‘…Tomorrow the mountains will separate us; After tomorrow – who can say?’
A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step…
Some things in life are a long haul, but it’s best to keep a smile on your face…;)
Finally, thanks to everyone who has visited this site in the past year, liked or commented on a post, and with special thanks to secret squirrel, wightvixen, andelieya, and Chris, who have accompanied me on this journey, for all, or part, of the way…a prosperous and Happy New Year to you all 🙂 xxxx
yizhivika 
Happy New Year! Wishing you a wonderful 2013 🙂
Thanks :). By the way, I noticed an unsolicited video advertisement appeared above your comment (although it’s now disappeared) so this might be a fortuitously good time to end my uploads here; I find such ads tiresome enough with YouTube videos nowadays ;).
Love the quotes! Love the Buddha! Beautiful photos! Thanks for sharing with us the many things that you have seen on your Way! Let’s see where the Tao will take you in 2013! Happy New Year, yizhivika and much happiness, health and success to you!
And thanks to you too, andelieya, for such a generous comment :). As for the Buddha statuette, I bought it in a shop in Albert Road recently, and decided it would be an appropriate subject for one of the final three photographs of this photoblog. So, I took it down to Southsea seafront yesterday afternoon, and thought I would pose him with a long stretch of the seafront as a backdrop. However, I hadn’t quite bargained for yesterday’s weather in Southsea, which was very wet and very windy. The wind was blowing raindrops directly onto the camera lens (you can see evidence of it at the bottom of the image) and a photo I took immediately after this one had a large blob of raindrop in the centre of the image, rendering it unusable. So I was left with this one, which has a slightly out-of-focus Buddha as its subject…but never mind, I can pretend it’s a metaphor for Buddhist mysticism ;). Anyway, much happiness, health and success to you too in 2013!
The photographer will always ask ‘what if’. Then he will explore the idea, try it out. Sometimes it works out perfectly, sometimes it doesn’t. But at the end of the day, the photographer did not let his idea come and pass and just go to waste. I applaud you for your great idea and for trying it out, yizhivika!
Thankyou, andelieya :). And despite its technical shortcomings, the picture tells the story I intended it to tell, and that’s enough for me in the context of this photoblog :). I’ve not yet decided whether I’ll continue blogging on WordPress, and if I do, it will have a different web address to this one, but I will, of course, let you know what it is in due course, should it come to pass. And for sure, I’ll continue to visit your blog, and like and comment on your posts. :). Thanks for giving me an insight into your life in South Carolina, and for sharing your philosophical and spiritual thoughts with us :). As for yizhivika.com, I’ll leave it up here on the web, and let it echo down the years, with occasional revisits, to remind me of my life and friends in 2012… ;).
You have my email, yizhivika. Feel free to drop me a line anytime. I will soon launch a new official or professional Facebook page as well. It’s already created, but I have not started to use it yet. I will let you know when the time comes.
I hope your holidays and time away from work were restful and restorative and that you had a good start in the new year! Best wishes for 2013 and lots of new adventures!
Perfect my friend, who knows indeed.
Thank you, caimbeul :). It’s the final line of a poem by Du Fu, a Tang Dynasty poet, in a translation by Witter Bynner, a poem to which Bynner gave the English title ‘To My Retired Friend Wei’…