Made in China

Glass Eyeball Strobist Meetup - Smoke

2012-02-11T15:59:00.000-08:00

I recently organized a Strobist meetup for the University of Chicago's photography club - The Glass Eyeball. We got a lot of people and equipment together and hosted three activities: Smoke and droplet photography, on-location portraits, and studio portraits. It was a good learning experience for me as a teacher and for the participants as photographers. I thought I'd share some of the smoke photos I got. This was the first time I've tried smoke photography, and I found it pretty fun once everything was set up (and even the setup wasn't really that hard - you just need incense and a flash). Enjoy!

a quickr pickr post

UChicago Winter 2012

2012-02-03T13:11:00.000-08:00

Winter has come again, meaning its time to pull out the boots, hats, and scarves. Surprisingly, though, the winter seems to have temporarily receded - temperatures reached the low-50s earlier this week. In any case, winter quarter has proven to be fairly busy for me - hence the lack of recent blog posts. I have been taking plenty of pictures, though. These images are from a few chilly weeks we had earlier this quarter and the warmer weeks we have had recently. I have a lot of photos of the Mansueto Library (the glass dome) because this winter is its first winter and it has been interesting to see what it looks like covered in snow.

I have also been enjoying shooting with my iPhone. I even got one of the photos I took with my iPhone printed on the front page of the school newspaper (something I've been trying to do every since I got a new phone). Newspaper is a very forgiving print medium, but it still shows that the iPhone camera is very capable.

Enjoy the photos! More soon to come.

Flurries broke days of unseasonably warm weather, dusting the Mansueto Library with snow.

A gorgeous winter sunset in Oakland, California.

The garyole above the anatomy building at UChicago.

Max Palevsky Residence Hall at the University of Chicago.

The C Bench in front of Cobb Hall at the University of Chicago.

This is the Mansueto Library's first Chicago winter.

The snow-capped side of the Regenstein Library at the University of Chicago.

Snow creeps up on the glass surface of the Mansueto Library at the University of Chicago.

Students make their way to class during a snow storm in Chicago. Taken from the third floor of Wieboldt Hall at the University of Chicago.

I wanted to get some macro shots of snowflakes, but the only place I could get them to stick without melting was my furry jacket. So I just shot them there. Taken with 50mm 1.8 + full set of macro tubes and heavily cropped.

The University of Chicago quads during a snow storm.

Rosenwald Hall in the midst of a snow storm in Chicago. Taken on the University of Chicago campus.

The glass top of the Mansueto Library emerges from the snow-covered landscape.

Rockefeller Chapel on an usually warm February day in Chicago.

Stained glass on Rockefeller Chapel is illuminated by the afternoon sun.

a quickr pickr post

Tilden Views

2012-01-04T13:25:00.000-08:00

I'm back in Chicago now but I have yet to post my last set of images from the Bay Area. These are from the Sea View trail in Tilden Park, where my photography bud and I witnessed a stunning winter sunset. My telephoto lens was very handy for getting images of the Golden Gate Bridge and downtown San Francisco. Enjoy!

Christmas Tree Abstracts

2011-12-25T23:29:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago a friend and I were shooting in Tilden Park during sunset. We drove up to Inspiration Point in hope of catching sunset, but by the time we got there the sun was pretty much down and the temperature plummeted (relatively speaking - this is still California we are talking about here). From Inspiration Point we could see a gigantic Christmas tree lit up across the valley, so we decided to head down and check it out. The Christmas tree was located at the park's merry-go-round, and was indeed huge. Unable to get any interesting photos of the merry-go-round, I started to take some pictures of the christmas tree. After doing a traditional Christmas tree bokeh shot, I began to mess around with intentionally blurring the lights to create patterns. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I've formatted them as iPhone, iPad, and laptop wallpapers which can be viewed below the break or downloaded here. Merry Christmas!

a quickr pickr post

View these images formatted as iPhone, iPad, and laptop wallpapers.

House Fire

2011-12-20T23:29:00.000-08:00

One day last week I was sitting peacefully at my computer editing some photos. I glanced out my window, and where there should have been a clear blue sky I saw a plume of white smoke billowing from the ground below. After uttering a few expletives and dashing over to the window, I saw that my neighbor's house was on fire. Luckily, the fire department came quickly and everybody got out of the house safely. From my room I had an excellent view of the burning house, and since I wasn't going to be much help putting out the fire I took some photos of the firemen at work. Many thanks to the Oakland fire department for their quick response!

a quickr pickr post

Occupy Oakland Port Shutdown

2011-12-13T00:34:00.000-08:00

I made it down to today's Occupy Oakland protests, which involved a long march from downtown Oakland to the Port of Oakland. Of course, I brought my camera with me, but didn't get as many good photos as I would have liked because I was also on bike, and couldn't really lock it up anywhere. Lesson learned: next time I'll go without a bike (although it made getting home from the port much easier). In any case, the protest seemed to attract a pretty sizable crowd (I think I saw an article online that said there were 2,000 protestors, and that seems about right to me). I heard that some of the night shifts were called off because of the protests, so it seems that they were at least somewhat effective.

