2022 DAILY ACCOUNT - PART 3: 21 July

Row, row, row your boat. Today is the day we go for a splash. We have to take a train to the upper part of the River Elbe so we can row our boats down the river. But before getting into the water, let's look at the trains. I have always been fascinated by trains - ever since I was a little boy. I have hundreds of selfies taken with trains all over the world. This was taken just before we boarded the train:

I have two photos taken the day before of me driving a train:

And if that pic isn't clear enough, here's a side pic that shows quite clearly that I'm in the driver's seat.

We row a good 17km into the sunset but to be honest, the flow of the river helped quite a lot. Here's a pic of me all poised for the hard task of rowing down the river.

We stop along the way to swim and to take selfies of course.

It took me a long time to get the entire vessel in my selfie. I tried many poses and different angles and in the end, I had to get out of the water just to capture the whole boat behind me.

But the pics others take of me are always better than my selfies. Here's a pic taken by a friend. The entire boat can be seen without any difficulty.

I'm glad that everyone is armed today with a mobile phone/camera. I always welcome pics taken by others. They give a different perspective. Here's a lovely pic that shows the bigger picture.

As you can see, all the pics taken by others are so much better than the pics I take myself.

This photo diary won't be complete if I leave out the ice-cream break:

We soon arrive at the house of the oldest and most revered naturist in the whole of Saxony for a group photo.

2022 DAILY ACCOUNT - PART 2: 20 July

To get to our starting point of the hike, we first took a train. I will show photos of the train later on this post.

There are rivers and bridges to cross.

Different rock formations:

There are even caves:

We soon have to split into two groups. The tougher trail goes through narrow rocks on the face of a mountain cliff. There is a chain you can hold on to and of course you need both hands to ensure you're safe. But it's no fun climbing over a difficult trail and you have no photos to remember it by. Besides, I'm as sure-footed as a mountain goat.

That's the end of our hiking and it's time to board the train.

2022 DAILY ACCOUNT - PART 1A: 19 July (continued)

For the sake of completeness, I decided to write this short post as an addendum to the last post. This is because following yesterday's post, I received a few queries from my readers and I thought it would be good if I gave the full picture. I was asked if we walked in the nude on public roads as well. Do I have photos of them? Whether I have a photo of something is a question one need not ask a selfie addict. Of course I have photos of Everything. Countless photos. Hahaha

The following photos were all taken on 19 July 2022.

Here is a passing car on a public road:

A bus-stop:

A passing bus:

And a long tram with tourists in it:

I hope this gives a better picture of our hike. The total distance exceeded 14km in a single day.

My next post will focus on the following day - 20 July 2022.

ERRATUM

I just realised that I made a mistake above. All the photos above were in fact taken on 20 July 2022 and not 19 July 2022. This may not be an important point to my readers but since this is my personal diary, I have to be sure that such mistakes are not made. In most of my holiday photos, I can tell that it's a different day by the change of my clothes. But obviously I can't do that here. Haha.

Here is a pic of me with a passing car that was really taken on 19 July 2022:

2022 DAILY ACCOUNT - PART 1: 19 July

Now that we are approaching the end of 2022, I thought I should write daily accounts of some of the days in 2022 which are interesting to me in my life as a naturist. As far as possible, I will avoid posting pics of other people unless I am fairly certain they are OK with it or they have appeared in other public sites.

19 July is the first day of my nude hiking in Saxony, Germany. On this day, the plan is to see some old abandoned railway line and to visit an old dilapidated castle.

It is a hot day.

The trail is long. and there's a lot of walking. This pic gives a perspective of how far one has to walk.

Sometimes it gets very hot.

The road is flanked on both sides by fields.

A word of advice to the uninitiated. It's wise to apply sun cream all over your body including parts of the body that one does not normally apply it or you may end your holiday with sun-burn all over your body.

Sometimes, there is shade.

