Annaleah De Masi Photography

I went to the “soft opening” for Chicago Q last night (1160 N. Dearborn) and was delighted to see my pictures up close and personal. The images are huge! I freaking love it and they looked great with the restaurant decor. Cool fact- The frames are actually made from the floorboards of the original building.

Yay! Just passed a mini milestone in my career and I’m STOKED

I’m back in Chicago and should be capable of finding the time to actually update MY LIFE. And we’re not just talking bloggage here, I’m talking about everything!

As for what I’ve been up to- School here in Chi-town is mediocre and somewhat uninspiring but what can you do? I’m attending IADT for graphic design and am less the enthused. Mainly due to the fact that my heart is not in it! My heart is in the land of photo taking and I’ve had a few REALLY cool projects.

1. Being my new job at ActionVillage.com. Product photography are the main responsibilities so shoes, hoodies, skateboards BEWARE! I’m coming at ya with an aresenal of weapons including but not limited to- fire, chocolate, paint, dirt, nail guns, whip cream and many more destruct-o utilities.

2. I was recently commissioned to take some pictures for a restaurant called Chicago Q. I shot images of a country farm to accent the delicious country style gourmet food they’ll be serving. I’m looking for some quality BBQ in my life! And can’t wait to see my pictures printed out MASSIVE. Like in your FACE huge. So go check out the restaurant at 1160 N. Dearborn!!

PS- These pictures of the Farm are NOT in the restaurant. You’ll have to go check it out to see all of the pics in their glory!

The past few days in Kathmandu have been interesting and delightful! The city’s organzied chaos makes exploration easy. This place is a trekker/hippie paradise, reeking of patchouli oil and westerners stomping around the dirty streets barefoot. Wasn’t originally my cup of tea but I’ll admit, I bought a pair of the Aladdin pants to fit in, no shame!

By far one of my favorite mammals to have met on this Kathmandu journey has been Gi Gi, the cutest puppy ever! This puppy was apparently abandoned and had been wandering the streets but made it’s way into our hostel some how. So I decided to name it Gi Gi and then proceeded to give Gi Gi a bath. I spent the rest of the day being stoked that I had myself a Nepalese puppy and took Gi Gi for walks around town in my backpack. Another hotel had a house pug and i stopped by to see where I could get a leash for Gi Gi. They let me leave the pup there while I went to lunch and by the time I came back to pick Gi Gi up, the owner of the hotel had found a home for Gi Gi! A lovely lady came to meet the little pup with me and she fell in love with Gi Gi just as I had. I helped her home with Gi Gi and got to cruise through the city on a moped for a couple of hours with her. Met her 2 adorable children that were thrilled to have a new addition to the family and now Gi Gi is going to live happily ever after! In a land of Buddhism and Hinduism, they say that’ll bring some good karma and I hope it comes in the form of anti-indigestion for the rest of the trip. Gi Gi!Gi Gi’s new family!

Had our first night out a couple evenings ago and I thoroughly enjoyed the club scene. There’s a great Reggae bar in Thamel that hosts a Nepalese Bob Marley cover band that was actually pretty good! We met some Aussies dudes that were rad and on a mission to make a calendar of nude pictures of themselves in front of 8 of the worlds highest peaks. We had caught them as they were celebrating their Everest photoshoot and they were happy to share some of the local booze, a deliciously strong vodka brand appropriately nammed White Mischief. The night got late, we got rowdy but I was able to behave myself though my travel companion Meisha effectively made out with a vacuum and managed to come home covered in hickys. So if you see her wearing a scarf in pics, know it’s not for fashion purposes but damage control.
Today we did a trek! Up through the hills around Kathmandu valley. It was beautiful. Started off a bit hazy but managed to clear up as we got higher, though ironically after 6 hours of hiking to the top view point, the haze had returned in full force and we were unable to see anything. Along the way was what was interesting though, cruising through mountain villages and farm lands and coming across dead bodies..oh the usual! When we approached this one village there just was a body laying in the street with the villagers surrounding it and just staring. Apparently, it was left over from the night before. A young man had drank too much White Mischief and had died, right there in the middle of the street! I don’t know if it was true or not but I feel like I may avoid the White Mischief until an autopsy has been performed. Lesson learned.

Sorry for not back tracking to Tibet stories at the moment but I will get back on it soon. And for a new update on the game plan-Originally we were to do the Annapurna Circuit but we have unfortunately had to divert plans due to political strife and Maoists that are causing problems in the high lands where we were supposed to be trekking. So we’re actually leaving tomorrow for Cambodia!! Really looking forward to riding some elephants, checking out Angkor Wat and REALLY looking forward to Brie and baguettes. Thank you France for occupying Southeast Asia in the 1800s! J’taime!

PS-I totally apologize for not uploading more images but those 2 imagese alone have taken me like an hour to upload!! I’ll keep trying to get a few up here and there.

Wow! I totally apologize for promising to keep everyone updated and then continuing to do nothing of the sorts, I’m blaming China!! I have gone through facebook withdrawel in addition to failed blogging guilt….

