ktravula - a travelogue! » Pictures http://www.ktravula.com reflections on the world Sun, 05 Feb 2012 10:27:36 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 Minneapolis http://www.ktravula.com/2012/01/minneapolis/#utm_source=feed&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=feed http://www.ktravula.com/2012/01/minneapolis/#comments Tue, 03 Jan 2012 01:07:01 +0000 Kola http://www.ktravula.com/?p=11910 I visited my third other mid-western state this weekend. (The first two were Kansas and Missouri.)

Minnesota is the last state on the northern border before Canada. It is bordered on the south by Iowa (where the Republican folks are now playing for nomination), on the east by Wisconsin and Illinois, and on the West by the Dakotas. Minnesota is known for its “10,000″ lakes as for its very long winter, the Metrodome, and the Mall of America (the biggest mall in the country). There seem to be a lake on every street – as you’d see from one of those pictures above.

This was a very short, family visit, so here are a few shots. As you’d see, they already have an early winter that will probably last until May. This is the first post of the year, so I wish you a happy new year.

Share

Related Posts

]]> http://www.ktravula.com/2012/01/minneapolis/feed/ 0 Touchdown, Joplin http://www.ktravula.com/2011/06/touchdown-joplin/#utm_source=feed&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=feed http://www.ktravula.com/2011/06/touchdown-joplin/#comments Tue, 21 Jun 2011 22:17:03 +0000 Kola http://www.ktravula.com/?p=10835 Pictures of some of the most heartbreaking of the sites. These are the mild ones. The worst ones featured wrecked, torpedoed cars and total levellings of several huge buildings, and homes.

The pictures were taken around Range Line Road where most of the damage took place over a large expanse of land area.

A picture may be worth a thousand words, but none of these appropriately captures just how bad it is.

Share

Related Posts

]]> http://www.ktravula.com/2011/06/touchdown-joplin/feed/ 0 Walking the City http://www.ktravula.com/2011/02/walking-the-city/#utm_source=feed&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=feed http://www.ktravula.com/2011/02/walking-the-city/#comments Sun, 20 Feb 2011 12:08:13 +0000 Kola http://www.ktravula.com/?p=10169 It is ancient, it is new. It’s cold, it’s warm. It is windy. It is dry, it is bubbly. It surprises like a carnival. It soothes like a feather. It delights. It surprises. It bores. It hugs. It repels: a beautiful half desert land of strange plants and creatures. Ruins. Concrete. Rust. Trees. Tar. Tall remnants of a history that comes back many times to relive itself. City. Town. Relic. St. Louis.

Share

Related Posts

]]> http://www.ktravula.com/2011/02/walking-the-city/feed/ 0 Human Landscapes: Ibadan http://www.ktravula.com/2011/01/human-landscapes-ibadan/#utm_source=feed&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=feed http://www.ktravula.com/2011/01/human-landscapes-ibadan/#comments Mon, 10 Jan 2011 02:24:13 +0000 Kola http://www.ktravula.com/?p=9702 Just people, friends, colleagues, mentors, places, signs, smiles and wrinkles.

“Ibadan, running splash of rust and gold flung and scattered among seven hills, like broken china in the sun” J.P. Clark.

Share

Related Posts

]]> http://www.ktravula.com/2011/01/human-landscapes-ibadan/feed/ 0 Edwardsville by Heart http://www.ktravula.com/2010/12/edwardsville-by-heart/#utm_source=feed&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=feed http://www.ktravula.com/2010/12/edwardsville-by-heart/#comments Wed, 22 Dec 2010 06:28:01 +0000 Kola http://www.ktravula.com/?p=9528 The picture that I had intended for this post remains in my head. It is a sheath of red and green Christmas flowers bound in a perfect circle and hanging by the side of the wooden bridge over the Tower lake at the entrance of Cougar Village. It has been there since winter began as a sign for the season. I don’t know who put it there but it always makes a good sight every time I drive by, and I have always been too preoccupied with driving to be able to take a perfect picture of it. And so, it remains in my head.

One more disadvantage of being able to drive is the laziness it induces. All my favourite haunts on campus once familiar to regular thread of my bicycle tyres have now become distant acquaintances. But for that battery run-out on the car a few weeks ago that forced me to walk home at night in the cold, I probably won’t even have recognized what the bike paths look like. It’s sad, I know. It is also fattening. Goodness knows how large I’m going to become by the end of this school year. We have not even mentioned the cost of gas made higher often, no less, by Nigerian agitators in the Niger Delta. It has warmed up for a while in the last few days and a bike ride is looking very likely now, if only I can muster the patience to walk again to campus in order to pick up my bike where I’d left it a few weeks ago.

