softly…slowly

Posted on by under Texas, USA

Being with family after two years and two months separated - FANTASTIC! Jet-lag and reverse culture shock – not so much. Everything is just a tad out of focus, over exposed, soft. Mostly cause my head feels likes it’s stuffed with cotton, and I just want to sleep. All the time. But I think I’ve turned the corner. Just in time. Spring has sprung in East Texas, and I don’t want to miss a minute of this gloriousness….flowers, butterflies, blue skies, warm sunshiny air, lakes…they are all calling me, saying come out and play! I just need to find the focus button…

monkey business

Posted on by under China, Emei Shan

Monkeys? Cute and cuddly? Or evil little monsters? Well, I always thought the former. Wade is firmly in the later camp. After visiting Emei Shan, and watching how aggressive these little guys were, I was leaning more towards buhao. But then we watched a show on National Geographic a couple of weeks ago. No doubt. Wade is right. Monkeys are dangerous little beastsies. These are probably my last monkey photos. But those babies are pretty cute, huh?

butterfly dreams

Posted on by under Thailand

I dream about butterflies. Really. Last night I had lovely butterfly dreams. Then I woke up extremely early this morning and got to work on processing, identifying and sorting butterfly shots. Oh, my…I am one happy girl. I just got so many great captures this trip. I wanted to share just a couple of my favorites from the ones I finished today. The first one is my new favorite butterfly…it’s not the first species I’ve captured that shares my name, but it’s definitely the best!


The Clipper (Parthenos sylvia lilacinus)


The Lime Butterfly (Papilio demoleus malayanus)


The Great Mormon (Papilio memnon agenor) female form alcanor


The Siam Tree Nymph (Idea leaconoe siamensis)


The Golden Birdwing (Troides aeacus aeacus)

If you like these and want to see more, you might want to visit my butterfly blog. I’ll be posting all of the new species in the coming weeks.

seems like a dream…

Posted on by under Krabi, Thailand

It’s cold, dreary, rainy and gloomy…yes we are back in China. I want to be back in Krabi! Just look at those blue skies and that turquoise water. Sigh. Big sigh. Goodbye Thailand. I will miss you. So sad that vacation is over. But it was lovely, in spite of all manner of things that conspired to try and make it not so great. I left with a bad case of bronchitis, then had a series of allergic reactions (at one place we stayed, I got the whammy of every single thing I’m allergic to hitting me at once), then caught a stomach virus from colleagues. Fortunately, all my ailments cleared up right as we ended the work portion of our trip and started the vacation part. Unfortunately, that’s when Wade’s ailments hit. He threw out his back, and then injured his foot. But he was able to rest and read and relax…while working on his tan.

We both enjoyed plenty of beach time and hiking and eating Thai food and visiting markets and reading good books…exactly what a good vacation is made of for us. I didn’t read as much this year as last, but thanks to some wonderful Christmas presents from Haley and Mom, I had a very pleasurable reading time. This is what I read….all good vacation reads:

How to Be an American Housewife – Margaret Dilloway
Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
Life of Pi – Yann Martel
The Alchemist – Paulo Coelho
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night – Mark Haddon
The Name of the Wind: The Kingkiller Chronicle: Day One – Patrick Rothfuss
A Thousand Spendid Suns – Khaled Hosseini

But the best part for me: I had the best butterfly chasing ever! I’ve got a ton of photos to process, since I left my laptop at home. But I actually enjoyed only having my iTouch along. It allowed me to stay in touch while travelling light.

Well that’s an overview. I’ll be posting more in the days to come.

deja vu all over again…

Posted on by under Chengdu

Wait…I think I’ve seen this somewhere before….?

Mannequins.

Oh, yeah…I have.

And that’s how some of you are going to be feeling soon as well. I am going to do something very selfish. I’ll apologize right now. And try to explain briefly.

Last year, I lost my two self-hosted blogs because of a hosting company snafu. Previously, I had separate blogs for different purposes…one for friends and family, and one for my photography. I’ve decided to merge both of those blogs into one, and I’m about to re-post all the old posts from 2009 to 2012, from both blogs, here. That means that some of you will see things you’ve seen before. But worse, I’m fairly certain that all of you will get a humongous deluge in your reader. I’m sorry. I’ve tried to figure out a way to avoid that, but I’m afraid it is unavoidable.

I know it’s very selfish. I feel bad about that. But I’ve realized that not only do I blog for family and friends…I also blog for myself.  My blog is, in a sense, an online journal. And it also helps me to look back and see my progress as a photographer.  But I really don’t have time to maintain four blogs anymore.

So here’s the scoop: the original sojourner blog is still online with all my posts from 2005 to late 2009; sojournerphoto is no more; 2sojourners will have all of my posts from  2009 forward. And the butterfly blog stays the same…Thanks for your patience.

Also, we are leaving tomorrow for Thailand – part business, part vacation. But for the first time, I’m not taking a laptop, only my Itouch. So I won’t be posting for at least a month, and may have only limited internet time. I sure hope this is a good decision :-). See you all in a month….

detour

Posted on by under Chengdu


Yeah…that’s totally gonna work. No kids or senior citizens here! I mean, who would want to walk across this bridge, when they could go seek out some unknown detour that wouldn’t be nearly so much fun? That’s right. Nobody. But especially not kids and old people, right?

trying new things fail

Posted on by under China, Xichang

We ordered this because we thought we recognized the characters for potato. But we’re still not sure if it actually contained any potato. It was basically a humongous fried brick and extremely difficult to tackle with chopsticks. We finally stabbed away until chunks small enough to eat broke off. All that work, only to discover it was actually pretty tasteless…well, except for the cooking oil and sugar. Trying new things fail. It goes with the territory. Please tell me it’s happened to you too, that you’ve been the foriegners that have no clue how to eat this strange thing you’ve ordered through ignorance….It will make me feel better. Honestly.

Yi food feast

Posted on by under China, Xichang

Today I was supposed to be at a wedding. One of my very best friends in China is getting married. But we can’t go due to circumstances beyond our control…I’m so sad about that. She is Mongolian and he is Yi. This is the wedding in his hometown, and will be culturally Yi. Yi people food…awesome. This was one of my favorite feasts of all time. I love the Yi lacquer stuff. Just lovely. Well, lacquer was invented by the Yi, so it’s no surprise that they have such beautiful stuff. This area is also home to bitter buckwheat. Love the bitter buckwheat…bread, tea…bring it on!

But honestly, as with any good meal, the company is what truly makes it magic. And these two people are delightful. I wish we were there today with them. But we will visit them again before too long. And we had a great day today with other friends, in a totally unexpected situation. If we had gone to the wedding, we wouldn’t have been here for that, and it honestly was one of the highlights of the past two years. Funny how those things turn out. My plans, His plans….