Occupy protestors march through Oakland on their way to the port on December 12th's day of action.

Occupy protestors stretch out along Middle Harbor Rd. during Dec 12th's march to occupy the Oakland Port.

Occupy Oakland protestors race to Berth 32 to support a bicycle blockade preventing trucks from loading their cargo.

An Occupy Oakland protestor at Berth 32 supporting a bicycle blockade preventing trucks from loading their cargo.

Occupy Oakland protestors rock out on the back of a truck during Dec 12th's move to occupy the Oakland Port.

UChicago Fall 2011

2011-11-25T08:05:00.000-08:00

Some photos I've accumulated of the UChicago campus throughout fall quarter. I haven't had as much time to shoot photos for the blog this quarter because I am now a photography editor at our school newspaper, the Chicago Maroon. You can view the photos I've taken for the Maroon here. Also, I recently picked up an iPhone 4S, and have been enjoying the much improved camera. Two of the photos in this set were taken on my iPhone - see if you can tell which ones...

A gorgeous day outside Rockefeller Chapel at the University of Chicago.

Kent during the fall on the left and during a snowstorm in winter on the right.

Max Palevsky East Residence Hall at twilight.

Max Palevsky Central Residence Hall at twilight.

Erman hall under construction.

Haskell Hall on the University of Chicago campus.

Harper Library at twilight during the fall at the University of Chicago.

Harper Quads at the University of Chicago at twilight.

One of my favorite compositions on the quads - a path leading towards Cobb on the University of Chicago Quads.

Harper Library at twilight during the fall at the University of Chicago.

iPhone, iPad, and Desktop Wallpaper Pack

2011-10-21T14:02:00.000-07:00

In light of the recent release of iOS 5, I'm publishing a selection of my most recent photos as wallpapers for your iPhone, iPad, and computer. These wallpapers are specifically formatted to look good with the iOS lock screen layout, but will obviously work with other mobile operating systems as well. If you are viewing this page on an iOS device, you can download one of these photos to use as your wallpaper or lock screen, just press and hold the picture until a menu comes up, and select "Save Image". You should then be able to find it your "Saved Photos" folder in the Photos app and can set it as your wallaper from there. On your computer, you can right click on any of the wallpapers to download the full resolution file, or to directly set it as your wallpaper. Alternatively, you can download the entire wallpaper pack and sync the photos to your device.

I can't get internal links to work, but the iPhone wallpapers are first, followed by iPad and then desktop wallpapers at the bottom.

Scroll down or click "Read More" too see all of the photos

Enjoy!

Read More

Occupy Chicago March on Jackson Street

2011-10-16T15:10:00.000-07:00

Last night I was in downtown Chicago on a photo walk with the UChicago Glass Eyeball Photo Club, and we decided to stop by the ongoing Occupy Chicago protests. The protests were being held at the intersection of Jackson and La Salle. When we arrived there were a few hundred people protesting, but as the night went on and people got off work, the crowd grew dramatically. I've seen numbers between 2,000 and 4,000 in the media, but in any case there were a lot of people. Once the crowd was sufficiently large, the protestors Marched down Jackson street, blocking off traffic for probably an hour. The march ended in Grant Park, where many protestors slept over in tents (and over 100 were later arrested). The protest suffered a bit from the lack of coherent demand, but clearly a lot of people are angry about the economy and want change.

Enjoy!

a quickr pickr post

A Morning on the River with UChicago Men's Crew

2011-10-02T20:50:00.000-07:00

One fine Thursday morning during UChicago Orientation Week I accompanied the UChicago Men's crew team to the Chicago River on one of their their daily 4am practices. Woefully underdressed, my hands nearly froze off and I was shivering for most of the van ride home. While I was on the water, though, I was concentrated on getting a sharp, in-focus image. With only very dim ambient street light to shoot by, moving targets, and the craptacular Canon 50mm 1.8 (which stuggles to focus properly in well-lit situations), I resorted to spray-and-pray shooting. Four gigabytes later, I got a couple shots that were in-focus and were realtively unblurry. Once the sun came up things got a little better as well. As far as rivers to row on go, passing so close to downtown and all the riverside industry is pretty interesting. Enjoy!

This is actually the women's team. I rode in their van on the way over to the river.

Forgotten Beijing Photos

2011-09-21T09:09:00.000-07:00

A few photos I forgot to post before I left Beijing. I'm trying out a new feature on blogger called "Lightbox". If you click on and photo, it should enlarge to fit your screen and you can easily scroll through all of the photos in the post. Enjoy!

A father and dughter eat at an outdoor restaurant near Minzu University in Beijing, China.

A satay stand on the side of a busy read near Minzu University, Beijing.

Light streams into a courtyard home near Nanluoguxiang Hutong in Beijing, China.

Characters reading "Danger" on a fence in Beijing.

Bryce and Zion National Parks

2011-09-18T14:24:00.000-07:00

A week after I got back from China my family went on vacation to Bryce and Zion National Parks. I don't have tons to say about either park except that they are both gorgeous. If you find youself in Zion, I highly recommend the hike the bottom-up hike in the Narrows. Enjoy!

