These exquisite, crystal-clear color images will stimulate your senses. The compilation is grouped into categories: pilgrimage, Lake Manasarovar, mounts Kailash and Everest, nomads and faces of the people. Alsop also includes information about geography, history, mythology and culture, as well as entries from his journal and a few artifacts to add spice to the installation.

Monks, pilgrims, prayer wheels and primary-colored prayer flags boldly waving against a cerulean-blue sky document the piety inherent in the Tibetan culture.

Alsop trekked through western Nepal for seven days before he crossed the Tibetan border lugging two SLR cameras loaded with slide film of different speeds. All of the images in the exhibit are uncropped and untouched by computer.

Sections of his six-week sojourn in 2003 took Alsop 17,000 feet above sea level in brutally cold October weather.

The photograph "Senior Monk at the Korja Monastery" is particularly memorable, presenting an invitation to enter an unfamiliar world, a world that Alsop shares with reverence. Here, a monk with a beatific smile beckons from a distinctive doorway.

Alsop's images capture the story of the people, etched into the wrinkles of their faces. It is mesmerizing to stare into eyes that appear so true, compassionate and direct. There is a visible essence captured here, as Alsop reminds us of the beauty of simplicity and the strength of the human spirit.

The next two courses of our visual feast are served at the Hono-lulu Academy of Arts.

SECOND COURSE: BUDDHIST ART

"Footprint of Thangka of a Lama," Tibet, late 12th century, 16 1/4 inches by 14 1/4 inches, Navin Kumar, New York Honolulu Academy of Art

After seeing Alsop's photographs, you will have a clear sense of the place where some of these relics originated. Many of the thangkas (religious paintings used as meditation aids) in this exhibit are from Tibet, while the carved stone footprints and deity figures are from Pakistan, India, Myanmar and Thailand.

For 400 years after his death, Buddha was depicted not in human form but in symbols. Although human forms are prevalent today, these symbols, including footprints, are still worshipped.

The oldest footprints in the exhibit are the grey schist Buddhapada (footprint of the Buddha) from the Gandhara region of Pakistan (second century). The largest, measuring 69 by 37 by 5 inches and made of brown limestone from Thailand (19th century), displays the 108 auspicious symbols.

The Buddhapada stone rubbings made from an eighth-century sacred stone carving from Japan are dazzling and also very rare. The stone from which they were rubbed is considered a national treasure.

The intensely detailed iconography painted on the Tibetan cloth thangkas are unique in that they exhibit actual hand- and footprints of revered lamas (teachers and priests) from the 12th through the 19th centuries. Two thangkas are mounted on their sides so that we are treated to the back of the paintings, revealing the actual hand and footprints of the lama who is pictured on the front.

Some of the prints were taken when the lama was a boy. It was interesting to note that some high-ranking lamas were artists who created highly influential styles.

The didactics are fascinating to read, and the exhibit is accompanied by a wonderful catalog.

THIRD COURSE: ART OF RICE

"Balinese Rice Farming," Bali, Indonesia, paint on cloth, 1930s. This naturalistic painting was collected by the Mexican modernist painter Miguel Covarrubias when he lived on Bali in the 1930s. Don Cole • Courtesy of the UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History

In South, Southeast and East Asian countries, rice is seen as a sacred food, and rice culture (as well as rice agriculture) dominates societies and landscapes.

Curated by Roy Hamilton of UCLA's Fowler Museum of Cultural History, this super-sized exhibit was six years in the making and draws from the research and expert knowledge of a team of 22 international scholars, anthropologists, artists, art specialists and museum curators.

It is a shining testimony to a grain first cultivated more than 8,000 years ago that, with 120,000 varieties, sustains almost half of the Earth's population.

The weighty 552-page catalog accompanying the exhibit is astounding in the depth and breadth of the history and current trends that mark this changing agricultural ethos. Two scoops, please.

FOURTH COURSE: MASKS OF SOUTHEAST ASIA

"Jetayu," meaning bird, is a mask from Sunda, West Java, Indonesia. East-West Center Gallery

Of course it helps that the crown on the "Sita Mask" from Thailand looks like a tiered cake.

The exhibit features a wide variety of mask types that show the scope of human potential, demons and animals that represent our lack of control, and clown and teacher masks that represent the return of balance to the universe.