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Antony

Back To Penrhos Cottage & Visiting Animalarium Borth Zoo

By Adventures, Friends & Family, Happiness & Joy, NatureNo Comments
Wales Black Berries

Blackberries

Last weekend a friend and I went to stay at the lovely Penrhos Cottage for some rest and relaxation. I’ve previously stayed at Penrhos Cottage, see my blog post: Mid-Wales, Part 1: The Lovely Penrhos Cottage. We spent the time catching up, enjoying nature, watching TV and reading books. It was great to have no schedule.

On the Saturday I took the opportunity to walk up into the hills and found a private garden with some miniature buildings. I hiked further up the hills and found some abandoned slate ruins. See some photos below:

Wales Garden Buildings

Private Garden Miniature Buildings 1

Wales Garden Buildings 2

Private Garden Miniature Buildings 2

Wales Slate Ruin 1

Slate Ruins 1

Wales Slate Ruins 2

Slate Ruins 2

On the Sunday we stopped off at Animalarium, Borth’s Zoo on our way home. Animalarium is a small Zoo that also takes in unwanted pets. You can really get close and interact with the animals at this Zoo. You can even buy pots of food and feed some of the animals. This animal interaction makes it an ideal place to take children. Throughout the day it had a number of free talks about some of the animals and some opportunities to see animals getting fed. My friend and I had an enjoyable time, here are some photos of the animals:

Wales animalarium lemur

Animalarium: Lemur

Animalarium Monkey 1

Animalarium: Monkey 1

Animalarium: Monkey

Animalarium: Monkey 2

Animalarium Meerkats 1

Animalarium: Meerkats 1

Animalarium Meerkats 2

Animalarium: Meerkats 2

Animalarium goat

Animalarium: Goat

Animalarium Cat

Animalarium: Cat

Animalarium Wallerby

Animalarium: Wallerby

Animalarium jaguar

Animalarium: Jaguar – Sunbathing.

Animalarium bird

Animalarium: Some sort of Bird

Animalarium calf cow

Animalarium: Calf

Animalarium Pythons

Animalarium: Pythons

Animalarium pythons sign

Animalarium: Pythons Sign

Animalarium is a small Zoo and as such felt like a place that needs more financial support. My friend and I talked about maybe adopting an animal or two there, it’s something I certainly intend to do when money is less tight.

Hope you enjoyed the update and photos.

Blog soon,

Antony



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Book Review: Gaysia – Adventures in the Queer East by Benjamin Law

By Amazon, Books & Authors, Gay, ReviewsNo Comments
gaysia-benjamin-law-book-cover Journalist Benjamin Law is an Australian with Asian roots. In Gaysia, he takes us on a tour of Asia showing us all things gay across the continent.

Benjamin with his warm and engaging writers voice takes us to: Bali to meet the money boys and explore the cheap tourist destination; Thailand to see the world of trans Lady Boys in Miss Tiffany’s Beauty Pageant; China to interview gay men and lesbian women who often marry one another; Japan to explore the explosion of non-sexual Drag Queens on TV and the underground lesbian subculture; Malaysia to meet Christian and Muslim fundamentalists who claim they can cure homosexuality; Myanmar were HIV positive people are so poor that only one in five can get life saving treatment; India to interview people in the LGBT rights movement and to meet a man that claims he can cure homosexuality with yoga.

Benjamin’s description is perfect, covering the sights, smells, sounds, tastes and sensations of each place and experience. This makes the reader feel that they are sharing his adventure from start to finish. Benjamin documents his observations and interviews well; but for the majority of the book he holds back from experiencing first-hand what it is like to be gay in the countries that he visits. Whereas it wouldn’t have been practical or appropriate in some countries, it would have been great to see Benjamin dressed as a Drag Queen in an attempt to get on Japanese TV. Benjamin does make up for this, by attending his first Pride in India in the final chapter of the book. It would have been pleasing if he had included some glossy photos in the book of places he’d visited and possibly people he’d met.

Gaysia starts with relatively light-hearted subject matter but quickly moves on to more heavy subject matter. Emotive subjects such as: the lack of civil rights, the lack of access to HIV medications and gay cures all gave a negative impression of being gay in Asia. But this is a real and honest account of what being gay in Asia means, and was usually told to him by the gay people of Asia he interviewed.

Gaysia is travel writing, but not a holiday guidebook. Instead it is a captivating in depth look at Asian societies, cultures and subcultures of the gay sexual minority group. Gaysia is educational, enlightening and a must read for anyone whose interested in travelling to the Asian continent to experience gay Asia or anyone who loves Asian culture, food or places.

Gaysia is available to buy on Amazon.

Review soon,

Antony

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Book Review: Eve & Adam by Michael Grant and Katherine Applegate

By Amazon, Books & Authors, ReviewsNo Comments
eve-&-adam-book-cover After being hit by the car, Eve goes flying through the air. The next thing she’s vaguely aware of what’s happening – her mother arguing with the doctor and then being transferred to her rich mother’s pharmaceutical headquarters.

It’s like a private hospital where Eve is the only patient. As she recovers, she’s got sexy Solo pushing her around in a wheelchair. Then she comes to an agreement with her mother to trial software to create the perfect man for herself, who she names Adam.

But there are secrets everywhere. Eve is about to uncover these secrets and then will have to make some difficult choices about what to do with the truth.

I really wanted to enjoy this book. Especially after loving Michael Grant’s Gone Series and knowing that Katherine Applegate is his wife. I hate to give a bad review, but I was disappointed with Eve & Adam.

I just didn’t care about any of the characters. At the beginning of the book as Eve is flying through the air thinking that her life is about to end. Rather than thinking of loved ones, she thinks about an Apple. I felt that the authors had done this conceitedly to make links to Adam & Eve for the purpose of marketing the book. It felt unnatural and therefore Eve felt unreal.

Solo marginally more real, but was a great source of conflict for me. He’s this techno whizz-kid who is described as looking like a surfer, yet doesn’t know some of the fundamental details of his own history. Details that would have been in the computer systems that he so expertly knows after living at the pharmaceutical headquarters for so long.

Aislin, Eve’s best friend did have some believability and depth but was a minor character. It’s always worrying when authors make a minor character more interesting than a main character.

A problem I had with all of the characters is that they conveniently had all of the knowledge, skills, equipment and resources as they needed them. The authors did this by slotting a sentence of backstory in that the reader didn’t know up until the point the characters needed something. It felt like very convenient and lazy storytelling.

The plot was tediously predictable at times verged on being boring. The only reason I carried on reading when I felt bored was because I was half way through the book. I hoped it would get better, have some interesting plot twists, but it didn’t.

Eve & Adam isn’t badly written. The description, dialogue, grammar, punctuation and spelling are all good. It was just the characters and plot that I didn’t enjoy.

Eve & Adam is available to buy on Amazon.

Review soon,

Antony

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I aim for posts on this blog to be informative, educational and entertaining. If you have found this post useful or enjoyable, please consider making a contribution by Paypal:


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