We flew into Las Vegas to drive to Bryce and Zion. This is from the lobby of the Bellagio.

China Travels: Hong Kong

2011-09-14T16:50:00.000-07:00

Writing the last three posts took forever and I'm going back to school on Thursday, so this post is going to be a short one. Hong Kong is probably the most written about and easily accessible place I visited, so I don't feel quite as bad about skimping on my write-up :)

A few thoughts about Hong Kong:

Flying from Beijing to Hong Kong was funny because Beijing essential copied the design of the Hong Kong airport. When I got off the plane I felt like I was arriving in the place I departed.
Chungking Mansions, which has a reputation for being the cheapest place to stay in Hong Kong (and of course where I stayed), was not nearly a sketchy as the reviews online made it out to be. Based on what I read online, I was expecting a decrepit, dirty building with people outside ready to mug me at all hours of the day. In fact, the building was very much intact, wasn't really that dirty, and the people outside were just persistent naggers trying to get you to stay in their hostels. It does seem to suffer from having only two elevators to serve the entire building, but they hired a security guard to manage the elevator lines. Apparently the building has undergone renovations in the past 10 years that have made it considerably better than it was before, but I can't help wondering if the building's bad reputation is in part due to lingering colonial prejudice against the large number of Indian, African, and South-Asian immigrants living in the building.

The green building is Chungking Mansions.

Nathan Road is absolutely insane. I visited Las Vegas two weeks after I was in Hong Kong and I'd say that the two are probably on par in terms of neon signage, but Nathan Road is so much more densely populated that it felt much more overwhelming than Las Vegas.

The Avenue of the Stars is gorgeous - it was probably my favorite spot in Hong Kong.

Coming from Beijing, the food prices nearly gave me a heart attack. Although the Hong Kong dollar is worth slightly less than the Yuan, all the prices are much higher in Hong Kong. I paid 30HKD for a bowl of noodles that would have cost 7RMB in China. Also, there was very little street food (at least in the tourist areas).
I loved the ferry (and I'm glad they kept it relatively cheap too).
I visited during a weekend in the middle of August: probably the worst time of year to visit Hong Kong. Visiting in August meant that it was really hot and really humid. I couldn't go outside without sweating. Visiting on a weekend in the summer meant that it was peak tourist season. I tried to take the tram up to Victoria's peak, but there was a two hour wait. I took the bus instead (which was also very nice).
Victoria's Peak was gorgeous, but also sadly commercialized. There were two huge malls at the top. The tram led to one of the malls and taxis and the bus led to the other. Also, there was barely enough room at the overlook for me to set up a tripod. I was kind hoping I would have to hike up a trail to make it to the top...

Victoria's Peak has got to be one of the most photographed spots on the planet, so getting a unique photo is nearly impossible without unusual lighting. I did some funk split toning in hopes that this shot would stand out a little bit from other Peak shots.

I visited a fishing village called Tai O that was kinda interesting. The entire place was essentially a long street market. I bought some local-made iced tea which was pretty good, and had a delicious but overpriced grilled scallop. Overall it was a nice change of pace from Nathan Road.

A few more shots that didn't fit under any particular thought:

This guy uses a long pole the pull in the ferry.

So that's my take on Hong Kong. I'd love to go back sometime and explore some of the island in the New Territories - there seemed to be lots of photography potential there. My next post will be photos (and minimal writing) from Zion and Bryce National Parks.

China Travels: Wutai Shan

2011-09-13T17:20:00.000-07:00

This is a continuation of my four-part series on my travels in northern China. Read the first two posts here and here.

The next morning I woke up at 5am (ugh) to catch my 7:30am bus to Wutai Shan. Amazingly, there were only 5 passengers going to Wutai Shan that morning, leaving me ample room to spread out on the 40-seat bus – not something you get to do much on Chinese public transportation. The drive from Datong to Wutai Shan took about five hours because part of the mountain road was under construction. However, the slowest parts often had the best views: admiring the lush green hills and mist-covered vistas kept me occupied during most of the ride.

One of the few perks of getting up at 5am - gorgeous sunrises. This was taken out of the window of my hotel room in Datong.

Wutai Shan (literally: Five Plateau Mountain) is one of the four sacred mountains of Chinese Buddhism and is home to Manjusri, one of the four great bodhisattvas. It is home to 53 monasteries (almost all of which are active) and is a UNESCO world heritage site (Background info from Wikipedia). I spent two days visiting temples all day but I barely scratched the surface. I would love to spend more time there in the future just to see more of the temples and visit some of the five peaks (none of which I made it to, unfortunately).

After checking into my hotel (which claimed that I didn’t have a reservation, even though I had called and confirmed my reservation the day before - bah), I went to the town of Taihuai, where some of the more popular and easily accessible temples are located. I started off with the Ta Yuan Temple, the temple that contains an iconic white pagoda that is often shown in Wutai Shan postcards. While I was walking around the temple a monk from Sichuan came up to me and wanted to take a picture. I obliged, even though I could barely understand what he was saying through his thick Sichuanese accent. We walked around the temple together for a while spinning the prayer wheels, and then I said goodbye and went of to take pictures on my own.

