Dĩ hoà vi quý.
Making peace is treasured.
Vietnamese proverb.
No other city is quite like this. Hong Kong is perpetually on the go, between the present and the future, it is hyperactive, like the world itself in the early years of the 21st century. Founded by Europeans, developed by Asians, governed by Chinese, designed and run by entrepreneurs, architects, economists, and adventurers from the four corners of the world, in its streets and waterways you may sense the turning of the Earth itself.
America has always been linked with the car and this drive, in the Golden State, links two of the US’s best loved cities. Highway 1 stretches along the Californian coast, and the section between San Francisco and Los Angeles is a decidedly cool trip.
PARADISE #11
The first European explorer to encounter Costa Rica was the Great Navigator himself, Christopher Columbus. The day was September 18, 1502, and Columbus was making his fourth and final voyage to the New World. As he was setting anchor off shore, a crowd of local Carib Indians paddled out in canoes and greeted his crew warmly. Later, the golden bands that the region’s inhabitants wore in their noses and ears would inspire the Spaniard Gil Gonzalez Davila to name the country Costa Rica, or Rich Coast.
Port Vila local market at night, Vanuatu.
Port Vila is the capital and largest city of Vanuatu. Situated on the south coast of the island of Efate, in Shefa Province.Port Vila is the economic and commercial centre of Vanuatu .The population is around 38,000; predominately Melanesian, with small Polynesian, Asian, Australian and European populations, namely French and British.
Bislama is spoken by everyone as the day-to-day language. In addition, English and French are also widespread. Other Indigenous languages are also spoken in the city.
On May 8, 1942 one A6M2 Zero piloted by PO2c Okura Shigeru from the 14th Shotai from the Japanese aircraft carrier Zuikaku ditched at Deboyne islands. Japanese A6M2 Zero, the main fighter plane of the Imperial Japanese Navy,this Japanese fighter plane, once a master of the air in the South Pacific arena, now lies on the sandy bottom. This is an example of the very last zero model ever manufactured. Virtually intact, divers can sit in the cockpit and pilot themselves back into the past… I did it!
Panasia is a spectacular island of uplifted coral reef making jagged limestone cliffs in the Louisiade Archipelago.
The Louisiade Archipelago is a string of ten larger volcanic islands frequently fringed by coral reefs, and 90 smaller coral islands located 200 km southeast of New Guinea, stretching over more than 160 km and spread over an ocean area of 26,000 km between the Solomon Sea to the north and the Coral Sea to the south.
Local elderly woman with a stick in a fishermen village at Panasia Island.
“Pacific Natives may appear to some to be the most wretched people upon Earth, but in reality they are far more happier than we Europeans; being wholly unacquainted not only with the superfluous but the necessary Conveniences so much sought after in Europe, they are happier in not knowing them. They live in a Tranquillity which is not disturbed by the Inequality of Conditions. The Earth and Sea of their own accord furnishes them with all things necessary for life, they covet not Magnificent House, Household-stuff &c, they live in a warm and fine Climate and enjoy a very wholesome Air, so that they have very little need of Clothing and this they seem to be very sensible of, for many of whom we gave Cloth &c to, left it carelessly upon the Sea beach and in the Woods as a thing they had no manner of use for. In short they seem’d to set no Value upon anything of their own for any one article we could offer them; this in my opinion argues that they think themselves provided with all the necessary’s of life and that they have no superfluities.”
James Cook (October 27, 1728 – February 14, 1779) was a British explorer and navigator. He made three voyages to the Pacific Ocean, in which its main shorelines were discovered.
Captain Cook’s Journal during his first voyage round the world made in H.M. Bark “Endeavour” 1768-71