Thursday 31 May 2012

TV review: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries

I only realised yesterday that I had missed out on a major reviewing opportunity. For the last 13 weeks I have been obsessed with a TV show and I haven’t mentioned it to anyone! I haven’t even tweeted about it. For 13 weeks Friday nights were about me, a glass of wine, the couch and Miss Phryne Fisher.


The Miss Fisher Murder Mysteries (formerly of ABC1 Fridays at 8:30pm) are set in late 1920s Melbourne. Based accurately on the novels of the same name by Kerry Greenwood, it follows the adventures of lady-detective Phyrne Fisher as she moves effortlessly between Melbourne’s high society and criminal underbelly. Assisting (or hampering) Detective Inspector Jack Robinson in his investigations, Phryne collects along the way a band of waifs and strays including a companion with a lot to learn about life, an impeccable butler, a daughter and a couple of proper Aussie blokes with their hearts in the right place.

I read the first novel in the series – and the TV series – many years ago. I enjoyed it and I considered buying other Phryne Fisher mysteries but I’m not much of a mystery reader. I’m not even much of a mystery watcher. I’m so fussy and particular about my murder mysteries; I only like historical TV series like Miss Fisher and all of the Miss Marples, set pre-1960s. It might have something to do with the PG violence and the clothes. 

There is so much to love about Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries. On a purely practical level, it’s well-researched and shot immaculately in and around period Melbourne. Essie Davis as personifies Phryne Fisher and she is supported by a wonderfully Australian cast who are surely enjoying every minute of the production. It’s also delightful to get involved in an Australian TV series. I don’t watch as many as I should. I still regret that I never got into Offspring, I think I would have loved it. 

Back to Miss Fisher. For pure entertainment, it’s a brilliant show. The first word that springs to mind to describe it is Fun. The costumes, sets, characters, writing, all of it is terrific fun. Phryne Fisher is a modern heroine in a modernising time. I would argue, an excellent role model for young women. Having had her fair share of worldly experiences, she’s not going to be stuck in any dull female stereotypes. She’s independent, feisty and not about to be bossed around by anyone. She also has immense style, from her immaculate coiffeur to her crisp white trousers and her pearl-handled gun. I have a little bit of character-envy, if I’m honest.


Sadly, Miss Fisher has ended. There is talk of a second season but I can find no firm information on that. The show was re-played on ABS2 and may still be if you wanted to do some catching up. Otherwise, the DVD of the series is on sale at the ABC shop

This is a great Australian series based on novels by a local writer. It is an absolute delight to watch and I would recommend it to anyone.


All images courtesy of the ABC and Kerry Greenwood.







Wednesday 30 May 2012

Apparently it's edible...?

This is one of the weirdest things I've ever seen...

Mid-week silliness: the birthday scenario game

It’s so simple – match up your birth months and day to see what your ‘scenario’ would be. I feel like February kind of lucks out with the action ‘married to’. August has ‘sword fight with’! So much more scope for the imagination. 
 

 

So for my birthday – 11 February – I would be married to Pacman. That’s terrifying! He’s hungry ALL THE TIME! I’d be making pies constantly. Plus, that would make me Mrs Pacman! Though I suppose that might be the one saving grace – I get to be a video game character.

I also don't imagine Pacman as a great conversationalist. I think it really stops at 'nom nom nom'.

It could be worse. I could have ended up married to Voldemort, Sarah Palin or *shudder* Justin Bieber.  I think the only people on that list that I would want to be married to are Harry Potter and my best friend.

What's your scenario?

Tuesday 29 May 2012

Sadly this image does not belong to me...


Monday 28 May 2012

Monday infographic: How common is your birthday?

Haven't you ever noticed how birthdays seem to come in a rush?

Well, some clever people got together and analysed birth data between 1973 and 1999 and came up with this great chart showing the commonness of certain birth dates.



The data is for North America so some of the stats would be a little different for us but I still think it's pretty interesting. For example, September births in Australia don't signal all the winter / christmas snuggling people get up to in December. However it seems to me that I know an awful lot of September babies, so maybe we do still enjoy a bit of extra holiday 'cheer' even in the heat.

Not surprisingly, 29 February was the least common date. Valentine's day sticks out like a sore thumb as the most popular day in February as does 30 December. Looks to me like April and November babies might be the rarest. And first of October? That's all those people getting frisky at New Years ...

