Cage

              Sometimes I feel like an animal trapped in a cage. I should be outside roaming the streets, traveling, meeting new and exciting people, collecting stories. But I'm not doing that. I'm trading this for quiet, comfortable life and 9-7 job. 

And here I am. Meeting noone (almost), visiting the same places in my city, trying laboriously to do something with myself. To find something to fill my time. But the time should not be filled. It should be cherished and spend well if there only is a chance. We have too little time to waste it.

And the world is so big and there are so many things to do and try :)

Khajuraho, Monuments

                  Far away from New Delhi (it took me all night to get there) lies a very old town called Khajuraho. It's not a big place and not very populated by indian standards, but it was introduced to the world in the 19th century by General Alexander Cunningham. After visiting the place he described Khajuraho to the public as a very beautiful place. Especially the temples, which are now one of the most popular destination for tourist in India and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The temples are divided into three groups: western, eastern and southern. You can visit them all but the simplest to see are the Western temples. They have an audio tour, which is excellent and can provide many interesting information as well as explanation to the beautiful temples and carvings you will see. The whole complex is now set in a park like fashion. It's not the original design but an idea that admiring the temples is much easier and more enjoyable when surrounded by grass, trees and flowers. They also provide some escape from the sweltering heat.

The temples became very popular mainly because of their sexual carvings. Some of them are very explicit showing sex with animals, various sexual positions (some very acrobatic :), masturbation etc. Noone can definately explain why such carvings appear in a place of worship, however, there are many other sculptures showing regular life like: work in the fields, festivals, home life. Because sex is such an important part of our existance, why not include it here as well.

It takes a while to see the temples, especially if you want to see every detail. And it's so worth seeing all the details you can manage. The temples are beautiful, the scenes depicted so perfectly crafted, the grandeur undeniable. It's a wonderful place to loose yourself, far away from big crowds (yes, you can manage that), and transport yourself to the medieval times.

The Western group of temples

The temples seen from a nearby Japanese restaurant

The Lakshmana temple from far away

The Lakshmana temple

The carvings

The carvings

The carvings

The carvings

Enjoy the silence

           Well, it seems that I cannot enjoy the silence. I wish I could. But everytime I try to sit in silence I have all those bad thoughts, or strange thoughts or the unpleasent ones. The silence oppress me. And I dread it.

That is why I listen to audiobooks. I need constant background voice, even if I am not doing justice to the book. I just need it.

I listen to someting while commuting to work, while cleaning, bathing and even when I'm falling asleep. I cannot stop.

But how can you figure anything out when you are constantly surrounded by noise?

Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves

         When I was about 8 my older sister took me to the cinema. It might not have been the first time but I cannot recall earlier visits. We went to see "Robin Hood: Prince of thieves". I remember seeing the big screen, rows of seats and quite a big number of people. The cinema was cold. I remember the lights going out and first sounds coming from the loudspeakers (that was an old cinema, so there were only two). I can still remember the song which was played at the beggining. My sister was reading the subtitles to me very quietly, because I couldn't read them fast enough ;)

And then something happened to me, I don't know exactly how and why, but it was such a wonderful feeling. To be in that place, to watch the actors (I didn't even know who actors were at that time) fighting, riding horses, dancing. To like some characters and to hate the others. Later I went to the cinema again to see the movie one more time.

And from that first visit, I cought the "movie bug". I still love the darkness when the lights go out, the first notes of music, the anticipation, the new and wonderful world in front of me.

Here I would like to share my love for movies (and not only). To write about some of my favorite ones.

And my favorite villain - Sheriff of Nottingham

Leneliness part 2

              I thought about it sometimes in my BEFORE life. But only sometimes and mostly because of the first reason maybe or second the most. Never more than that. 

But since my BEFORE life was over I had to think about it all the time. Because there was nothing more for me to think about. Except that loneliness and emptiness in my life. Even now, so long after the old me died and the new one appeared it’s beyond my belief how a person can change so much in so little time. I never believed in changes. Of course there is a possibility to work on your flows if you want to badly. What are new year’s resolutions for and Mondays right? Monday is always a good day to start over. No one wants to do it in the middle of a week right. But anyway, I never believed that a person can change much. You can start new habits, new routines, stop smoking, swearing or eating too much if you wish but a permanent and deep change was in my view impossible. All the movies I saw with sudden change of heart were all stupid and not true to me.

And, hahahaha, as it often does happen to people like me, we get a life lesson which makes you reconsider a lot of stuff, you would take for granted in your life. In my case some of them were so drastic that I even had to get friendly with myself again, as a very, very new and different person.

Dolores Claiborne

               Stephen King is a writer, who we don't have to introduce to anyone. I read some of his books (not all of them yet, but working on it) and my favorite one is Dolores Claiborne. 

               The book (written in first person) tells a story of Dolores Claiborne, who is being interrogated by the police in connection to the death of her rich employeer Vera Donovan. She tells the story of her life, her marriage to a violent man, her relationship with her daughter and her snob employeer (who turned out to be her best and only friend in the end). The narration feels like a transcription of the confession tape. We have no dialogies with the police officers but we know that they are there. We read the whole book transfixed by the narrator and her story. And there is also a twist at the end :)

              The movie with the same title was a great picture with beautiful performances from Kathy Bates and Jennifer Jason Leigh. One of the not very many cases when the movie and the book are both great.

                 P.S. and the audiobook was awesome with a perfect reader: Frances Sternhagen.  

Movie poster

Umeda Sky Building (梅田スカイビル), Osaka

               As I mentioned in one of the previous posts, Osaka is the city of bridges and water. However, one of the most recognizable views in Osaka is the Umeda Sky Building situated next to the Umeda train station, Kita-ku ward.

The building is simply spectacular. Umeda Sky Building actually consist of two 40story towers (173 m tall), which are connected near the top with a bridge and escalators. At the roof top there is The Floating Garden Observatory (but no clowers there) from which you can see the magnificant city. The walls are made of glass, so when you shoot upwards in an elevator and later in the escalator you can see everything. It's quite an experiance :). The building was erected in 1993 according to the project by Hiroshi Hara and built by the biggest construction (but also engineering and architecture) company in Japan - Takenaka Corporation. Hara is, among others, also responsible for designing the Kyōto Station. A very interesting and not at all train-station-like building.

View from the Umeda Sky Building is breathtaking. If the wether is nice you can see all the way pass the river. When I visited the sight it was raining and the wind was quite strong. However, I enjoyed it very, very much anyway.

Umeda Sky Building

Umeda Sky Building

The escalator

View from the top

JR tracks

View from the top

View from the top

Hankyu Department Store

Lovers deck