As I was on my way out of the temple, another monk gave me the token “Hello!” that foreigners receive so much in China. As has become my habit now, I responded in Chinese. As we walked out of the temple the monk introduced me to a friend, and the three of us began to chat as we walked. Out of the two monks, the one who initiated the conversation with me was much more talkative. His name was Qing Mai (I never learned the name of the second monk), and both of them were from Tibet. They were studying in Wutai Shan for several weeks – a study trip/pilgrimage to the sacred mountains. Interestingly, they said that Tibetan monks were forbidden from living in the monasteries like most of the other monks do when they visit Wutai Shan. They invited me to come with them to another nearby temple, and I happily followed along.

We ended up spending the better part of the afternoon exploring the temples in the area together. The temples themselves were interesting, but I especially enjoyed talking to Qing Mai and his friend and seeing how they interacted with the temples. Many of the temples had Tibetan inscriptions or Tibetan prayer flags, and they translated the script for me. Like me, Mandarin was their second language, and we bonded over the difficulties of studying it. Qing Mai also was insistent that I get pictures in front of every temple we visited, and I think he enjoyed using my camera.

Note the foreigner stare on the left.

At the end of the day we took pictures together in front of the white pagoda. Qing Mai gave me a string of prayer beads he was wearing as a gift, and I gave him a small prayer bead bracelet I was wearing in return (although I was slightly embarrassed I only had one bracelet since there were two of them). We parted paths and I went back to my hotel. Tired from the long day, I grabbed a quick dinner and went to bed early.

China: on its way to being the largest economy in the world, but they still can't design a bathroom that won't electrocute you during a shower.

A store selling Buddhist Paraphernalia.

The next morning I woke up at 4:50am to catch the sunrise. I wanted to go back into town and take pictures of the white pagoda at sunrise. Unfortunately, the busses weren’t running that early, so I could only shoot in the area around me. I decided to try to get on top of one of the nearby mountains and shoot the valley below. Without any idea how exactly to get to the top of the mountain, I began walking down a road that looked like it might lead in the right direction. I walked down the road for about twenty minutes without seeing a good way to climb the mountain. Finally, I came to the end of the road, and was ready to turn around and run to another location before the good light was all gone. However, as I got closer to the end of the road, I saw a temple that was hidden by construction in front. The front door was open and nothing said I couldn’t go in. I peeked around the inner courtyard and heard chants coming from a hall directly in front of me.

At the entrance to the hall I looked inside and saw a line at least twenty monks chanting in unison. One of the monks who wasn’t praying said I could go inside and watch. I sat on a pad on the side of the hall and listened to the chanting for about twenty minutes. Unfortunately, I wasn’t allowed to take pictures inside the hall, but it was a very cool scene.

Part of the reason this temple (I later found out it was called the Guanyin Cave Temple – Guanyin is the Bodhisattva of Compassion) attracted me was because it had a stairway up the side of the mountain. After listening to the chants I climbed the stairs and enjoyed the view from the top. Unfortunately, the cave at the top after which the temple was named wasn’t open yet, and I never had a chance to go back and check it out. The sunrise was fairly unexciting, but I enjoyed just sitting at the top of the mountain and looking over the valley. Once I was finished exploring the Guanyin Cave Temple, I walked back down the same road I came from and walked to what became my favorite temple I visited in Wutai Shan: the Nanshan Temple.

The Nanshan Temple(literally: South Mountain Temple) is located on top of a mountain. The temple was divided into three terraces, each built at a different time period. Each terrace had courtyards within itself, and the effect is that the temple feels like a maze. You enter at the lowest terrace and climb up. As you ascend you can look back and see the lower parts of the temple below you and the gorgeous valley behind it. If felt as if the temple was floating in the middle of the valley. The effect was magical; my photos really don’t do it justice.

I walked up to the top terrace and then went back down the way I came. It was now around 10am, and I decided to take a nap for a few hours to recuperate from my early morning mountain adventures. I woke up at around noon, got some lunch, and took the bus to Taihuai.

Touche, Google Translate (it should be "Stewed Fish Restaurant").

I made my way to the Dai Luo Peak: a temple atop a tall mountain accessible by chairlift or a very long flight of stairs. I was not in any hurry so I opted to take the stairs up. There were 1080 stairs to the top, and some devout Buddhists stopped at every third step, knelt, and bowed their heads to the steps while saying a prayer. Doing this the entire way up meant 360 repetitions, and the people who made it to the top all wore padding on their legs to endure the repeated kneeling. I hung out at the top of the mountain hoping for a nice sunset, but, alas, one never materialized. I walked down the mountain, ate at a noodle restaurant for dinner, and had another relaxed evening.

One of the many beggars on the path up to Dai Luo Peak.

Apparently there is some tradition where lovers buy a lock and lock it to the chains at the top of high-up mountains as a sign of their commitment.