Saturday 26 May 2012

Happy blog-i-versary to us!

On 22 April, Jane and I shared a momentous occasion and we didn’t even notice it. It was our one-year blogiversary. We have been doing this random, who knows what the hell we’re on about blog for over a year now. This is a Big Deal! And we didn’t even know! 

To be honest, that’s kind of indicative of our lackadaisical attitude to this blog in general but we are getting better at it. In the 8 months we were blogging last year we posted 115 times. Now, in the first 5 months of 2012 we’re up to 108 posts and counting. So we may not be up to a-post-a-day level but we’re getting there!
The original purpose of this blog was to force us to read all the books on our bookshelves and then review them as proof that we have done so. Looking at my original list:
One of our Thursdays is Missing – Jasper Fforde
The Alchemaster’s Apprentice – Walter Moers
In Defence of Sin – edited by John Portman
The Heart has its Reasons – the Duchess of Windsor
The Diviners – Rick Moody
Sophie’s World - Jostein Gaarder
The Flaneur – Edmund White
The Subterraneans and Pie – Jack Kerouac
The Group – Mary McCarthy
The Book of Revelation – Rupert Thompson
Soul Mountain – Gao Xinjian
Guns, Germs and Steel – Jared Diamond
Twelve Bar Blues – Patrick Neate
Frankenstein – Mary Shelley
Dangerous Liaisons – Pierre Choderlos De Laclos
The Inheritance of Loss – Kiran Desai
The Red and the Black - Stendhal
Turkestan Solo - Ella Maillart
Man of My Dreams – Curtis Sittenfeld
Harry Potter und die Heiligtumer des Todes – J.K. Rowling

I have read 6 of those and started but not finished 7. I’m thinking that this is a sign and I should just admit defeat and get myself some new books to not read. I might hold a book-swap party and cleanse myself of all the randomness on my shelves, thus completing my challenge in our cheating master-stroke.
We don’t have many followers, though I have been told that people do look at our blog, even if it is just to read the moustache puns. If you are a regular looker but not follower, please consider ‘following’. It will give us a warm glow inside and we might gift you a book to say thank you! 
I have been debating whether or not to continue with this blog. It takes a lot of time and does distract me from writing that best-selling novel I keep putting off. I've been saying to myself that I would wait until we'd done it for a year and then re-evaluate. Well, a year passed without my noticing and here I am, still prattling on.  I suppose I'll keep going. For now, at least.

Friday 25 May 2012

Five for Friday no.20

Household tips from great writers. Use Jane Austen's recipe for eggs with tarragon or Proust's tiramisu.

Dresses made out of beautiful city maps.




 A list of top 10 Shakespeare characters. You'll be surprised who is listed. 

Cakes inspired by Spring Runway looks. I would eat the hell out of Louis Vuitton.

Thursday 24 May 2012

Truth or Dare Mountain


I spotted this on a cool friends’ twitter feed and I think it is such a fun idea. Truth or Dare Mountain.

Three girls in London are trying to raise money as part of their participation in the Three Peaks Challenge  for Global Grassroots: conscious social change for women. But they’re going about it in an off-centre way. You the punter / giver dare one of them to do an act – strictly PG of course – or tell a truth. They will do perform the dare, tell the truth and film or photograph it and publish it online. In return, you have promised to donate a certain amount of money to Global Grassroots.
It’s so simple and fun! If I was any better at truth or dare I would participate but I can never think of any suggestions for that game. I’m equally bad at ‘I Never’ but I’m pretty sure you can’t play that game for charity. 
Some of the dares to far are skipping the length of a public space, cracking a raw egg over your head and bathing in a bath of cornflakes. Ew.

The much anticipated Gatsby

The much talked-about, much-anticipated, much-discussed The Great Gatsby has almost arrived.

The official trailer has just been released and from the look of it, this movie has all the elements that make a Baz Luhrmann movie great. Doomed love affair, out of this world sets and costumes, an escape into a seductive fantasy world we all want to be in; right up until the moment the protagonists, blinded by the glitter and the glamour, fall into self-destruction.