So, I have FINALLY arrived in Nepal after 2 weeks of overland traveling, starting in Beijing. Beijing was a rather jaded experience, but in a good way I suppose. We had a family friend taking care of us (Thank you SO much Mr. Liu, Stephanie and Vong!) and stayed in a lovely hotel near the Olympic Village. The second we stepped out of our little oasis, all expectations were thrown to the wind though-
A. I have NEVER seen so many people in my entire life! It was a holiday upon our arrival and all 16 million Beijing (ers?) were out. Single file, very organized
B. The food…oh, the food! Chicken feet are available in dishes that do not include chicken.
C. No one knew English…at all…but our Mandarin is solid, ni hao!
D. Beijing SWAT teams are incredibly helpful and love Carrie Underwood
E. If you don’t wear Converse sneakers or denim booty shorts with leggings, you aren’t cool.
F. Chinese people loved to take pictures with white girls from U-S-A (peace sign and cheesie smile)

Once we completed the usual Beijing rounds, we boarded the infamous Quinghai Express, en route to Tibet….for 45 HOURS! We were supposed to be in one of the fancy sleeper cabins but there some how was a mix-up and we were in a tin-can cabin with 6 other people, stacked on top of eachother, literally. Everything was fine for the first 24hours, lots of sleeping until we picked up a few new passengers for our compartment that were rather fond of the foulest smelling pickled CHICKENS FEET one could imagine. For the following 20 something hours, we stayed in the dining car. Made friends with some Spainiard boys and played lots of chess. We accrued a crowd, apparently they don’t play chess in China.

Once arriving in Lhasa we were ready for a new beginning and a loooooooong shower. We weren’t particularly looking forward to our hostel since Lonely Planet called it similiar to ‘Cell Block H’ but we actually really enjoyed the graffitied walls and ‘retro’ feel. We had hot showers, and that’s all that mattered. Lhasa was amazing though! The people were beautiful and the city was delightful and none of the meals included chicken’s feet….

Ahhh! I have so much more to say but I need to meet some friends for dinner and begin a little exploration of Kathmandu! I’ll pick up where I left off tomorrow- Coming up next: Monasteries and monks, being stuck in a car for 4 days with a British gentleman, an asshole Texan and a sweet Chinese/Cantonese/Austrailian chica. Tenzin and car wrecks. EVEREST! And everything else in between. I’ll be sure to keep everyone updated from now on because I don’t think Blogging is illegal anywhere else in the world besides China.

PS-I have BILLIONS of pictures but i can’t figure out how to load them just yet..coming soon!

So, I’ll admit, I’ve been indulging in solitary confinement for a bit… I haven’t really jumped on the blog boat yet and had no particular interest in showing the rest of the world what I do on a daily basis. But as of the past couple of weeks, I’ve been planning a very intricate and exciting trip that I would A. Like to share my wonderful experiences with everyone B. give my friends and family the opportunity to keep tabs on my whereabouts, including brief stints in foreign jails and/or medical facilities. Fingers crossed, option B. stories will not pop up in these pages but there will undoubtedly be crazy days, long nights, interesting people and a SHIT LOAD of pics to be posted along the way. After all, this is not only a trip to declare true independence, but it is a trip to grow and learn from unlike any other trip I’ve experienced and who knows, perhaps I’ll end up never coming back and living in a Buddhist Monastery for the rest of my life…Just kidding! Love you Buddha but damn, I love burgers! And of course, my stilettos on occasion….

Here’s the Itinerary (more of a list, have no idea when and where I’ll actually end up)-

1. Depart for Beijing tomorrow at 5am. AHHHH

2. Kick it in Beijing for a couple days and feel the fantastic sensation of being taller then the average human for a couple of days.

3. Depart for a rendezvous with Tibet. Includes 48 hour train ride to Lhasa and 10 days overland that ends in Kathmandu, Nepal.

4. Cross the Nepalese boarder, hopefully with all of my belongings and chill in Kathmandu for a couple of days.

5. Hit the Annapurna Sanctuary trek (hell, i know it sounds ambitious but seriously, i’ve been training)

6. 10 days later and probably smelling really badly and in desperate need of doing laundry, stay a night in Kathmandu before departing for Singapore.

7. CRASH my cousin’s sweet ass house in Singapore. Yup, Jay, you better be ready for this!!

8. Chillllllll and find the official full moon party in Thailand plus eat some AMAZING food (those 10lbs i lost hiking will probably jump right back on but it’s really OK, seriously)

9. Make my way to Australia to see the Great Barrier Reef because i’m kind of obsessed with it.

10. Finish my 2 month journey by seeing some friendly faces down in sweet as New Zealand

Homeward bound after that, most likely in a ramshackle kind of condition but with some insane stories and good lessons learned. Probably will be speaking some broken english in addition to Aussie/Kiwi slang but hopefully keeping a blog will encourage my verbal communication skills to keep in check. ..

Anyway, happy reading! Friends and fam, you better read and I’ll be sure to really, like for REAL keep everyone posted this time around!

Cheers and PEACE OUT!! XOXO