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Tahiti
Tahiti
Bec2004-09-17 15:56:10
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Papeete
This was my second visit to Papeete. I remembered having taken a picture of the City Hall in 1996 so I took a new one to see if my photographic skills had improved during the last six years. I'll let you be the judge of that.
The Notre Dame Cathedral, on the left below, is right in the center of the Papeete. It is also an important landmark easily recognised by anyone who has been here before
I prefer horizontal pictures because that is the way I see the world around me. Maybe that's why I seldom use vertical photos. When I have to, I generally present them in pairs so I'll match the Notre Dame Cathedral on the left, with this photo, on the right, of the big church in Taravao village on the south side of the island.
Given the importance of eating well in the French culture, it is not surprising to find the municipal market in the centre of town, next to the Cathedral.
I think that eating well is an art, just like music or painting. Art is the pursuit of refined sensuous pleasure. Sensuous pleasure is felt when stimuli from the senses cause natural drugs such as serotonin and dopamine to be released in the brain. Stimuli from the taste buds cause pleasure by the same mechanisms that function with stimuli from the eyes or the ears. Some people think that the art of eating well is somehow inferior to the "real" arts. That's their problem...
I also think that the development of all art forms is a measure of civilisation. Creativity and refinement in art distinguish advanced civilisations from more primitive ones.
Since I consider that eating well is an art form, I can say that the creativity and refinement evidenced in the eating habits of various nations are a measure of their relative degree of civilisation.
Art for art's sake, is a luxury that can be afforded only by individuals whose basic needs of survival have been satisfied. During most of mankind's history,
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See photographs from:
French Polynesia Gallery
