Naseem's Blog

Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

  • Bali Night

    The skin underneath my fingernails is still stained yellow from the fresh turmeric we were peeling and chopping this past Saturday. Fresh turmeric looks much like ginger except that when you peel off the skin, you find a pleasing orangish-yellow piece of root. The hue is so exciting, a revelation. The shock of color brightens…

  • Bulbul Flashback

    Where are the red-whiskered bulbuls I saw, the red kapok flowers that so entranced? Snow falls softly outside, no creature to be seen. Only Canon memories color this wintry whiteness.

  • We are family

    We had an opportunity to have family portraits taken in Florida recently and wanted to share a couple of those photos with all of you. I’ve been somewhat negligent posting new blogs but I’ll keep adding new ones as the spirit moves me. It was much easier to focus on it during our travels last…

  • A Maine Picture Book

    The trouble with digital photography is that we inevitably take many more photos than we possibly need and then file them on a computer only to be forgotten — that’s my experience. I would not be surprised if many other people do the same thing. In any case, I was motivated to pull these photos…

  • Encountering ArtPrize

    Michigan’s second largest city, Grand Rapids, is transformed into a large indoor /outdoor gallery for 19 days in Sept-Oct, 2010 for a unique art competition that has attracted thousands. Democratic in concept — visitors can weigh in on the pieces they like best. Top prize: a cool quarter million dollars. We went on a sunny…

  • Kyoto in May

    I’ve had a hard time deciding which photos to post as there are loads of picture-postcard places in Kyoto. Gardens, temples, castles and shrines abound in this ancient city that was once the imperial capital of Japan. In fact the Kyoto area has the distinction of having 17 UNESCO World Heritage sites and 14 of…

  • Tokyo Diary

    People who live in Tokyo become very attached to this place. We noticed this in some of the western students we met there and we heard that it is equally true of the locals. The reasons are far too complex than we could figure out in a visit of few days. What we did notice…

  • Birds of a feather

    I spent part of Mother’s Day photographing birds in an aviary right in the heart of Hong Kong. You feel like you’ve just entered a tropical rainforest when you get there. The Edward Youde Aviary named after a China scholar and former governor, has over 150 species of Asian birds. A suspended bridge with viewing…

  • “Get thee to a nunnery…”

    We weren’t exactly following Hamlet’s exhortation to Ophelia, when we took our visitor Victoria Vuletich to the Nan Lian Garden/Chi Lin Nunnery in Hong Kong’s Diamond Hill area in mid April. But we all discovered how beautiful and restful this Tang dynasty style Chinese garden and monastery complex is. It’s in fact a lovely green…

Got any book recommendations?

Get In Touch