took yet another skip across the pond

to a place where happy children pose it up for anyone with a camera and a smile

actually all people young and old enjoy sharing a picture moment - in this case sitting on a life-size casting of a water buffalo

kids carrying a couple of very young and frightened kittens

in this part of the world heavily modified jeeps from the last world war still take paying passengers to their desired destinations

hmmmmmm beeeeerrrrr

bless my stars - justin bieber is playing an upcoming concert here at the fourth largest mall in the world

a row of houses next to the central marketplace close to the middle of town

a statue of santo tomas at the entrance to his namesake university

i really do enjoy sitting outside in a tropical setting and having a cold one or two

blue skies

tough gangsta rooster

a family of chicken rummaging through a refuse bin at a popular park

took a hop across the pond

a beagle waiting patiently for the cook to drop something - anything - on the ground

not really sure what this is - my best guess is that it's an outline of a recent and rather gruesome accident

woman stoking a fire in a back alley

no such thing as too much hot sauce in this part of the world

the rice porridge must be quite amazing here - otherwise i'd expect to see more tables

display case at a roadside purveyor of sunglasses

hey - nice car

a cold and rainy day

the sun had just come out and the frozen grass was starting to thaw as i started driving to work - noticed a pretty rainbow

it followed me as i drove

it was right there next to me through every twist of the road and up and down

and down the hill

through town and

all the way to the place of my work - when i arrived, i ran inside and locked the doors.....

must be a coincidence

but there seems to be a large number of pictures of bars in my photo archives - here are a few of many ....


this one from a small and cosy hole in the wall by the east bay


or this one from a restaurant bar just a few minutes north from here


a bar at a central coast beach that opens early in the day


a french restaurant bar has a towering wine cellar behind the central bar


bowls of fruit getting together to toss back a few cold ones and cocktails

red tile provides a practical backdrop to a well decorated bar

everyone likes a well stocked tequila bar - this one in a mexican beach resort

not too far from here

a busy bus depot in the middle of town looks like a scene from the past


statues of body parts form an unappealing facade of a hipster restaurant in the town of las vegas


stumbled upon a small concert by the madly popular "Robyn" at a nearby discount music store

land meets sea - on a cold grey and cloudy day

an empty parking lot on a saturday surrounding a small church on a hilltop by the coast

New York for the open

took a trip to new york to check out the us open - got to watch rafa play under the open skies with planes flying in and out of JFK

the lights of arthur ashe stadium in the early evening - the atmosphere is quite unlike other sporting events - i must say that the open is quite an experience

a view of the empire state building from the top of rockefeller plaza looking downtown

grand central station and its grand concourse has not changed one bit since i was last here

graffiti is taken to a new level - seen here, buildings in an industrial section of brooklyn along side the metro tracks

a collage of photographs of faces of those who lost their lives in the sept 11 tragedy

so sad

a casually dressed commuter returning to staten island from manhattan on the free ferry service

a port-side view of the statue of liberty from the ferry

the southern tip of manhattan

perhaps one of the best pizza's i've had in a long time - courtesy of john's of bleecker street

shopping is an experience here too - here models pose outside a hollister store - perhaps selling an attitude more than a style

a restaurant that serves cold cuts and wine in the upper west side

somewhere in the upper edges of harlem, the local and state elections is heating up - candidates working hard to reach out to voters and future constituents

new york seems to still have a healthy number of family-run businesses passed down through the generations - here a neighborhood store sells pickled fish in the lower east side

fine dining in midtown

there are pockets of serenity in the concrete jungle - jackie o reservoir in central park

another southern view from the top of the rock

a wide-angle view of time square on a hot summer night