China 2007 (Shanghai, Suzhou, Hangzhou, Chengdu)
For Easter 2007 I travelled to China to visit Shanghai, some nearby water towns, and parts of Sichuan. It has taken me an age to get these online, but here are a few of my favourite shots from the trip.
Here is their famous Pearl Tower, as viewed from across the Huangpu river. This is a favourite place for people to stroll around in the evenings.
I thought Shanghai looked much prettier at night than in the day, thanks to all the neon. You could see it by the riverside, on the riverboats...
along the crowded shopping streets...
lighting up the traffic overpasses:
and even underfoot.
Following the busy metropolis, we visited the quiet gardens of Suzhou, where I was mostly preoccupied with detail rather than the traditional views.
In Hangzhou we visited the Lingyin Temple.
This was taken in a "tea village" in Hangzhou, which was a magnet for busloads of tourists. To escape the sales schtick, I wandered off, and found these deserted shoes.
I thought the paper cuts on display were cool too.
Then we spent a couple of days relaxing in the beautifully restored water town of Wuzhen. This is still in the nearby region of Shanghai. Under these cloches they were fermenting soybean paste.
Wuzhen was another place that looked prettier when it was illuminated at night:
We basically had the place to ourselves, as it had only been open a few months. The quietness felt a bit weird (I imagined it was like being on a film set), but it was great for wandering around in the rain for hours, to practice long exposures.
Next I flew West into Sichuan Province. This is in the quiet town of Songpan:
This sleepy Tibetan baby caught my eye. Many Tibetans and Hui (Muslim minority) people live here.
This man is from the Hui minority.
Nearby was the very scenic Jiuzhaiguo National Park, where I spent a day travelling around by bus, visiting the snow-melt lakes and some spectacular views.
The park was used as a shooting location for the film Hero.
After all that scenery I wanted to see the pandas of Wolong. A long, bumpy, dusty drive from Chengdu took me there, and I had to laugh when this was the first thing I saw, down the street from my hotel.
Once inside my (thankfully very nice, very modern) hotel, these words of caution amused me...exactly how rowdy can a game of Mah-Jong get??
But these fellas were the main attraction. This was at breakfast time; just a few hundredweight of bamboo to snack on...
The Wolong Research base houses pandas both old and young. This fur-ball was about 6 months old. There were tourists working at this base as volunteers, which is a great way to spend a week or so in close proximity to the pandas.
And as you can see, they are working hard to make some more pandas! This was a bit of a shock, even to my guide. She had never witnessed the pandas "in action" during her previous visits, so I guess I was lucky. There were teams of boffins taking notes outside the cages - so no pressure or anything!
A roof tile in Dujiangyan, where I visited the ancient irrigation system.
The local group tour guides never went anywhere without their loudhailers.
I was intrigued by the many different varieties of playing cards:
A crazy staircase, cut into the rock at Leshan, home of a giant Buddha statue:
In Chengdu they like the panda theme. They even use it on traffic lane dividers.
On my last night in China, I ate some cleverly branded dinner. This is the J-Kungfu fast food chain. I'd heard about it before I went, and spent 2 hours tracking it down. Thankfully, when I got there, it was very good.
Finally, one last view of the Shanghai Bund, from the rooftop of my hotel:
Thanks for looking.
Here is their famous Pearl Tower, as viewed from across the Huangpu river. This is a favourite place for people to stroll around in the evenings.
I thought Shanghai looked much prettier at night than in the day, thanks to all the neon. You could see it by the riverside, on the riverboats...
along the crowded shopping streets...
lighting up the traffic overpasses:
and even underfoot.
Following the busy metropolis, we visited the quiet gardens of Suzhou, where I was mostly preoccupied with detail rather than the traditional views.
In Hangzhou we visited the Lingyin Temple.
This was taken in a "tea village" in Hangzhou, which was a magnet for busloads of tourists. To escape the sales schtick, I wandered off, and found these deserted shoes.
I thought the paper cuts on display were cool too.
Then we spent a couple of days relaxing in the beautifully restored water town of Wuzhen. This is still in the nearby region of Shanghai. Under these cloches they were fermenting soybean paste.
Wuzhen was another place that looked prettier when it was illuminated at night:
We basically had the place to ourselves, as it had only been open a few months. The quietness felt a bit weird (I imagined it was like being on a film set), but it was great for wandering around in the rain for hours, to practice long exposures.
Next I flew West into Sichuan Province. This is in the quiet town of Songpan:
This sleepy Tibetan baby caught my eye. Many Tibetans and Hui (Muslim minority) people live here.
This man is from the Hui minority.
Nearby was the very scenic Jiuzhaiguo National Park, where I spent a day travelling around by bus, visiting the snow-melt lakes and some spectacular views.
The park was used as a shooting location for the film Hero.
After all that scenery I wanted to see the pandas of Wolong. A long, bumpy, dusty drive from Chengdu took me there, and I had to laugh when this was the first thing I saw, down the street from my hotel.
Once inside my (thankfully very nice, very modern) hotel, these words of caution amused me...exactly how rowdy can a game of Mah-Jong get??
But these fellas were the main attraction. This was at breakfast time; just a few hundredweight of bamboo to snack on...
The Wolong Research base houses pandas both old and young. This fur-ball was about 6 months old. There were tourists working at this base as volunteers, which is a great way to spend a week or so in close proximity to the pandas.
And as you can see, they are working hard to make some more pandas! This was a bit of a shock, even to my guide. She had never witnessed the pandas "in action" during her previous visits, so I guess I was lucky. There were teams of boffins taking notes outside the cages - so no pressure or anything!
A roof tile in Dujiangyan, where I visited the ancient irrigation system.
The local group tour guides never went anywhere without their loudhailers.
I was intrigued by the many different varieties of playing cards:
A crazy staircase, cut into the rock at Leshan, home of a giant Buddha statue:
In Chengdu they like the panda theme. They even use it on traffic lane dividers.
On my last night in China, I ate some cleverly branded dinner. This is the J-Kungfu fast food chain. I'd heard about it before I went, and spent 2 hours tracking it down. Thankfully, when I got there, it was very good.
Finally, one last view of the Shanghai Bund, from the rooftop of my hotel:
Thanks for looking.
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Comments
Thanks for sharing your adventure.
This is so precious, the baby nuzzled comfortably and soundly on mama's back. Would you mind linking me to a gallery where I can see more?
Your pictures are very intriguing - you seem to have an eye for unintentional beauty and interest among the most common of objects and scenes.