A Few Night Shots of Kabul

The other night I went up on the roof of the guesthouse where I'm staying and took a few long exposure shots of the view we have.  I had to be extra careful while doing this, because it's rude here to look down into peoples yards/homes from roofs and balconies - so I was on my ninja tip.  The view, however is definitely pretty awesome at night, the blue mosque is really great (the green light isn't photoshopped - it really looks like that).  The wedding hall is also pretty cool.  All the wedding halls here are lit up super crazy, Vegas style.  Anyways, some of these came out better than others, but I thought these were pretty cool so I put them up.

Afghan Youth Voices Event

A few days ago, on the 25th, we went to the launch event for the Afghan Youth Voices Festival 2011.  The event was located at the Queen's Palace at Babur Garden.  Babur Garden is a historic park in Kabul, and also the location of Babur's tomb.  The Queen's Palace was definitely an amazing venue for the event.  You could see the hill towering over the palace on one side - and on the other side you had a view overlooking Kabul.  The event was a showcase for Kabul's youth to showcase their talents in video, photography, art and music.  There was even a rock band, which ended up doing a few System of a Down covers which was pretty dope to hear in Afghanistan.  There was also a cool mural for people to paint on as well.  It was definitely refreshing to see such a positive event happening - especially being directed towards the youth.  Below are some photos I snapped while at the event.

Trip to Istalif

Last week, a group of us went to Istalif on our day off.  Istalif is a small village nestled in the hills about 20 miles northwest of Kabul.  Although it's not to far away, the trip took about 2 hours.  Once off the main road, we had to take a small rocky road which led back into the Istalif.  The road was really windy and tight, and wide enough for only one car in most spots - which made it really interesting when another car was coming the opposite direction.   After driving on the bumpy one rocky dirt trail for about 30 minutes, we finally made it to our destination.  The scenery was amazing.  Below are just a few select pictures out of the hundreds I took from the drive into Istalif and our hike on the trails.  This was definitely a good way to get introduced to Afghanistan and the beauty it has to offer.

Landed in Kabul

Sorry for the delay since I started the blog - internet has been limited, but from now on I should have steady daily internet access. I landed safely in Kabul about a week ago, and things have already been pretty eye opening.  The trip in was hectic to say the least - nothing more fun than traveling for two days straight and living off of airline food.  I'm attaching some photos of the airports I visited on the way, and some pictures of my first sights in Kabul.  More to come later for sure.