Celebrating Colombo

I decided to create a post collecting photos online from my hometown of Colombo, Sri Lanka. I give credit to the photographers below and provide some commentary on these photos.

Galle Face Green

Here’s a photo of Galle Face Green from 20 years ago in 2005. It’s good to see people enjoying themselves, kites and the Sri Lankan flag flying.

"Galle Face Green" by the very honest man is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

This is another look at Galle Face Green from a different angle.

"Galle Face Green" by Dennis S. Hurd is marked with CC0 1.0.

Viharamahadevi Park

We’re now moving onto Viharamahadevi Park. The photo below has the board of the park.

 

"Viharamahadevi Park" by Honeplus is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Here’s a walking path in this park with trees and plants. 

"SL210 Viharamahadevi Park" by S.K. LO is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.

I really like the photo below which has grass, trees, walking paths and a bird pool in the centre.

"Viharamahadevi Park, Colombo - panoramio" by Alexey Komarov is licensed under CC BY 3.0.

Wellawatte

This is Wellwatte, the Colombo suburb I’m from. The photo below is from Rajasinghe Road. It has the Wellawatte look you get of houses, green trees and apartment buildings.

"Rajasinghe Road - Wellawatte, Sri Lanka" by Muunaa-Selva is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

The following two photos are at nighttime. I really like the way Sri Lanka looks at that time of day. Shehal Joseph took them from a friend's apartment 30 metres above the ground. The first photo’s blue light is positively striking. The second photo has a good contrast of minimal lighting at the front and strong lighting at the back. I notice it features a mix of apartment buildings and palm trees.

"Views from 30m above Ground in Wellawatte - 5" by shehal is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

"Views from 30m above Ground in Wellawatte - 6" by shehal is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

This is a nice view of Wellawatte beach by the railway.

"Wellawatte beach 2" by Yomal Indula Perera is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Beira Lake

Beira Lake is a beautiful lake in Colombo. Here’s a lovely photo of Beira Lake surrounded by large green trees and skyscrapers.

"South Beira Lake" by D-Stanley is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

I love how this photo has so many different elements. We see a train going by Beira Lake, a building, palm trees, vehicles and a boat.

"UG-LK Photowalk - Beira Lake - 2017-03-12 (2)" by Rehman Abubakr is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Here’s a footbridge on Beira Lake. I like the modern architecture of this bridge.

"South Beira Lake Colombo (Childrens Park)" by Kondephy is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

This is a cool photo of Beira Lake at night. I love how the bridge lights up.

"File:Beira lake at Nite.jpg" by Arvindkumarn is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Buildings

Here’s a recent picture of the Colombo skyline with all these buildings. This looks very impressive! It reminds me of Dubai.

"Colombo skyline 2024" by T Chamika is marked with CC0 1.0.

This photo of Independence Memorial Hall in Independence Square is by ImageBang!.

"Independence Square" by Mydaas! is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.

Here’s a colourful look at Arcade Independence Square which is nearby.

"Arcade Independence Square" by Nazly is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

These are the Royal Park apartment buildings in Rajagiriya. I like how it goes with the sky and the trees.

"_MG_2176" by Dhammika Heenpella / CWSSIP Images of Sri Lanka is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.

A good look at Colombo city from 10 years ago.

"Colombo City Line 01" by Priyantha Bandara is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

I’ll conclude with this lovely photo of Colombo at night.

"Colombo (Sri Lanka) at Night" by Dyl86 is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

I hope you enjoyed these photos of Colombo. As a Sri Lankan abroad, seeing good photos of my hometown has a special feeling. I like how Colombo has both many buildings and trees. This proves to be a good combination which makes Colombo a special city.

The 100th S Blog Post

This is my 100th blog post. I started this blog “The S Blog” eight years ago. I decided to write a post giving some highlights from this blog and some new content based on the topics I cover.

I write about Sri Lanka on this blog as it’s an interest of mine and where I call home. Sri Lankan blog posts have covered economics, politics, history, photos and more. I’ve also shared ideas of my own that I think would improve Sri Lanka. I’ll include three Sri Lankan images I’ve taken below with a link to the blog post it’s from. The text comes from those blog posts.

Diverse Views of Sri Lanka - 16 January 2020

A view of Bible Rock from a distance, taken near Kadugannawa.

Kaleidoscopic Kandy - 23 January 2020

A view of the Kandy Lake.

Captivating Colombo - 30 January 2020

Buildings in Wellawatte.