I read on twitter (which went crazy) that the trailer was giving one women Romeo and Juliet excitement flashbacks. Watching the trailer for the first time at home I understood. Baz Luhrmann's Romeo and Juliet was a major movie from my childhood. Not because we studied the play in English - that was long after the movie had been and gone. It was one of those movies every person my age saw and loved. It created iconic scenes and major stars. It made Shakespeare sexy and wild and dangerous. I own the DVD and I still love the film. Claire Danes and Leonardo di Caprio look so young now but they were of an age that I in my high school years could relate to. Not to mention that scene when you first meet Romeo and he's silhouetted against the sunset, smoking and brooding like an underweight James Dean. Even the soundtrack we all had to have with its mix of grunge, soul and disco.

Like Romeo and Juliet, Baz Luhrmann's Great Gatsby has hedonism, passion not to mention thrilling music and I cannot wait to see it. 

Wednesday 23 May 2012

Fashion chain news to get excited about. If you’re into that sort of thing.

After Borders closed down there was much rumour about what would fill this prime CBD retail space. There aren’t too many space of this size in such a key location. Surely it would get filled by some major brand? I remember hearing ‘Apple’ ‘Zara’ and ‘H&M’ being bandied about. That was July / August last  year. The space is still empty but if you’re looking to attract a million-dollar investor, you can’t rush these things.

I don’t have news on who is moving in as yet. However, according to a much-repeated report in the Courier Mail the other day Zara, Gap and Top Shop are all looking for space in Brisbane.  Of these I think I’m most excited about Zara. I’m so hit-and-miss with their clothes but when I find something I like I tend to love it. I have a small collection of pieces bought in sales when I was living in London in 2008, including a pair of stiletto windsors that are incredibly painful to wear but I can’t throw out because I love them so much! If I wait long enough, surely they will stretch or my feet will shrink? 

 Kind of love this 'fish dress' ... 

Top Shop I’m less excited about. I get why so many people love them and I adore many of their designer capsule collections. However, every time I walked into a Top Shop store overseas with the intent to spend I would invariably leave half an hour later with nothing but a feeling of having caught a glimpse of excessive consumerism and not liking what I saw.

Mary Katrantzou for Top Shop. I was so excited by this and did manage to log on early enough to buy online. But the prices were just too much for me at the time. Might regret that decision. 
 
Gap – I have never walked into a Gap store because it all looked so neutral. Now that I’m a little older and dressing in navy and white as standard weekend fare, I’m thinking that I might become a convert. 

UniQlo has also announced that they're coming to Australia, but I'm yet to make up an opinion on them. Apparently, they are amazing for basics.

Of course, I’m still secretly hanging out for H&M but I might be waiting a few more years.
Do any of these Brisbane arrivals excite you? Where will you be shopping when they finally arrive?

Tuesday 22 May 2012

1796 Foods


A blog review of another blog. Otherwise known as ‘Damn I wish I’d thought of that’.

Dear Jane put me on to this blog and I have a total love / hate relationship with it. It’s a really good blog that is good to read and has great pics and most importantly, a brilliant concept. I hate it because I did not think of that concept first. 
 
1796 Foods is one women’s journey through two different version of the same book; “1001 Foods To Eat Before You Die” Her aim is to eat every food or meal that is mentioned in the books. The reason there are 1796 of them and not 2002 is the deletion of duplicates. 
 
Banoffee Pie. Photo courtesy of 1796 Foods.

The photos are fun, the meals are usually interesting and reading through it makes you want to go out and have food adventures! Some of the foods are so simple – walnut oil, Waldorf salad, lemon meringue pie. Others are a little less known, such as this one:



 
"701. Porkolt Csirke
Porkolt csirke is basically what I’ve known as chicken paprikash - a Hungarian stew with chicken, peppers, tomatoes and paprika topped off with soured cream. It’s full of some of my favourite ingredients so I knew I was going to really enjoy it."
 - 1796 Foods

 Goats Butter. Photo courtesy of 1796 Foods.


Seriously, why did I not think of this? Now I'm going to go out and find goats butter.

Monday 21 May 2012

Monday infographic: How a book is born

Today's infographic comes courtesy of the Huffington Post and is titled: How a book is born. Anyone written a book and can confirm the process for me? 

 

Image courtesy of Mariah Bear via Huffington Post.

Friday 18 May 2012

Five for Friday no. 19

I don't care if you think it's wierd but I always love the annual Forbes Fiction Rich List. So much more interesting than the 'real' one.


Winner for 2012 thanks to soaring gold prices: Smaug.

Naughty tea cups. 