There may be the occasional car on the trail. Just step aside and take a selfie! Haha

There are refreshing stops at streams and rivers.

We sometimes pass through fields where workers are gathering the harvest.

There are quaint little bridges too that one has to cross.

Sometimes, there are cows along the way and they afford a great selfie backdrop.

We finally arrive at our destination - the disused railway track.

And the castle remains.

The record on my Garmin GPS watch shows that I cover a total of 14.36km. 

Pop the champagne! My wordpress blog is on Feedspot's list.

I have been keeping several blogs on my life as a naturist on various websites partly as a form of diary keeping (an activity which I have been hooked on since the age of 7) and partly to promote naturism and to affirm the decency of the nude human body. Unbeknownst to me, my Wordpress blog (which is paralleled by this blog in case one website outlaws nudity suddenly as some have been known to do) which isn't in any way outstanding - it's more like a personal diary which I imagined would bore anyone to tears - was selected in the Top 35 Naturist Blogs by Feedspot. See No.20 for my blog.

Now that should spur me on to kick off my sluggishness and update my blog more regularly. Now is the right time to blog more seeing that I have just completed all my travels for this year and I must have some story to tell.

In the meanwhile, here's champagne to celebrate my getting on Feedspot's list!

It's been 5 years.

I used to post a lot on Tumblr until the website became puritanical a couple of years ago and even decent nudity was banned. Recently, Tumblr has turned over a new leaf and has allowed bloggers to post decent nude pics on its site, provided they are flagged 'mature'. I was going through my past Tumblr posts when I saw this link which I posted on Tumblr on 21 November 2017. The caption under the photo reads 'My God! This photo is pregnant with Edenic meaning. Nude in the garden eating a fruit and reading a book that says "God’s Problem". Haha'. 

I thought it'd be a good idea to do another pic in exactly the same pose. I managed to find the same book, the pages of which have now turned yellow and I got the same chair, a large fruit and I was ready for a photoshoot. It so happened that there were dead leaves all over which was just right. The photo beautifully captures the passage of time and how after 5 years, everything is in decay right down to the dead leaves strewn all around. Surely this can be considered an artistic piece? Maybe I should title this art piece "Time's Winged Chariot". Haha.

When body shame can prove fatal

I used to be an avid cyclist and when I read that Lance Armstrong had testicular cancer and I read unverified reports associating testicular cancer with excessive cycling, I naturally got rather worried. There are videos on YouTube explaining how we can check for testicular cancer and every man is advised to do it. I tried examining myself but it was very hard for me to tell if there was any abnormality. I did notice, however that my left testicle was slightly different from my right. And because I post a lot of nude selfies online, a friend told me that my left testicle looked 'tighter' than my right. I decided to find out once and for all if I had testicular cancer and booked to see a urologist - that's the expert on such a thing. 

Yesterday, I had an appointment with my urologist at the hospital. The urologist examined me and then used an ultra-sound machine to scan me. He told me that there was absolutely nothing wrong with either testicle. The testicles were 'very smooth' and 'not hard' (his words). Apparently if they are hard and not smooth, you may be looking at testicular cancer. He also showed me on the ultra-sound screen that blood flow to and out of my testicles was normal and perfectly healthy. 

I was told that it's normal to have one testicle lower than the other. Nature makes us that way so that when you put your thighs together you don't crush the testicles. There are many variations in our organs and we sometimes wrongly expect perfect symmetry when nature wisely intends for them to be asymmetrical. But unless we see a professional medical practitioner with expertise in this area, it's very hard for us to be sure if there is something wrong with our bodies. I was also told that there are many men who are ashamed to see a doctor even if they suspect there is some abnormality in their testicles. This is particularly common in my society where people are generally very conservative. There are many patients who wait until the cancer has spread elsewhere before they get themselves treated and by then, the prognosis is usually bleak. 