Not even the Nobel Eightfold Path can compete with Apple products.

This poor monkey was being sold at the top of the mountain. I'm surprised he didn't mauled his owner for making him wear this awful suit and hat every day.

The next morning I woke up early again to catch sunrise. I decided to revisit Nanshan temple and see if I could get some images of it under the nice morning light. I made it to the temple at 5:40 am only to find that the door was closed. Somehow the 19-year-old college student had gotten up earlier than the Buddhist monks. I waited out front, enjoying the view and catching up withy my journal entries. After about half an hour two local men climbed the stairs towards the entrance, and I asked what time the door opened. They said it should open any minute. I chatted with them while we waited. They were both life-long resident of Wutai Shan (as evident by their sometimes incomprehensible accents – isolated areas like Wutai Shan can develop strong dialects) and they told me that they climbed to the top of Nanshan temple every morning before work. I imagined how relaxing it would be to visit the temple every morning, and was extremely envious of their easy access to such a gorgeous temple. The door opened and I followed them as they climbed up the temple’s terraces. We talked for a while at the top, they took a bunch of pictures of me, and then we walked down to the bottom of the hill together and parted ways.

Apparently this Fu Dog was smashed during the cultural revolution.

Unlike the bus to Wutai Shan, the bus back to Beijing was completely full. I settled into my seat and made conversation with a Finnish couple sitting across the row from me. The first two hours of the trip went smoothly. Then, somewhere in some desolate part of Hebei province, we suddenly pulled over on the side of the freeway. The driver got out, examined the front of the bus, got back in, and tried the start the engine. The bus' engine choked, and a red light illuminated on the dashboard, accompanied by a shrill beep. We were stuck for the time being. At first everybody stayed in the bus, hoping the problem would be resolved quickly. After about twenty minutes, the bus was starting to become unbearably hot, and people got off the bus. It was around 90 degrees outside and very humid – not the best weather for a bus breakdown. When it became clear we were going to be stuck for a while, I stepped outside. Under the front of the bus was a large pool of water, which I was told was from the air conditioner. In the back, our driver was working in the depths of the engine to try to fix whatever ailment the bus had developed. At first, we thought it needed more oil, so we got a passing truck to bring us some oil. At one point one of the more proactive passengers made a roadblock on the service road and stopped two 16-wheelers and a SUV and wouldn’t let them pass until they gave us some oil (see the video below, it didn’t work out very well). But adding oil did not help, and we were stuck watching the driver hopelessly press the ignition and listening to the engine fail.

We called the police, but the passengers were all very pessimistic about getting help from them. They said the police don’t really care about average people in situations like this, and that even though the dispatcher said the police would come, all the passengers said it would take hours. People complained that they were just “Lao bai xing” – average people; if they had powerful connections the police would come immediately. They also pointed out that in America people would not be left stranded on the side of the road for hours without assistance. At one point they had me call and explain that there were three foreigners on the bus, in hopes that foreigners might get preferential treatment in the eyes of the police. After waiting for over three hours, the police finally showed up. Along with the police came a huge tow truck. The police forced our driver, who up the this point had been set on repairing the bus and refused to call for a backup bus from another company, to get us another bus and send us on our way back to Beijing.

The tow truck towed the bus to a nearby service station where we could relax in the shade and buy some much-needed ice cream at the convenience store. We waited for our replacement bus in relative comfort, happy to be in a cool spot where we could sit. The bus finally came and we had a smooth ride back to Beijing – arriving about four hours later than expected.

We arrived at a bus station in the southwest part of the city, about an hour away from my host home where I was spending the night. Exhausted, I hastily boarded another bus and thankfully had an uneventful ride home. My host family had already eaten dinner, so I stopped at a nearby restaurant and ordered Kung Pao chicken – the last plate of the delicious dish I would eat for a while. The next morning I flew to Hong Kong – the subject of tomorrow’s post.

China Travels: Datong

2011-09-08T13:54:00.000-07:00

This is the second post in about my tens days of traveling in northern China this summer. If you haven’t read the first post, I recommend you do so. This post is about my time in Datong, the provincial capital of Shanxi. I was originally going to include Wutaishan in this post as well, but I felt the Datong portion was long enough as is. Enjoy!

I woke up in my three-person suite in Datong craving knife-cut noodles (刀削面). Knife-cut noodles are noodles that are cut on a board such that the momentum from the knife propels the noodles into a pot of boiling water (this picture explains it pretty well). There are many variations on the broth and toppings for the noodles, but most of them are delicious. I was introduced to knife-cut noodles by a friend at the Renmin University cafeteria, and got hooked on the tomato and egg soup variety. Luckily, Datong is famous for its knife-cut noodles. I excitedly set out for a bowl of authentic Shanxi knife-cut noodles. I also needed to buy a bus ticket to Wutaishan for the next day, so I headed towards the bus station.

