Ocho Rios, Jamaica Inn, Blue Mountains, Nine Mile with photos

[Nanook]

Re: Ocho Rios, Jamaica Inn, Blue Mountains, Nine Mile with photos

OMG some of the photos on the previous page, THE COLORS! Oh and the purple and green on this page! I needed that on this yuky foggy rainy gray day!

Bad kitty! Good thing you found some rubbing alcohol!

[Siun]

Re: Ocho Rios, Jamaica Inn, Blue Mountains, Nine Mile with photos

Tiat - that is one amazing cat!

I love your report - and even though I'm a TB lady, I wanna stay at the Jamaica Inn.

Most of all, I just love the spirit you brought to your trip!

[tigerinatrance]

Re: Ocho Rios, Jamaica Inn, Blue Mountains, Nine Mile with photos

The photo of the purple and green building is just as it appears at Island Village - landscapes such as those in Jamaica and Turks and Caicos make my job easy in terms of taking photos.

[tigerinatrance]

Re: Ocho Rios, Jamaica Inn, Blue Mountains, Nine Mile with photos

Thank you so much for the kind words about the pictures. I am glad they brightened up a dreary day. I took so many pictures this trip knowing that I would share them here, and that it would be winter and blah. I have been dragging a$$ on this trip report and I apologize. I think I am trying to stretch it out until Spring truly arrives. At least I can think warm thoughts, and hear the birds and the tree frogs when I do this report. If you want to see more pictures, from other places, you can check out my website – www.tigerinatrance.com. It should give you an idea of how I use the photos for my bi-nez.

So, after we buy a few things here and there, our driver picks us up and we head back to JI. Scott headed to the beach for about an hour, and I hung at the veranda, looking over the multitude of books that we purchased- Tales of the Anasani; Walker’s Wood Carribean Cookbook; The Boy From Nine Miles.

I then started to wander the property in order to film “filler footage” for my video – you know, long shots of the water, the flowers, and so on. I also went up to the gift shop and bought two small wooden boxes that were painted with “local” scenes – one being a market scene, and one a country scene. The boxes are made locally. I also bought two books, one was the flowers of the Caribbean, and the other, the trees of the Caribbean.

I was wandering around taking pictures when I bumped into Lloyd, who has been with JI for 45 years. He is the bellman. We stood in the reception area, leaning on the check in area, looking at each picture in the book. Lloyd was giving me information about certain plants and trees. We came upon this one picture of a huge tree (almost like a cottonwood tree) and in the picture, there was a piece of the tree that had fallen to the ground, and landed next to the tree. This piece of tree was huge – like another tree trunk. Lloyd shows it to me and explains that these trees are particularly nice for relaxing, and that the trunk that had fallen would make a particularly nice spot for a nap. We continue to look through the books, and he tells me this and that about the pictures.

Here are some of the shots I took as I wandered. These were taken with the camcorder (it has picture taking capabilities) – so, the color is somewhat off, (digital cameras have to recreate the colors, unlike film, which captures the color as it “sees” the scene). Likewise, I did not have any macro abilities with the camcorder, so these are not as in focus as I would like.

I was trying to capture the curve of the stairs and the plants, but I am not sure it came off:



Here is a backlit photo of the palms at JI:





Ah, here are the colors I long for here in the gray and wintery Midwest:




Ok, an example of the flowers that I buy year after year, only to have them shrivle up and die, because I either don’t water them enough, or don’t get them out of the sun, or whatever:



These were in our ashtray arrangement:

[tigerinatrance]

Re: Ocho Rios, Jamaica Inn, Blue Mountains, Nine Mile with photos




OK, who can tell me what these are?




Scott returns from the beach pretty quickly, I would assume that he came to the same conclusion that I had reached earlier – why hang out on the beach with a bunch of people, when we can hang out right here on the veranda, listen to our music, have cold water and a bathroom there? Besides, we both knew that the trip was winding down, and we would not be back on the veranda for quite some time – so might as well enjoy it.