I can understand how most people feel. Even though I am a rather open naturist and I am by no means ashamed of my nudity, having the testicles examined is quite a different thing altogether and even for me, it requires a bit of mental preparation. If that is how I feel, what about those who aren't even naturists? 

So, whatever your feelings may be, just go and get yourself tested. Ultra-sound imaging is totally non-invasive. 

Feeding my fish and knowing that my body parts are perfectly healthy and normal and I have one cancer fewer.

Sick but it's not Covid

I just arrived home last night from Saudi Arabia. I had a sore throat on Friday night but I thought it was just the strong air-conditioning in the hotel. But when I was on the plane, towards the end of the journey, I developed a cough which I initially attributed to the food I had just consumed as we were preparing for descent. This morning, I had a bad cough and cold but no fever. I tested myself and I was negative.

I'm not afraid of Covid. I had my 5th jab (the bivalent Moderna) just a couple of weeks ago. Even if I catch Covid, it can only be very mild. But the Covid vaccination does not protect me from OTHER illnesses. Mask-wearing is not done in Saudi and neither was it a requirement on board the flights. I must have caught some flu virus while travelling. I'm very up-to-date with my vaccinations (I'm totally evidence-based and it's a huge impossibility for me to be ever influenced by fake news and conspiracy theories) but I'm not much of a mask wearer unless it's required by law. I see the efficacy of donning a mask but I'm generally too lazy to do it unless it's a requirement. 

This afternoon, I sat out in the open to eat my yoghurt and I felt much better after that. There is something to be said about connecting to nature. Here, I am no longer being evidence-based but I generally feel much better after I have sat in the open with my feet on the ground, even if it's untidily bestrewn with dead leaves.

The moral of this story is: Get your vaccination - I've had my third booster after the two primary Pfizer vaccines. All 3 boosters were Moderna, the third was the bivalent Moderna. I still haven't caught Covid and my family who caught the virus had only mild symptoms and a full recovery - my entire family have been properly vaccinated and boosted. And when you do catch a normal cold, sitting out in the warm tropical afternoon does help. 

Stay healthy!

Optical illusion can give my photos the wrong impression.

I was mortified when a friend told me that the photo I posted two posts ago showed me peeing while seated on the railing at a tourist spot. I looked at the pic carefully and sure enough it looks as if I was peeing!

But thank goodness, I took many other pics in different poses at the same spot. Here is the pic that proves beyond a shadow of doubt that the "flow of urine" is nothing more  than a tree in the distant background.

The purpose of my blog is to promote naturism as decent and to normalise nudity. The last thing I want is to show anything that is inappropriate, rude, crass or inconsiderate. If you think that a photo of mine is inappropriate in any way, please let me know. It may very well be, as in this case, that it's a mere optical illusion. 

Which image hosting site is good?

For a long time, I used Tumblr to host my images on my blogs because it allows for decent nudity. Some years ago, Tumblr changed its policy and a lot of my photos disappeared from my various blogs.

I have since used imgur and it's been wonderful. Today is a bad day for me. I could not upload anything on imgur. So I did a simple search and I found a new photo hosting site that isn't puritanical. It's called imgbox.

Below is a pic I uploaded on imgbox:

What image hosting websites do most people use? I mean naturist-friendly websites.

Will Twitter continue to be naturist-friendly?

This is a question many naturists are asking. The problem with Elon Musk is he is very impetuous and may suddenly decide on the spur of the moment to ban all accounts that have photos of decent nudity. He is already talking about having a "blue tick" for accounts that pay him $8 a month. 

I've just posted this on Twitter. Let's see if I get banned. I've seen how Tumblr turning puritanical and it sure looks like the blogs are the only safe space for those among us who do not think the nude human body is indecent or obscene or should be hidden. 

NOTE: A friend just emailed me to say that I looked as if I was peeing in this photo. That is an optical illusion. I was not. I was with a large group of people who can testify that I was not peeing. This is a tourist spot. Peeing indiscriminately in such a place would have been inappropriate and outrageous. I didn't do it and would never do it.