On the way to the bus station I passed a Bank of China, which is one of the few banks in China that reliably accepts foreign ATM cards, and I decided to grab some cash. After successfully withdrawing cash, but with my debit card still sitting in the ATM slot, I stood in front of the ATM and struggled to put the cash into my tourist organizer pouch, which, for all its stylistic shortcomings, worked really well for holding my passport and cash (I kept it in my pants pockets, though. Having a passport-shaped bulge under my shirt all day seemed to invite thieves more than just keeping it hidden in my pocket and tied to my belt). Suddenly, the ATM beeped three times and sucked my debit card back into the depths of the machine. Horrified, I stared at the screen, which read, “Time limit exceeded”. I stood in shock for an awful moment of silence when the machine spit out a paper receipt with a claim number and instructions about how to retrieve my card. If this had happened when the branch was closed at night I would have been royally screwed, but luckily I was able to walk right over to the service desk and explain to them that the ATM ate my card. They recued my card from the depths of the machine and I went on my way.

I continued on towards the bus station and found a small knife-cut noodle restaurant on the way. I stepped inside; the boss took one look at me and said “I bet you want knife-cut noodles”. I admitted that I was craving knife-cut noodles, and I ordered a large bowl. As I sat and waited for my noodles, I talked to an old man who was also sitting in the restaurant. A few minutes later my noodles came out, and I hungrily gobbled them down.

I finished by breakfast, made it to the bus station, and bought a ticket to the next day’s destination, Wutaishan. At this point I returned to my hotel, checked out of my three-person room and made a reservation for a single room that night. Done with the morning’s errands, I got on the bus to the Yungang caves.

Lonely Planet describes the Yungang caves as “One of China’s most superlative examples of Buddhist cave art”. The caves contain over 51,000 ancient statues, some of which are very, very large. A little more history from Lonely Planet:

“Carved by the Turkic-speaking Tuoba, the Yungang Caves draw their designs from Indian, Persian and even Greek influences that swept along the Silk Road. Work began in AD 460, continuing for 60 years before all 252 caves, the oldest collection of Buddhist carvings in China, had been completed.”

I arrived at the caves and found my way to the entrance building. The Yungang caves are Datong’s biggest tourist attraction, and my impression was that in an effort to increase tourism the Datong city government poured loads of money into the facilities around the caves. The visitor’s center was surprisingly modern and high-end, and, more impressively housed the cleanest and most luxurious public toilets I have ever seen in China. Without a hint of the wet floors or headache-inducing bleach fumes that usually plague public bathrooms in China, these bathrooms looked like they came out of a Four Seasons. If you need to pee in Shanxi, this is definitely the place to go.

But the bathrooms were not the only marvel of Chinese construction I saw that day. After I bought my absurdly overpriced entrance ticket (¥125 for adults, ¥70 for students - I guess the money goes towards the bathrooms), I started to walk towards the cave complex. Before, I reached the ancient caves, though, I went though a temple in the middle of a lake. The temple, and everything inside, was still under construction. I’m unclear about if they were modeling the temple off of one that was previously in the same place, or if they were just building a new one. Still, I liked the idea of a temple in a lake, and even though it was brand new it was still fun to walk through. It was also just another sign of the amount of effort the government is putting in to making Datong and the outlying Yungang caves a tourist destination. In addition to the clean bathrooms and newly-built temples, there were free shuttles to bring people up and down from the caves, all of the roads and paths were newly built and very well-maintained, and the surrounding areas had at few acres of newly-planted trees. The government’s efforts have paid off: the Yungang caves were one of the best-run tourist attractions I have seen in China. (For more information about Datong's recent renovations I highly suggest you read this article by Ian Johnson in the New York Review of Books.)

One of the first caves I went into, Cave 5, contained a 55.7 ft (17m) tall sitting Buddha statue carved out of the cave. This Buddha was the biggest in the Yungang caves, and was probably one of the biggest Buddhas I’ve ever seen.

I visited all of the caves that were open (some were closed for restoration work), and while some were larger and grander than others, they were all extraordinarily intricate and impressive. It’s hard to imagine how much work must have gone into carving those caves. With nothing else scheduled for the day, I lazily wandered around the caves admiring the carvings. Check out the photos below to get an idea of what these caves looked like. I’ve also included a slideshow if you want to see even more.

Sadly, some of the Buddhas’ faces were smashed off by the Red Guard during the Cultural Revolution. In one of the caves the characters “大同八中” (Datong Number 8 High School) were painted in red on the side of the wall by the Red Guard from the local high school when they came through.

After I finished looking around the Yungang caves, I took the bus back to downtown Datong. On the way I passed by the Datong Old Town, and decided to get out and check it out. “Old Town” is actually a bit of a misnomer because most of the area was torn down and rebuilt into a retail area in the past few years (a less successful effort by the Datong government to increase tourism). I did manage to find a few blocks of the old Old Town; much like Beijing’s old town, the authentic part of Datong’s Old Town was comprised of hutongs and courtyard houses. Unfortunately, a lot of the Old Town looked pretty run down, and while it’s hard to tell for sure without going into the courtyards themselves, it looked to me like there were not a lot of people renovating courtyard homes into luxury historic homes like you see in Beijing. After exploring the old town and a nearby street market I headed back to my hotel.