We just looked at three different images from Sri Lanka which are regional, Kandy and Colombo. They show the unique look of each one and reflect Sri Lanka’s colourful nature. Wellawatte is where I was when I lived in Sri Lanka.

I’m a fan of classic rock music that uses piano. The singers I like the most are Elton John and Bob Seger. I’m going to embed my favourite Bob Seger song which is “Even Now”. It’s a piano-driven rock song from the 1980s. Bob provides a powerful melody and singing. It reached Number 12 in the US charts, but it unfortunately isn’t remembered as one of his classics. I hope it will someday be remembered that way. I consider it to be an incredible heartland rocker.

In December 2022, I wrote the article “Ten Great Elton John Songs by Ten Different Guitarists”. It’s the inverse of my article “Ten Great Bob Seger Songs by Ten Different Piano Players”. Elton John’s guitarist Davey Johnstone plays on songs in both these two articles. I have also written “Ten Great Jackson Browne Songs by Ten Different Piano Players” which featured Elton John as one of the piano players. Moving back to the Elton John article, the guitarists I featured are Davey Johnstone, Caleb Quaye, Tim Renwick, Steve Lukather, Richie Zito, Eric Clapton, Chris Rea, Rusty Anderson, B.B. King and Doyle Bramhall II. I thought I’d feature a leftover which wasn’t in the original article, being the song “Ballad of a Well Known Gun”.

Ballad of a Well-Known Gun - Caleb Quaye (1970)

Caleb Quaye plays all the guitars on this Elton John song including an acoustic guitar in the background. The song opens with Caleb’s guitar intro. Elton’s piano comes in and out before coming in fully for a full band sound. This rocker incorporates elements of country and blues. The backing vocals sound like a choir. There is a special percussion beat going on during the choruses. Elton’s piano and Caleb’s guitars play well with each other including the powerful guitar solo that comes around the halfway mark. Ballad of a Well Known Gun is a good example of an americana styled rock song written by Elton John and his lyricist Bernie Taupin.

When I did the retrospective post “The S Blog One Year On” in January 2017, I created a word cloud of the words used in my blog’s first year. I just created another word cloud for my blog. I suspect it is covering the last year plus my blog labels. This was created using the website WordArt.com.

The top ten words are Song, Sri, Piano, Rock, Lanka, Bob, Bill, Elton, Plays and Sing. This makes sense as I write about songs & Sri Lanka and I’m into piano rock music. Bob represents Bob Seger and Elton represents Elton John. Bill is referring to keyboardist Bill Payne who I’ve written about on this blog. I recently wrote an article about his keyboards for Bob Seger. While Elton so far hasn’t worked with Bill Payne, he thinks highly of Bill’s piano playing. Elton John and Bob Seger came together via Bill Payne on Bob’s song “Love’s the Last to Know” that features Bill Payne on piano and Elton’s guitarist Davey Johnstone on acoustic guitar.

One issue I’ve been having most of the time over the last year onwards is an enormous amount of fake traffic. Real traffic unfortunately got much less since I began this blog. As this is my 100th post, it’s difficult to get 100 views and when I reach it, fake traffic plays a big role in it. I would like to have the amount of fake traffic replaced by real traffic with getting at least 100 views being normal. I’ll give four less known blog posts of mine which I’d like to see get more exposure. The heading has their name/link and date with a brief description below.

Ten Great Electric Piano Rock Songs - 12 February 2022

My 75th blog post about ten rock songs I enjoy that feature electric piano. The artists featured are Blues Image, Traffic, Elton John, Bob Seger, Eagles, Billy Joel, Daryl Hall & John Oates, Christopher Cross, Toto and Bad English.

Elton John & Cat Stevens's Duet Honey Man - 29 October 2022

This is about “Honey Man”, a duet by English superstars Elton John & Cat Stevens recorded in 1970. This song was unreleased until 2001. I embed it in the post.

The Power of Bob Seger’s Singing - 22 November 2023

This article is giving my thoughts on the power of American rocker Bob Seger’s singing. I refer to some Bob Seger songs in it.

Five Export Diversification Options for Sri Lanka - 20 April 2024

I give five sectors I’m suggesting Sri Lanka diversity its exports into which are computers & electronics, visual effects for Hollywood, pianos & keyboards, vehicles and planes.

I’m pleased to reach 100 blog posts. I plan to continue writing about similar issues to what I’ve written before and hope to cover new ground in future posts.