Chanel Resort Collection 2012. Pastel and pretty but for me it looks like the sort of thing Kirsten Dunst's Marie Antoinette might wear. On a related note - did you know that Wednesday saw the sudden departure of long-time Vogue Australia editor Kirstie Clements?


A guide to Brisbane's best markets.


Vintage dress tumblr.

Thursday 17 May 2012

To cheer up your Thursday morning ...

The Muppets' Prairie Dog Glee Club sings Blue Skies by Irving Berlin. Stick around for Waldorf and Statler at the end.



Because it is somehow still only Thursday. 

Tuesday 15 May 2012

I don't know if anyone else is a fan of JJ Abrams (Fringe, Lost, Alias, Super 8), Jon Favreau (Iron Man 1 & 2Cowboys & AliensSwingers) and Eric Kripke (Supernatural), but they're all making a new TV show together, and it looks pretty freakin' interesting...


Monday 14 May 2012

A creative long weekend in Brisbane


Thursday

Thursday night I was taken to the premiere of A Hoax at La Boite. Now, shamefully I must admit that prior to entering the theatre I had No Idea what the play was about. Fortunately there was a wonderful little program that told you it was inspired by cases of great 20thC literary hoaxes while giving away absolutely nothing of the plot.

The first act - I have never heard so much swearing on stage - was shockingly funny. The second act was confronting and the four actors excelled at every moment and we the audience of loving if slightly jaded Brisbane Arts Types lapped it up. Not so much about literary hoaxes as identity, the nature of truth, media and the lies we tell ourselves and each other, it’s a great work by Australian award-winner writer Rick Viede. Brisbane is the world premiere location.

Some shows this week have had to be cancelled. The lead actress is flying to Cannes because her film debut ‘Sapphire’ has been selected for the Cannes International Film Festival (congratulations!) so I don’t know if the run has therefore been extended.  If you get the opportunity, I’d recommend seeing it.

Image courtesy of La Boite.

Friday

Friday night saw me walking around Highgate Hill looking for the location an impromptu show venue. Anywhere Theatre Festival sees theatre work by starting-up writers, actors and directors being performed anywhere except a conventional stage. Last year I saw The Taming of the Shrew at The Zoo; there are shows in parks, in the Queen Street Mall and tonight I was looking for the ordinary suburban house hosting the show. 

A House of Cards has, sadly, finished its' run. It was performed underneath a house with the audience on couches, mattresses and bean bags. I’d got there early because Chuck was official photographer and got a front and centre comfy-couch position. The show was short and sweet, the work of writer / director / lead actor Michala and inspired by a Radiohead song.

Anywhere Theatre Festival is running until the 19th of May and is an annual event in Brisbane. There are usually half a dozen shows on every night so there is sure to be something you want to see and the tickets tend to range from free-of-charge to about $15, so don’t say you can’t afford it.  It’s a great way for you to have a night out and support your local just-getting-started theatre scene.



Saturday

Saturday was hastily organised on Thursday when I discovered that Polytoxic Loves You were putting on their new show The Rat Trap.

The brother-troupe for Polytoxic Loves You are ‘Briefs; all male, all vaudeville, all trash.’. I’ve been to see them twice now in Brisbane and its a show that I will happily see every time they come around because they’re juts so godsdamn entertaining. I knew Polytoxic Loves you - which is half the guys from Briefs with a couple of cool women thrown in - would be excellent so I persuaded a bunch of friends to coming along with me, telling them it was 'circus cabaret' and there we were on Saturday night.

This is the blurb for the show; 

Polytoxic invites you to The Rat Trap, a technicolour tiki bar where the doors are locked but the drinks are flowing. Curfew is lifted and the guest list includes the high flying King of Burlesque, a body adorned Samoan chief, a hot brown bitch, a fabulous femme fatale and a seven-foot Islander drag offender. Come witness the unholy union of these five mongrel cross-breeds as a soap-opera saga of epic proportions unfolds.

I can't do any better than that description. Fun, fabulous, circus cabaret, striptease and shameless overacting as the 5 performers ran amok in the closed studio. I can’t say anymore except we all had a wonderful night out and I now have another group of fiends who insist on being invited the next time either Briefs or Polytoxic Loves You are performing.

Photo courtesy of PolyToxic Loves You.

