yet to try. This would be a more viable option!

 I have 10 copies of this, its more like a prototype.

After months of work, I finally have the finished product. Wow, what an achievement. Now its on to other projects. Don't try this at home, its tedious unless you're really interested in books and reading but writing and publishing and doing it all by yourself is an entirely different experience. Why am I doing it? I just want to write stuff that I want to read. Here is Charleston and the Bloomsbury group condensed into 8,000 words. I need my head examined!

St Emilion, France

UPS, France is shipping wine from France to all over the world. There are even Chinese signs here replacing Japanese ones. Its now the Chinese that are buying and drinking more wine. The Chinese are even buying vineyards and wine makers. This was taken 2 years ago.

Brocante?

Not your French brocante, that's for sure. Mornings in Jaffa can be spent checking out housewares at an open market in downtown, just minutes walk away from Tel Aviv. Its right next to the waterfront, the Mediterranean sea. This is the Levant, of ancient days. Travel is so incredible.

Temple mount, Jerusalem

New research says the Jewish temples were not built on the temple mount as has been long postulated. In the Old Testament, the temple was in the city of David. The city of David is a little lower down from the temple mount where there was a spring, the pool of Siloam, where the High Priests could do their ablutions before worship. Today the city of David is being excavated. They may very well find remnants of the old temple here in the city of David. The Jewish people wants to rebuild the temple. It wouldn't be possible on the temple mount but it could be definitely possible if it was at the city of David. The search continues in the Holy land.

A love letter

 I was checking some illustrated letters on the Internet when I came across something called the Cuban letters. During the Cuban crisis, a burlesque dancer was writing some graphic letters to JFK in the White House. JFK is known for his philandering and this dancer's name was 'Blaze' and here is one of those letters. Imagine getting a letter like this!

 Before I set out to visit Charleston this last May I did this page and after looking at it for a while, I thought to myself 'would it be fun if this was like 100 pages and there are more illustrations and writing. This was what I've been doing the past few weeks and I'm almost finishing the project.

 My dining table is just inundated with all my work.

Tagong grassland, China

'Do not disturb, dreamer at work'.
Here I was 2 years ago in China, sitting on the Tagong grassland and writing. It was an amazing trip, there was nothing there, just a few Tibetans caught in a country, China, which was not theirs and practicing a form of Buddhism not found anywhere in the Buddhist world. I feel their pain for I myself have no country to call my own. Born as Chinese in Malaysia which was then under the British and today lives in the USA. Who am I?

Old Jaffa

To the south of Tel Aviv, a mostly Arab neighborhood, quiet and peaceful, no rockets, no Hamas. Just Jews and Arabs coexisting peacefully together.

Doodling

Years ago I was in Bologna, Italy at a museum and discovered this Italian artist, Antonio Basoli. I so admired his journal which I photographed. I have always thought about returning to spend more time learning more about him.

The Sinai desert

The starkness of the Sinai desert but little Bedouin families are able to eke out a living. There's usually well water, they raise their own animals. Behind this stark landscape there are canyons that are so beautiful and distinct that lots of Europeans do find their way here and these families takes tourists into these canyons.