Taking a break

So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, goodbye
I leave and heave a sigh and say goodbye -- Goodbye!

Good bye temporarily, at least..I'll make a "come back" when enough material is collected to continue this site. Meanwhile, a big thanks to all of you for your support. I've enjoyed the experience immensely. Of course, I'd still drop by your sites as and when possible :)

Progress?

I bet you , you didn't know how many traffic lights are there in your city/town! well, me neither, until last night. I was told that the only place that's equiped with the lights is at the cross junction and so I counted them in my head = 8 traffic lights for the whole town!!

The news is, soon the lights might go and replaced with a round-about due to the low traffic flow; however, it is still in proposal stage. Personally, I think the move would be a step backward ...

First snow

Morning's surprises :-

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1. a weak blanket of snow which is gone by now

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2. another stencil art for my collection at flickr group :)

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Good day, it was

One item less

Yay! finally "swimming pool" has been struck off from the list of places to photograph (specifically for this blog). I think I probably won't be as interested in the activities going on around me if not for this blog. So, I do get satisfaction out of this.. then again, my "to photograph" list is getting shorter and I havent even reached 300th post yet..help! what about you? do you have a format for your DP?

Some info. regarding the pool and water polo
The first open air swimming pool was completed in 1896.
The 50 metre pool was later added by 1932.
Our teams play a significiant role in contributing to the world famous Hungarian water polo.
The women team are several timeas Hungarian champions and European and world champions.
The junior team are also 2 times Hungarian Champions.

Tracing 3 - The secrets of Vecseri Street

The title is straight from the article "I" read , it's not really secrets but rather an account of what took place 62 years ago. Vecseri Street was formerly a ghetto, the ghetto where the Jewish community was relocated. It all began......

April 28, 1944
central government issued an instruction for all counties to relocate jewish community to ghetto.
May 6, 1944
Szentes made a decision to adhere to the mentioned instruction
May 9, 1944
All Jewish families were brought to the ghetto of Vecseri Street. The community was guarded by armed guards.
Each family was entitled to only one room each where corridors, kitchens, courtyards were also classified as rooms!
Each family was allowed to bring 1 of each item :- wardrobe, bed, table, chair and some clothing.
About 398 jewish lived in the getto until Jul 16, 1944.
Jul 16, 1944
Following further intructions from the cent. government, all families were transported to detention camp at Szeged.

After the war, some did return to the town. But eventually these families left the town due to the slow economy recovery.

Source : Szentesi Élet

I got to know about the ex-ghetto from Mr. Griff Tedd, an Englishman who has resided in Szentes. He sent me some photos he took of the place . Last week, when we visited the area, the plaque (small pix) is no longer in place. Whether it has been removed or stolen, I have no idea..


PS . I tried commenting but i keep getting error messages after a few posting..ah well, later...

Early bird catches the worms

Today is the Culture day of Hungary as well as the birth of the national anthem. In line with the occasion, the theatre company organised a play at 10am, too early for us to make it :p

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We stopped by to catch a glimps nonetheless. The sign read "full house" and people already were enjoying themselves in the auditorium.

Another dog at work

Once again, I have agitated a dog at work, when I trespassed his/her territory. Believe it or not he/her is left alone to do a big job guarding these green houses. Sorry doggie, I didnt mean to upset you.

No wonder the statues seem so worried

Why? because last Thursday (Jan 11), someone thought it's funny to pull a hoax on Koszta József primary school (where the statues are), alerting the school of a bomb that didn't exist. A bomb squad was sent from city of Szeged, in vain. Geez, why would someone do such a thing? All we could think of is s/he was trying to avoid sitting for an exam at the school... ????

Me and my kaleidoscope (again!)

Although our town was not considered a high-risk area, last night's storm was still nasty. Fortunately, we were spared of any harm , with some minor clearing up to be done. On Friday 16:17pm, peeping out the living room window, the overcast weather was finally replaced with this blue sky ..and that's a good sign.