The not-so-ancient Datong City wall, which was either being heavily retrofitted or just reconstructed from scratch. The walls are thirty-nine feet high and sixty feet wide at the base (NYROB).

The front of a building in Datong's Old Town. I believe the 征 characters are the same as 拆 - which basically means it's marked for demolition, but I'm not 100% sure about that.

A storefront in Datong's Old Town. The sign reads "Knife-cut noodles" (left) and "Pressed Bean Noodles" (right) (I've actually never had the dish on the right before so I'm not sure if that translation is correct).

An old man enters a courtyard home in the Old Town in Datong, Shanxi, China.

A man reads a magazine at an outdoor street market outside of Datong's city walls.

A woman keeps the flies away (?) from her meat at a street market outside of Datong's city walls.

One thing that surprised me traveling in both Shanxi and Inner Mongolia was how much attention I attracted. In many parts of Beijing, especially around Wudaokou and on college campuses, foreigners are common and nobody gives them a second glance. In areas outside of Beijing, however, there are far fewer foreigners. As a foreigner traveling alone, I was constantly getting bombarded with requests to take photos with people or to exchange contact information so I could help somebody study English. On the bus back to my hotel, a middle-aged woman on one side of me and her daughter on the other side of me were talking about me right in front of my face. A few minutes into the conversation one of the asked “Do you think he speaks Chinese?” I smiled and politely interjected with “Yeah, I can speak Chinese”. Slightly embarrassed but still eager to make conversation, the mother insisted I give her my phone number and email so that I could teach her English in the future. Later that night, a waitress at the restaurant I was eating at approached me and asked for my email, again so that she could practice her English. Most of these people never end up contacting me – out 10+ people I gave my email during my travels only one person ended up emailing me. It got to the point where I started to allot extra time to my schedule to compensate for the time spent taking pictures with Chinese people. For me, this was all a reminder that while Beijing and Shanghai have become relatively international, foreigners are still an anomaly in most of China.

Restaurant workers rest outside on a side street.

I spent the rest of the night catching up with friends and family at an internet café and went to bed early – I had to catch a 7:30 am bus to Wutaishan the next day.

China Travel: Inner Mongolia

2011-08-29T23:00:00.000-07:00

I am finished with my travels around northern China and Hong Kong, and I am now back in the States. Sorry for the delayed blog post. I took nearly 2000 photos over the course of my 10-day trip, so it took a long time to sort and edit all of them. I was done around the end of last week, just in time for a family vacation to Bryce and Zion national parks (where I took 1000 more pictures). I want to do a full writeup of my trip to accompany my pictures, and I have been procrastinating the writing part. This post will cover the first three days of my trip, which I spent with a Chinese tour group in Inner Mongolia. I'm going to mix my "artsy" photos from the trip with some not-so-artsy photos that go with the story. To just see the "artsy" photos by themselves check out my Flickr.

The UChicago Beijing Program ended on Friday August 5th. I said goodbye to my teachers and classmates, ate a final plate of Kung Pao Chicken at my favorite local hole-in-the-wall Sichuanese restaurant, and packed up my belongings. Most of my stuff went into rollaway suitacses that I left in Beijing with my host family. When I was traveling I only brought my school backpack, which I stuffed to capacity. Since I was traveling alone, I was planning on doing a lot of photography to keep myself busy. In addition to my clothes and other travel necessities, I managed to bring along my Canon S90, Canon 30D, Tamron 17-50 f/2.8, Canon 55-250 IS, and my cheap but moderately effective Dolica AX620B100. Before I left the states I bought a padded camera insert that can you can use to convert and bag or backpack into a camera bag. This allowed me to use carry my camera on the top of my bag for easy access without having to buy a whole new camera bag for this trip.

I dropped my suitcases off with my host family and took them out to a quick dinner. We ate at the same restaurant they took me on my first night in China back in 2008. It was interesting to go back and think how much both my Mandarin and my tolerance for Chinese food had progress since then. Whereas the first time I was at this restaurant I could barely understand a word my host parents said to me, this time I was about to embark on ten days of traveling through China by myself. I also enjoyed every dish that we ordered, which definitely could not be said about the first meal I ate there. After we finished dinner and said our good-byes I made my way to the Beijing West Train station.

I took the overnight train to Hohhot, the capital of Inner Mongolia, and then joined up with a Chinese tour group. The first day of our tour was on the Xilamuren Grassland – or what was left of them at least.

The crowd boarding my train to Hohhot from the Beijing West Station.

As I was walking around Hohhot, Inner Mongolia a man sitting on the side of the street called out to me in English. We started talking about America and how it compared to China. He inroduced me to one of his friends (pictured), and I asked if I could take his pictures. They were thrilled and the shot came out pretty well I think :) He is shoveling roasted sunflowers.

Parts of the grasslands in Inner Mongolia were pretty uninspiring.