Fraser ran into Scott on the way back from the beach. He promptly gave Scott a hard time about the fact that we haven’t been up at the dining room at night to hear the band. So, we decide, we’ll go up to the dining room tonight. And we did, and we had another amazing meal, as usual.

We spent the afternoon doing that pre-pack thing - you know, looking over your stuff, figuring out what you can pack now, so that the reality of your leaving doesn't hit as hard on your last day.

So, we have to find a place for 6 pounds of blue mountain coffee and a bottle of Noni, and a bottle of mango rum. we managed. and, the coffee is all gone now. [img]/forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

[Laurel]

Re: Ocho Rios, Jamaica Inn, Blue Mountains, Nine Mile with photos

You have got me on that one flower ???

The 'clustering' does not resemble it, but the shape of the flower reminds me of some sort of poppie - ??

OMG!!! the colors and capture of the birds and the anthurium against that blue sky, the orchids - AWESOME!!

[QK13]

Re: Ocho Rios, Jamaica Inn, Blue Mountains, Nine Mile with photos

Tiger, cats in the wild bite as another form of "claiming" you as one of their own.

My cat bites me all the time, just not as hard as Meanest bit you.

Usually when they're getting a serious petting or scratching or rubbing they get a little over zealous with the "You belong to me" thing. [img]/forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

Cats in Jamaica are rarely totally domesticated, so he's probably a bit on the wild side.

Great shot.

[QK13]

Re: Ocho Rios, Jamaica Inn, Blue Mountains, Nine Mile with photos

Laurel... it reminds me of the "Buddy Poppy" that U.S. War Veterens give when you donate money. Most people I know have at least one hanging from their rear view mirror.

[tigerinatrance]

Re: Ocho Rios, Jamaica Inn, Blue Mountains, Nine Mile with photos

OK, I am done tonight:


We go up for dinner that night, and see the band. The guys there performing do “Here I Come” Barrington Levy for me and Scott.


Man, I wanted to yell out a few “skidd-a-lee-did-a-lee-did-a-did a-lee-oh-wooahs” myself, but that just wouldn’t be proper at Jamaica Inn.

How I want to take back a group of 10 or so – rowdy folks to tear that place up. At least dance a little to Barrington Levy – a shame that we should be sitting on our butts. But people do the whole ballroom dance thing there (yeah, and there were tuxedos on Saturday night!) – just tearing the place up dancing would have amused the staff greatly, I am sure. The guests, might have been appalled.

[tigerinatrance]

Re: Ocho Rios, Jamaica Inn, Blue Mountains, Nine Mile with photos

Monday Feb. 7, 2005

So, our last full day – the only plans we have is to go to Retreat Basic School. Earl will pick us up at 2 p.m.


Earl had called and informed the school that we would be there. He needed video of the kitchen they are redoing anyway. The kitchen had a new fridge (yellow sticker still on it!) and they would be getting a new stove, and new sinks. They have 3 classes, ages 3-5, 65 kids total.

Here is Retreat Basic School



We had an appointment, but it didn’t make a difference. The school was total chaos for about 30 minutes.

Scott had the video camera. Earl wanted us to film the kitchen for the Rotary Club, and I told him I would put together a video with the kids, the school, the kitchen, and they could use it at their national and international meetings.

We walk up and everyone is out front. They had just finished lunch. Scott immediately bends down and flips the camcorder screen backwards, so it is facing the kids, and they can see themselves on the screen. He did a really good job managing 40 or so kids, all wanting to see themselves on camera.

I am walking in and a group of girls immediately surround me, holding onto my arms, or my waist, telling me about this and that, wanting to show me their classroom, telling me who their brothers and sisters are, and so on. It was great – it was like I showed up to a place where 3 or 4 of my girlfriends were hanging out, that I hadn’t seen for a while – the ease with which these girls, most of them 5 years old, welcomed me and showed me hospitality!