Have a safe weekend , everyone!

ps. ahem..the window and kscope need wiping as well :p

Nit-picking

We're off the centre of the town, where residential houses are concentrated. Walking along these parts, I could expect horses making "star" appearances :D also, to appreciate the individually-designed houses. You'll never find any identical design. Being me, I nit-pick :p ..well, its pretty obvious , what I dislike most about this area is the conditions of the roads, as seen here they are uneven. Some other parts not even paved! So, roads are dusty, worst when come rainy season, messy & muddy. Perhaps there're plans to fix it, I don't know ; however, I sure hope the improvement happens soon.

Panoráma Café @ 5, Kossuth Square Street

My interest for café business started after having worked part time in a restaurant and later for f&b chain. There's no denying that it is no easy task to run a food outlet. Details like ambience, menu selection , which coffee beans to use, cost control bla bla bla ; however, I would still love to be able to have my own café in the future. In the meantime, I guess sitting in a café day dreaming about it is good enough for me.

FYI - locally, hamburger bars, pizzerias, bakeries are especially popular with the customers.

Back to the future..

Szentes has a county hall, inherited from the days of being a county capital for 67 years (1883-1950) . The building, since last year, has been turned into conference centre/ballroom, museum and archive.

I have chosen to crop off another statue on the roof of the building because such design is rather common, so my composition is to try and make it looks special, at least. If you want, you can see the whole building in my earlier post here .

Inspired by Bastia DP

Lutheran church at Kossuth street

Technique inspired from this post by Bastia DP. The photographer, Terra has been kind enough to explain how to achieve the effect (kaleidoscope +35mm) . If you have a kscope, give it a try!
What you see is a cheat as my home made kaleidoscope is not giving me the result i wanted . so i've tweaked using photo manipulation software.

How about this as side-yard?

Photo taken on the outskirt of szentes , not far from here .

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The second time I chanced upon this area I was still fascinated by the enegetic gulls, found beside this farm house. There are more gulls actually and I imagine how nice it would be to wake up to this every morning . But I have second thought after reading Ruth's piece on Canadien geese :D

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what are you doing this weekend? I'll be frantically sorting and backing up my photos' folders until the cpu is surviving and on top of that , my turn to cook lunch this afternoon >.< . Having said that, I can't reply to some of your comments yet- sorry..Wish you Happy weekend everyone!

Do you tea?

How we managed to miss this cosy tea corner, I don't know?! I mean, it is located up the stairs of an organic shop that we shopped at!! Anyway, I have been craving for some good indian tea and this discovery is just in time. The leaves smell heavenly..and am happy of the selection they offer. Oh, I want all of those lovely mugs/cups so much, I'll be back :)

Back to my question, do you tea?

The news is in

The first baby of the year was born on Jan 4, a baby boy! I like his unique name, Csanád (pronounced chah-nad) . Sorry, I have no direct link to the photo of the baby. He is of course adorable. Oh, the mother shared an interesting story with the reporter..

"I had kept the gender of the baby a secret from the rest of the family. But everyone has already guessed that it would be a boy as my stomach was pointy and turns out they were spot-on!"

Happy birthday, Csanád!

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ps. Someone commented in NYDP (Ming's) that s/he feels "creepy" about taking photos of children discreetly especially without their parents. Which prompte me to ask the moral question. Perhaps I should ask for permission in the future; however, it would means no more candid shots, hmm..what do you guys think?

Not too far away...

...or so far away? Did someone from above forget to sprinkle snowflakes down this part of the world?

am following this GreenBritain project over at skynews extensively and that really set me worried with our climate. This photo was taken on winter of Dec'05 and snow lasted til Feb/Mar'06 (approx). But today we enjoyed a nice 10°c and if not mistaken I saw some spring flowers sprouting, huh???