My 5th Covid jab

Last year, I had two jabs of Pfizer followed by a Moderna booster. In May this year, I had my second Moderna booster but that was not so effective against the Omicron variant. So, two days ago (Saturday), I had my third booster - the bivalent Moderna jab. I was feverish the whole of Sunday. That was no big deal. I've always reacted that way after the Covid vaccine. I was hoping I wouldn't be affected by the vaccine because I didn't want to miss Church on Sunday. I have music duties in Church. But the fever wouldn't subside and it was only Sunday night when my temperature went back to normal. 

I expected to be well today (Monday) but I felt very tired in the morning and I tried to do some reading on the couch but I fell asleep for the greater part of the day. When I got up at 3pm, I decided a bit of sun would do me good. I had not eaten anything the whole day (I usually can't eat a thing when I am unwell) and so I got myself a nice glass of milk and read in the sun. Naturally, I took a selfie.

I immediately felt better. There is something restorative about the rays of the sun. I really felt as if I hadn't been sick at all. It's now almost midnight and I am still in the best of health.

Since I am among the most up-to-date in my vaccinations, I should say something about the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. I can't speak for the other vaccines. True, there will be some mild side effects after vaccination. I always have a fever a day after the vaccination and by night fall, the side effects are totally gone except for a sore arm (on the injection site) which may last one more day. This is the first time I felt tired on the second day after vaccination but there was no fever. My temperature was perfectly normal the whole of today.

These side effects are a very small price to pay for Covid protection. Early this year, my son caught Covid when he and I were travelling. We sat next to each other on the plane, we stayed in the same hotel room and we went to restaurants to eat together. Even when he was tested positive, the hotel could not get me another room and I stayed in the same room for a couple of days. I thought I would catch Covid but I did not. My son who was also fully vaccinated and boosted suffered only mild symptoms - fever, cough and cold. He didn't require any medical attention. I just got him tablets for his fever. About a couple of months after that, my wife tested positive for Covid. She had been sick but we continued to share the same space - we ate together, slept on the same bed, etc. It was after several days of sickness that she tested positive. She then told me to go to another room, which I did but surely I would have been infected by then? No, I tested negative every day for the next week or so. 

Of course my wife's symptoms were extremely mild. She too has been fully vaccinated and boosted. She caught Covid just as she was about to go for her second booster. She was busy at work and she made the mistake of postponing her second booster. She might not have caught Covid if she had followed the vaccination guidelines carefully. But it doesn't really matter. Her symptoms were very mild anyway since like my entire family, she's fully vaccinated and boosted. 

I know there are many vaccine sceptics in some countries but vaccine sceptics have been around since the world first rolled out the smallpox vaccine a long time ago. I just hope there won't be more variants in the Covid virus and the world can return to the previous normal. A lot of harm has been caused to humanity by the Covid virus and what I cannot understand is why the world does not force that rogue state to allow a full investigation into the cause of the pandemic. Surely that is the most basic thing that should be done?

The world has gone back to normal

There has been almost two years of hiatus to all forms of travelling but I'm glad to say it's now back to normal. I'm now in Germany. I usually leave the booking of my hotels to my kids who are pretty good at such travel arrangements many of us would consider drudgery. They've got me a room in a castle, in an ancient monastery, and once, in a haunted house in France.

My accommodation this time is a bit too churchy for my liking. There was a time when I served at the altar as an acolyte but in my old age, I could do with less of the appurtenances of religion. As you can see in this photo, this "hotel" is a part of a church and my room is just next to the Bishop's office! This time, my kids have overdone it. I can't even take a photo in my room without showing how connected it is to the rest of the church!

Here's a pic I took this morning. It feels odd that I'm not in my Sunday best.

