Joys in Life

Christmas greetings from one of my favorite photographers in the world, Marius Vasiliu.  Thank you for sharing one of your photos being used in a Christmas card.

Marius photos are just great that he makes one of the nicest postcards from Romania.  He post some of his photos here.   Currently it is winter in their place and he is just posting so many breathtaking winter photos.

According to Wiki:

Goa, [1] a state in India‘s West region, is a former Portuguese colony with a rich history. It is 3,700 km² with a population of approximately 1.4 million. Goa has a unique mix of native and Portuguese cultures and architecture that attracts an estimated 2.5 million visitors each year (including about 400,000 foreign tourists).

Panaji, Goa’s state capital, is also known as Panjim, Ponnje or Pangim. It is one of the most charming cities in India.

Goa is a hub of tourism in India. From the 1960s, Goa has been attracting a steady flow of visitors — first the hippies and returning expat Goans, then the charter tourists(starting with the Germans in 1987), pilgrims visiting Catholic and Hindu shrines, those opting to settle in Goa as their home, people going for medical treatment, and a growing number of those who attend seminars and conferences in Goa.

Goa is visibly different from the rest of India, owing to Portuguese rule which isolated it from the rest of India for 451 years.

Sounds interesting! But no matter how interesting the place is, I only heard of it middle of 2002 when I met someone online who turned later into one of the special and unforgetable people in my life.   In the course of time, N shared with me some nice things about Goa, his home state.  The more I get excited about the place because one of my Filipina friends married a Goan whom she met while working in Bahrain.  And I conclude that D & N have one thing in common than just being from Goa — they are also Roman Catholics.  So everytime I mentioned to someone that am in love with an Indian guy, they would then raised their eyes brows and gave me that look that they are imagining some many wild things – strong kitchenic aroma as perfume and including the guy with in punjabi suits and turban.  lol!  They won’t believe me right away when I tell them that my guy wears jeans!

Anyway, it was some years back that we were planning for me to visit Goa.  In fact, that made me discover that it is now almost hassleless to fly to Goa because visas can now be issued upon arrival.  That was a good news to us.  So I tried checking out what would be the nice places to visit in Goa.  I did not mind much where to stay because it is the task of N to pick me the safest place for a tourist to stay and still have fun.  But then late last year, plans changed that I don’t like to fly to Goa anymore as I want him to fly to the Philippines instead.  I know he has been here once but I also know that he loves the Philippines.   As of the moment, we haven’t finalized the plan yet but browsing for the cheap holidays to Goa made me think twice.

Goa is one of the most visited spots in whole of India so I will surely regret if ever I won’t grab cheap deals when in the first place,N wanted me to see Goa.  I want to see Goa of course but my main goal to see is the The Taj Mahal, which will take me a day to reach the place from Mumbai by train.  The sound of travelling by train does not appeal to him so he wanted me to fly.  The thought of flying sounds practical if I will think of time but if I want to see more of India, I should take the transportation that will allow me to see even the country-side.

There are many places to see in Goa.  And if ever this trip will be materialized then I look forward to a quiet moment at the beach watching the sunset with N.  But I can remember telling him that even without him, am going to go to India and see Taj Mahal and of course Goa.

photo source: http://www.goa-holidays-and-hotels.com

My friend Mitch, had a photo taken in this place during her first visit to Goa.
I will surely come to this place in the future.

Wanna see inviting beaches of Goa?  Google it and you will find yourself wishing to take your next holiday to that far west.  If I can’t grab a cheap deal for Goa in the coming months then I will also check out other sites to find bargain holidays.

It is Monday once again and am proud to share with you the youngest person in our household.

In this photo, baby Gab is still less than a year.  This baby will turn three next month.   He is my sister’s son.

photo credit: Moi

digital scraps credit

Linked with:

This is up for grabs for FREE!

Copy this link and paste to your browser to direct you right to the page where you can grab it for free -

http://www.digiscrapbooking.ch/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=2&products_id=6946

Enjoy!

It’s been ages since the last time I grabbed digital scrapbooking stuff so am so happy to have this now. I hope I can finish it all soon as am leaving in thirty minutes.

Still camera-less as of the moment so I really don’t have many photos made by me using my Nokia C2. So photos used in the memes am in are photos on file. Today, am going to share, the scene outside the plane’s window, taken by my daughter on their flight back from Kota Kinabalo one afternoon, last December 16, 2011.

Thank God they had a good weather during their flight.

The clouds looks so fluffy and white.  It reminds me that I too enjoy cloud scenes whenever I fly. I just do wish at times that the plane window are bigger than it usually is.

The view of the Lahar river?

I am just guessing that this was one of their shots before their shots taken at the DMIA in Subic.

and at last they have landed or else they can’t take this view of DMIA terminal windows:

So these are my window shots I am sharing this week.  Photo credit goes to my daughter as she was the one who made this trip.  I let her bring my camera and of course the charger because I don’t have the lithium ion rechargeable battery so I made sure that she has the charger with an instruction that she should not charge the battery in public places.  Of course she obeyed my instruction but still the camera had an accident that caused it’s total death (can’t be used anymore) two weeks later.    So now am still saving up for another point and shoot camera.

That is my dinner tonight with my friend, Tata.  I guess she was craving much for mangoes that we spent our PE time picking Indian mangoes at the residence of my boss.  The mangoes were up high but good thing there was the long stick that allows us to pull some of those almost ripe mangoes.   They smell so good.  The nice thing about Indian mangoes is to eat it half ripe and half unripe.  They have crunchy and non-sour meat.  And because of that — Tata and I ate uparound 15 pieces of mangoes we brought back to the office.

You can check out this site to see what Indian mangoes look like.

Now I feel full and hopefully when I reached home, I can resist the dinner they have left for me.