But this post is not about the bike, the car or the Christmas sheath. It is the treasures of the little city. Not much a delight as it was last year through a stranger’s eyes, it is growing into an even more familiar friend. From new wineries being discovered in the most obscure corners to making friends in wine shops downtown with the hopes of getting my picture artworks displayed on their walls. If what this is is the subliminal instinct working towards replicating an already picturesque childhood, this will be more interesting than expected. All we need now is a dog. I already have many stories to tell.

Share

Related Posts

]]> http://www.ktravula.com/2010/12/edwardsville-by-heart/feed/ 0 The National World War I Museum: Pictures http://www.ktravula.com/2010/11/the-national-world-war-i-museum-pictures/#utm_source=feed&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=feed http://www.ktravula.com/2010/11/the-national-world-war-i-museum-pictures/#comments Wed, 01 Dec 2010 04:01:53 +0000 Kola http://www.ktravula.com/?p=9242 A torpedo, a view from the Liberty tower, one of the sphinxes on the property, a hall full of paintings, a real plane from the war, trench and war replicas, the Liberty Tower, the city’s skyline from 217 feet, a revolver, and the Tower again.

Share

Related Posts

]]> http://www.ktravula.com/2010/11/the-national-world-war-i-museum-pictures/feed/ 0 Random Missouri http://www.ktravula.com/2010/09/random-missouri/#utm_source=feed&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=feed http://www.ktravula.com/2010/09/random-missouri/#comments Thu, 30 Sep 2010 16:32:25 +0000 Kola http://www.ktravula.com/?p=8595 I figured that it’s been long since I last put up a photo post, so here – a few random shots mostly taken in our neighbouring state of Missouri.

Share

Related Posts

]]> http://www.ktravula.com/2010/09/random-missouri/feed/ 0 Taking Pictures of People Taking Pictures (ii) http://www.ktravula.com/2010/09/taking-pictures-of-people-taking-pictures-ii/#utm_source=feed&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=feed http://www.ktravula.com/2010/09/taking-pictures-of-people-taking-pictures-ii/#comments Fri, 17 Sep 2010 07:29:35 +0000 Kola http://www.ktravula.com/?p=8442 And some more.

Share

Related Posts

]]> http://www.ktravula.com/2010/09/taking-pictures-of-people-taking-pictures-ii/feed/ 0 Taking Pictures of People Taking Pictures (i) http://www.ktravula.com/2010/09/i-love-taking-pictures-of-people-taking-pictures-i/#utm_source=feed&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=feed http://www.ktravula.com/2010/09/i-love-taking-pictures-of-people-taking-pictures-i/#comments Thu, 16 Sep 2010 15:03:52 +0000 Kola http://www.ktravula.com/?p=8419 Pictures taken over a long period of people taking pictures of other people, or getting their pictures taken.

Share

Related Posts

]]> http://www.ktravula.com/2010/09/i-love-taking-pictures-of-people-taking-pictures-i/feed/ 0 The Text Part of Growing http://www.ktravula.com/2010/09/the-text-part-of-growing/#utm_source=feed&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=feed http://www.ktravula.com/2010/09/the-text-part-of-growing/#comments Thu, 02 Sep 2010 07:31:26 +0000 Kola http://www.ktravula.com/?p=8288 The evolution from picture books to text-only materials was gradual, but memorable. There seemed to have been an unwritten disdain for picture books that manifested after each birthday, each disposed oversized pyjamas and each replaced tooth. It wasn’t self-wrought however, but acquired, either from older peers with fancier stories of intimate relations with the written word resulting in inspiring encounters, or jealousy of even fancier ones with fantastic tales of their reading prowess. Something gave, however, for sure, little by little, and the young reader emerged, ready to take on the reading world without accompanying images.

The most memorable of such recollection could be the singular, but eventually impossible task of reading the first chapter of The Tiger by the Tail during a bus ride from home to school. It didn’t matter to him in the least that he couldn’t make any sense of it yet, never having even applied himself to more than just a few words on each page he flipped. It matter though that people saw him with a book that was bigger than a storybook, had no pictures in it, and moved from page to page as if passing through the patient and critical eyes of an avid reader. “Hey, nice book. How’re you finding it?” Someone would ask sometimes during the day, and he would respond: “Oh, very nice. Chase is such an exquisite writer”, and move on before the probing went far beyond the familiar. Oh the days.

The blog, now splattered with colours and images, flesh and blood, of ordinary and extraordinary people of various places, beliefs and convictions, could only remind of such trivialties; of days when colour meant ordinariness, and a lack of sophistication needed for the rites of adulthood. Now only a smile remains, and a longing for such a not so distant past of innocence and silliness.

Welcome September, and the year of birth.

Share

Related Posts

]]> http://www.ktravula.com/2010/09/the-text-part-of-growing/feed/ 4