Happy Dragonboat Festival

Today is the day and I realised there were no dumplings at home. So I went all over the city to look for bak chang (as we call it here) literally, meat dumplings but I was greeted by this sign in every shop I went to:

With the help of Google I managed to locate many different dumpling sellers and I finally found one that was still selling on this day. And I wasn't the only remiss customer they had. There was a long queue of people who also needed to get their bak chang on Duanwu day itself. This is a tradition that has been going on for the last 2,500 years. 

In the West, it's more commonly called the Dragonboat Festival. Although dragonboat races are always held in this season because of the festival, we don't call it that at all. It's very hard to explain why we call it Duanwu because in Chinese, homonymous associations are very important. In English, homonyms are only useful as a joke, as in a pun. But Dragonboat festival is a good name for today - it's what the world usually sees on this day - the dragonboat race.

A stranger online who saw this pic asked me if there was any significance in my using Chinese chopsticks. Absolutely none. I naturally find it easier to use Chinese chopsticks but I have no problem using Japanese or Korean chopsticks or a fork. Or even my fingers - which is traditional for South Asians. As long as I can convey food to my mouth.

Happy Dragonboat Festival!!!

Happy International Day of Happiness

A person has happiness if his expectations are not greater than what he has or is able to acquire. Of course he mustn't be surrounded by people who place high demands on him. That's a rather long way of saying a person is happy if he's contented. Haha

Just leap for joy. Happy Happiness Day!

Me and Covid

My country has strict laws that are enforced by an extremely effective police force that is among the least corruptible in the world. As a result, we haven't suffered much from the pandemic. We only read in the newspapers about its terrible deadly effects in other countries. I know of no one who has suffered any serious illness from Covid. I was totally unprepared when I flew to a nearby country last month and was told a few days after that I had tested positive for Covid. 

My travel companion had been ill for the past few days and he tested negative. I had no symptoms at all and felt on top of the world. But I was slapped with a 7-day quarantine in my hotel. We both suspected that our results had been inadvertently switched. The next day, we got the hotel to do another test. This time, I was told that I was negative and my companion positive. 

But on the record, I was still considered a recovered positive case. Perhaps they are right. I could have been a symptomless positive case.  But is that likely? The pre-departure PCR test and the arrival PCR test done within the last 3 days of my positive result showed that I was negative. 

But what is really puzzling is I didn't catch the bug from my travel companion who is a close family member. We were together throughout his illness and before. I expected to have caught the bug from him but although I tested myself regularly, I was negative all the time. 

When we were both out of quarantine, we flew back home. About two weeks later, an even closer family member fell ill. I continued to eat with her and spent time with her, thinking she only had a common flu. One morning she took the test and it was positive. Again, I expected to contract the disease in the next few days. But my tests remained negative. 

There are no antivaxxers in my family and we are all vaccinated and boosted. Of course the two family members who contracted Covid recovered without incident. Their illness was no worse than a common cold. In fact, it was less severe than a common cold. There are four of us in the family. 2 caught Covid and 2 didn't. Now, what I am going to say next is purely anecdotal and must not be taken as evidence of vaccine efficacy. We were all vaccinated with two doses of Pfizer. What's different is our booster jab. The ones who didn't catch Covid at all were boosted with Moderna. The other two had a third dose of Pfizer. I'm sure it's wrong to draw any conclusion from such skimpy facts and with such a small sample size too. But all the same, if a second booster is approved in my country, guess what vaccine I'll opt for?

Here's a pic of me on the last day of quarantine in the hotel.

17 February 2022

Happy Human Day!!!

人日快乐. It sounds weird when I translate it directly into English. This is one major celebration in my culture but without the nudity. But since it's a celebration of the birthday of all humanity, what better way to celebrate it than to be in the birthday suit? Haha.

Happy New Year - Year of the Tiger!

Happy New Year to all naturists and friends in this Year of the Tiger. I was fixing the New Year lanterns when I decided to pose for a pic.