I was walking in and Scott was far behind me, with a bunch of kids. It was not until I saw the video tape that I saw a little girl, pink jacket, with her hood on, around her face, pulls on Scott’s shirt – she is out of the frame of the camera and you see Scott stop, and say “uhhoo – hey there” and off camera you hear “me like yuh” and, Scott says “excuse me” and she comes into frame and looks up at Scott and says “me like yuh” and her little friend says “me like yuh too” and Scott says “Well, me like you.” It is so cute. That is the phrase now – instead of saying “I love you” we say “Me like yuh” – it was the way she said it, so amorous – she is a charmer. They boys better watch out.



This is the class of three year olds.



Something happened in all the chaos of kids running around, and this little guy ends up crying. The older girls are leading him around by the hand, telling me that he wants his mummy. Uh oh. He is screaming really loudly. He goes over to his desk, and he is crying, and I ask him if I can take his picture because I bet he has a beautiful smile that would make a beautiful picture. Well, no ear to ear grin here, but he tried. Thereafter he never made a peep.



Three year olds – sorry for the blurry stuff – but see the kid with the juice box? He kept that smile every time the camera pointed in his direction:



See the boy with the braids in the back? He was so cute. At the end of our visit with the three year olds, they sang Jesus Loves Me for us. Him and his buddy were jumping up and down, pounding on the tables. They were the drummers:



This little girl is in the 3 year old class. I have about 40 pictures of her, she had poses and everything. She would run in front of me “tek mi piktuh” and I would. I have sent a bunch of these down already – I hope she will like them.



Check out the kid behind her – he must have had an accident with the magic marker – it was all over his chin. The little girl in the very back was totally zonked out by the time I got done passing out stuff.

There she is with her buddy:

[tigerinatrance]

Re: Ocho Rios, Jamaica Inn, Blue Mountains, Nine Mile with photos

Eventually, the teacher made them put their heads on the desk, so that everyone would settle down:





Here we are at the end of the three year old class visit, during Jesus Loves Me:



See my little drummer man back there with his pencil in fist, firmly planted on the table?




In the school supplies, I had about 70 lead pencils that were decorated with hundreds of tiny pictures (cats, dogs, zoo animals, flowers, birds)almost like a mosaic, and vibrant colors, and that had different colored erasers. The teachers wanted me to hand those out individually – luckily I had enough of the funky pencils, or else I would have had to break into the plain yellow ones – and that ain’t right. So, they picked out the “color” they wanted.

They were cool pencils, with all kinds of different pictures – I didn’t have two packs that were alike – heck, I stared at them for a while, looking at all the pictures in the mosaic – I hope the kids like them. They were passing them around, looking at each other’s pictures, and play acting with the pencils.

Here are a few of those discussions:

[tigerinatrance]

Re: Ocho Rios, Jamaica Inn, Blue Mountains, Nine Mile with photos

Here they are putting them away per Teacha:



This is my little man here – in the 5 year old class. I have him on video making all kinds of faces.



Can you see him in the back, under the arm of the teacher – looking real smooth, with the smooth stance, looking at the teacher. He reminded me of a little man:



We go outside and the four year olds are learning how to race:



Check out the form on the kid in the white shorts – he won!



Check out this little cutie.

[tigerinatrance]

Re: Ocho Rios, Jamaica Inn, Blue Mountains, Nine Mile with photos

I put everything that I taped into iMovie, edited, spliced, transitioned, titled, and so on, and made a 3 minute video set to “Jah Live”. If I can figure out where to post a Quicktime movie, and how, I will do so, and you can check it out with the other videos. If anyone knows how I can do that or where, PM me. Thanks!

The teachers told us they can use anything instructional - books, games, puzzles. They love to have construction paper and play dough. All the teachers stressed the need for anything instructional – even instructional coloring books.

On our last night, Sadie made the swans, but with water:



We had dinner on the veranda, our last night – what a bummer.

[Laurel]

Re: Ocho Rios, Jamaica Inn, Blue Mountains, Nine Mile with photos

What truly beautiful photos of a wonderful experience. Too dificult to pick a favorite - AWESOME!!

Making me miss things even more!!

[Seveen]

Re: Ocho Rios, Jamaica Inn, Blue Mountains, Nine Mile with photos

TIAT - how did i miss this? thanks for continuing - i needed this - too many days to think about before i'm home again -