The Rat Trap is running at The Billie Brown Studio until 26 May. If you’re 30 and under tickets are only $30 and it’s a night out of genuine entertainment. Hell, it’s worth it just to see the crowned King of Burlesque do his stuff. Want to know what the hell that means? Go see the show!

Mark Winmill performing as part of Briefs.

Sunday
Sunday night was one of my first gigs of the year (shamefully slack). Frank Turner, William Elliott Whitmore and The Smith Street Band at The Zoo. I was going primarily for Frank Turner but Chuck got me onto the other acts in the lead up to last night’s show and I’d had Sigourney Weaver by The Smith Street Band in my head for a week!
I can’t write a gig review. I’m hoping Chuck will do that for me. It was a brilliant line up of local and international, the crowd was for the most part really into every set and the guys were all clearly having a brilliant time on the last night of their Australian Tour.
Frank Turner is such an enjoyable live musician. The fans at the front of the stage – of which I was one – single along to every word and he really plays for the crowd, putting on a fun show like he’s just really enjoying our company.  So we sang and yelled and I danced like a fool and bought CDs. Check out Frank Turner on his website or on YouTube.

Monday infographic: top 10 most read books in the world


Today’s info graphic is of the top 10 books of the last 50 years, by the number purchased. No 1 is obvious, no.2 is obvious when you think about it. The others, one or two surprises for me but I’m not up with the publishing world.
 
 Designed by Jared Fanning and found on Visual News

I’ve read 5 of the 10 – Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, The Alchemist , The Da Vinci Code and The Diary of Anne Frank.

Friday 11 May 2012

Five for Friday no.18

As we all know the Federal Budget was released on Wednesday. This interactive budget shows you how it has been divided up. And a great little article by Annabel Crabb on how the surplus was achieved.

The Scale of the Universe. Everyone will enjoy this one, it is a bit mind-blowing.

Animal photographers. Very beautiful.


By Sharon Montrose.

Yeah, chickens can be arty too. Photographs by Tamara Staples. 

Tumblr from an LA based magazine editor, full of hilarious gifs.

Zen Pencils : Cartoon quotes from inspirational folks. I rather like this one by Audrey Hepburn:

 And I need to remember this one from time to time.

Wednesday 9 May 2012

Diary of a travel-a-holic

We've had quite the run of long weekends recently, sadly now come to an end...sniff sniff. Anyway, one of the many benefits of this run of extra relax time is that I have been able to finally finish off my Vietnam holiday diaries. This is a personal project I was definitely going to finish by the end of 2011, then definitely by Easter. So 2 weeks after Easter isn't that bad.

I'm a bit of a diarist. I try to keep one – a proper, written, what I did and how I felt diary – every day but it is a lot more work than you might think. On holidays though, I'm much better at it. There is that gap in time pretty much every day when you've got back to your apartment / room after a long day out and you're having a rest before heading out again for food or drink of whatever it is you're getting up to, that is just perfect for writing about the day. So much happens on the typical holiday day and I find that you forget almost all of it within a few months. If you have a diary though, written on the day to record all those conversations and sights and meals and anecdotes, you have a physical memory repository you can pull off the shelf at any time and remind yourself of an amazing day.



This is actually a habit I picked up from my Dad who keeps an amazing record of every holiday he takes, and one of my favourite things to do used to be to pick a family diary off the shelves and read al about what we did when I was 5 in Spain or the Christmas in Germany when I was 12. It helps me to recall even the vaguest of memories.


So, I finally finished my Vietnam diary. Held up by the fact that 2 days into our three week trip my little iPaq died and I had to take notes or hand-write the whole thing, then translate to computer doc etc. I printed all my photos, I bought a couple of scrap books and voila! Here is the final result:

The two finished diaries. Not for public consumption.

I would be fibbing if I didn't say I wasn't a little proud of myself. It costs a lot of time and a bit of money to make even just these two (big) books. But then in 20 years time they will still be sitting on my bookshelves, where ever I happen to be, and I can pull them down and flick through them and remember our walk through the valley near Sa Pa and the amazing street food in Ha Noi as if it was yesterday. That makes it worth every moment and every cent.

12 diaries and a lot of memories.

Does anyone else keep a diary? Even just for holidays?