Seeing dogs

Remember him/her? S/he was guarding building materials, of which I posted about it here . This afternoon we were at the construction site again to view the near finishing apartments, and there s/he is eating lunch, guess i disturbed her/him. Hello, again!
Indeed, today is a day of dogs, I bumped into my fave. kind of dogs

Connecting 2

My first trip coming to this town was by rail. It may not be state-of-the-art system, but it was efficient and acceptably comfortable.This year the town's rail way system celebrates 101 years of service. Sadly, at the same time, they are plans from the central office to discontinue services to some rural areas due to unprofitability. I have no further details as yet.. let's just hope the changes will not be too drastic

I do it my way

Caught this rare scene yesterday. What's special about it? ok, I must confess that I have this fascination for clothesline...erm, hope I don't sound fetish :p. Such a scene is hard to come by with almost everyone spin drying their clothes these days..The ideal place would be to fly to Barcelona and indulge in their plentiful of clothes lines..at the moment this will surfice. Do you know there's a project laundry list which showcases arts on the subject? So, I'm not weird after all ;)


TOP FIVE REASONS TO HANG OUT YOUR CLOTHES
Electric dryers use five to ten percent of residential energy.
1. Clothes last longer.
2. Clothes and sheets smell better.
3. Save energy, thus preventing pollution.
4. Save money.
5. You get some exercise and can do this activity outside.

My planned post on Jan 2nd was....

-photo from archive -

I waited for 4 days, planning to bring you the good news on the number of new borns recorded on Jan 1st. As of today, no news yet from our online portal (the portal is still on holiday!) Meanwhile , perhaps you could tell me the numbers of new born babies on the first day of 2007 in your city/town?

Mid winter day

I don't remember the grass this lush same time last year. Well, to begin today with cloudless sky and mild sun shine is pretty awesome..can't fault such weather, except it's a worrying sign of global warming ..

The first photo i snaped for 2007

Yesterday's theme day was most enjoyable for me.. With it, I got to revisit some fantastic photos by you (who took part) as well as discovering some missed ones. Thank you!
I'm sure you'll agree maintaining daily photo blog is sometimes a breeze and at times it feel like a task! Having said that, I know this year you'll continue to inspire me, to bring the best (or worst) of my town to the DP community.

DP Theme day : Best photo of 2006

When the theme for January was announced, I have no doubt which photo I'd pick. I love sponstaneity in my photos, besides playing of shadow and lights. Tecnically, this photo may not be my personal best ; what makes it "best" for me is I think I captured the spirit of the campaign ...Without further ado...

drumroll, please ...........

TA DAA!

"In town, without my car! " campaign a.k.a Int'l car free day, originally posted on Sep 22 , 06

This post is 6 hours before Jan 1. as I would be out of town this evening ..I'll surely catch your best photos Jan 2. Happy new year! remember Dont drink and drive!

See others' Best photos :-

Porto (Portugal) -Albuquerque, NM (USA) -St. Paul, (USA) Kate -Greenville,SC (USA) -Stayton, OR (USA) -Szentes (Hungary) -Hyde (UK) -London (UK) -Dubai (UAE) -Buenos Aires (Argentina) -Shanghai (China) -Nelson (New Zealand) -Twin Cities, MN (USA) -Joplin MO (USA) -Stavanger (Norway) -Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) -Not Strictly Seattle, WA (USA) -Jakarta (Indonesia) -Auckland (New Zealand) -Sharon, CT (USA) -Evry (France) -(Aust) John -Newcastle upon Tyne (England) -Paris (France) -Bandung (Indonesia) -Brussels (Belgium) -Minneapolis MN (USA) -Aliso Viejo, CA (USA) -Seattle, WA (USA) -Budapest (Hungary) -Singapore by Zannnie (Singapore) -Tenerife (Spain) -Santa Clara, CA (USA) -Houston, TX (USA) -Sydney by Nathalie (Aust) -San Diego, CA (USA) -Vancouver, BC (Canada) -Singapore by KeropokMan (Singapore) -East Lansing, MI (USA) -Sydney by Sally (Australia) -Tucson, AZ (USA) -Nottingham (UK) -Sequim, by Norma -Hong Kong -Vantaa, Finland -Kyoto (Japan) -Tokyo (Japan) -Chattanooga -Santiago (Chile) -erlin (Germany) -Trondheim (Norway) -Delta, CO (USA) -