Tuesday 8 May 2012

Hue: Part 2


On our second full day in Hue, we took an amazing boat trip, organised by our hotel. It was private, just the two of us, on a fantastic tourist long boat - bright aqua, with red and yellow dragon detailing. The boatman and his wife lived on board, so while we the front part, which had open windows on three sides and an open deck just behind the prow, we could see in the back to their tiny kitchen and living space.

We set off quite early, onto the Perfume River. First, though, we crossed to the Citadel-side bank, so the owner's wife - who I'll call Nana from here, because she never told us her name even though she clearly thought I was awesome and wanted to adopt me - could go into the market and get supplies for lunch. (To do this, we crossed towards the bank, met a long, low boat, she boarded that boat which took her to the bank, and we did a long, slow u-turn and a few circles, and picked her up when she came back.)

We headed upriver. It was great to be out of the city for a while, and there's nothing like a boat trip to make you feel like you're doing something when really you're just relaxing. The Perfume River and surrounds are really beautiful - the riverside land is full of grasslands, bamboo, farmlands and reeds, and then there's hills and blue mountains in the distance. We lucked into some amazing weather, as well - clear and fresh.

The point of the trip was to visit four historical sites upriver from Hue - a far more interesting trip than it sounds, even just to compare and contrast the different styles of mausoleum and temple. Lunch was included, and also, we got to go on a boat trip. Total price? $20 each. Only in Vietnam.

The extensive grounds of the first temple site.
We were headed to the furtherest mausoleaum first, so Nana whipped out the tourist prints and souvenirs. We looked through everything to pass the time, and I did buy an awesome little wooden carving of a man-turtle thing. (I still can't work out who he is - my Google-fu is still failing me.) Then we arrived at the furthurest mausoleum, and we got to spend an hour or so walking through the grounds and looking at the temples. The grounds of these places are huge - this one had a man-made lake, weeping willows everywhere, three temple buildings, and very ornately carved stone. The overall impression is quite European, actually, mixed in with the expected Chinese and Vietnamese elements.


The second temple site.
The second site was incredibly different - a small temple, built hugging a mountain, perched up above the river. It had spectacular views, but the temple itself was comparatively modest. We were back on the boat after about 20 minutes, headed to the third site.

To get to the third temple, we had to get off the boat, then Nana had to hire to motos to get there! We perched precariously on the back of the bikes, and got a ride through the countryside, to perhaps the most ornate temple yet - this one had a lake as well, and had been built in two sections, one for the emperor and his family to live in while he was alive, and one for him to be entombed in after death. I can't quite imagine living next door to your grave, can you? The complex included a pavillion over the lake, where the Emperor apparently used to sit and compose poetry. I quite liked this complex, not for the pavillion but because of the way some of the buildings were unrestored, unpainted or painted in dark colours - I liked the contrast between the dark interiors and the hot, bright sun outside.

Lunch!
Back on the motos, and back to the boat! While we were gone, Nana had made us an amazing lunch - she somehow produced about six delicious dishes in her tiny, tiny kitchen, and she insisted we finish all of it! She re-filled our bowls a few times, and she was very happy we ate so much (we couldn't exactly say no!).

The fourth and final site was actually a monastery, also set above the river but on a much larger site. And it was actually a working monastery, with monks and everything (it seemed rude to take pictures of them...). It was a very beautiful and different complex, with a front courtyard full of huge trees and turtle steles, with a beautifully painted entry gate and a great view. Once inside, the grounds were also lovely, with treed areas along the length of the complex and open courtyards in the centre. The temples were very clearly being used for worship, so it didn't seem polite to take pictures of them, really, or go inside without the intent to pray, but walking around was interesting enough.

In one of the side buildings was a very famous car - the Austin sedan that carried Thich Quang Duc to Saigon, before he burned himself alive in 1963 to protest the persecution of Bhuddists by the (Catholic) South Vietnamese government.

Once done, we headed back down to the boat. On the ride back into Hue, Nana came to chat with us. She had 7 children, including a daughter about our age, and she was interested in the photos I'd taken. (61 years old, and you should have seen her on this boat! She was bendier than I've ever been in my entire life...) The couple were, overall, some of the nicest locals we met, and we both agreed it was one of the best things we did the whole trip.

The lake and pavillion at the third temple site.

Shady interiors at the third temple site.
Close-up of a tortoise - he's carrying a huge stele. (This was at the monastery.)

Not sure who this colourful guy is... (also the monastery site.)

The front courtyard of the monastery, with view.
Back to Hue: Part 1



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