The bus from Hohhot dropped our tour group off at a Yurt encampment within eyesight of huge power lines and the main highway - not exactly the rugged wild Mongolian grasslands I had envisioned. I sort of knew that joining a tour group meant I was only going to see some of the more commercialized places in Inner Mongolia, but I had this persistent fantasy of spending the night in a Yurt on the Inner Mongolian grasslands, and you can only spend the night on the grasslands if you are part of a tour group. My Yurt was complete with electricity, a TV, a toilet, and running water. I imagine this was not what your traditional nomadic Mongolian Yurt looked like, but it was comfy at least.

Our group sat down in a large central Yurt for a “traditional Mongolian dinner”, which meant that there was one lamb dish thrown in with the other sub-par dishes. We also got to listen to a live performance of “traditional Mongolian songs” which were painfully loud and high-pitched. On the bright side, everyone in the tour group was interested in me (I got the impression that white guys traveling alone are rare in Chinese tour groups). Everyone was very curious and welcoming, and I made friends with a few of the families on the trip.

I spent the afternoon roaming around the grasslands taking pictures. Even though the grass was not very high on this particular stretch of grasslands, it was still impressive to see the vast expensive of green rolling hills. I was treated to a marvelous sunset and got some good pictures of horses as the ranchers let their horses out into the grasslands for the night (apparently they then corral them back into the stables every morning). Nighttime festivities included a campfire with song and dance, and flying paper lanterns (see the picture below, they work like hot air balloons).

A horse grazes in the Inner Mongolian Grasslands.

An Inner Mongolian sheep.

One of the camels they kept around the horse stables.

The stables near my Yurt encampment in Inner Mongolia.

Yum.

The sun sets behind my Yurt encampment in Inner Mongolia.

Although the grasslands were a bit lackluster, the sunset in Inner Mongolia was spectacular. Luckily they also released the horses into the grasslands right at sunset, so I had a lot of good opportunities for horse shots. This is one of the Mongolians working to corral the horses.

This is one of the Mongolians working to corral the horses. I noticed him coming towards me and tried to get a few shots off quickly. They are blurry because my ISO was too low, but I think it gives you a nice sense of the horse's motion.

A gorgeous sunset behind my yurt encampment in Inner Mongolia.

After the sun went down we had a campfire with singing and dancing.

These lanterns are classic nighttime village fun. They are fairly tricky to launch properly because it takes a while for the flame to produce enough hot air to fill up the balloon above it. After it fill up, though, these things can fly for a long way.

The next morning I woke up at 5am to photograph the sunrise. To my dismay it was hazy out and sunrise was uninteresting. The previous night the tour guide had convinced me to come with the rest of the tour group to see the Inner Mongolian desert instead of exploring Hohhot (the capital of Inner Mongolia) as I had originally planned. She promised that I could ride a camel, slide down sand dunes, or ride an ATV. Suckered in by the prospect of riding a camel on the Inner Mongolian sand dunes, I agreed. Little did I know that the desert was a five-hour drive away, and was also three hours from Hohhot, where I had to catch a train later that night. It also hardly qualified as a desert – or at least it was not what I was expecting. At the gated entrance (since when did deserts have gated entrances?) there was a long row of concession stands selling overpriced food and water. There was a sand shoe rental business where you could buy knee-length boots to prevent sand from getting in your shoes. Of course, the shoes were completely unnecessary because as part of your entrance ticket you were required to buy a ticket for a tour of the sand dunes on a dune buggy, which dropped you off at the top of a sand mountain. On the top of the mountain you could ride an ATV on the sand dunes, ride a camel, zip line down the mountain, or slide down the mountain on a sand sled. Of course there were additional charges for all of these activities. The whole place felt like well-oiled cash extraction machine. The tour guides brought busloads of tourists into the middle of nowhere where the only activity is to pay for a ride up a sand mountain, pay to do something fun on top of the sand dune, and then pay again for a ride down. Edit: A friend showed me this news article, which names the "Inner Mongolia Resonant Sand Gorge" as one of China's "Scheme Parks" (although apparently they are "schemes" because they are somehow loosing money...)

Me on the grasslands at some unthinkably early hour.

I opted to ride a camel; ¥100 (about $14) got me a half an hour ride on the back of a camel that moaned every time I got on and off. The camels were strung up in a line and a man walked us around the dunes to a small zoo, where we got off to rest. Either for educational purposes, or as a morbid joke, the inside of the zoo had camel skeletons on display. Still, it was kinda fun to ride a camel. Between the sand, the heat, and being on top of a camel, it didn’t take much imagination to feel like I was Laurence of Arabia riding in the middle of some endless desert.

"The Desert" (excuse the iPhone photo, I didn't bring my other cameras because I was afraid of getting sand in them).

Me on top of some poor dehydrated and overworked camel.

A camel skeleton. Just in case you were wondering what was holding you up...

By the time we got back on the bus I had fewer than two hours before my train was scheduled to leave, and we were still in the “desert” three hours away from Hohhot. Luckily, my tour guide managed to rebook my ticket for a later departure time. We drove back to Hohhot, and to kill time before our trains departed the tour guide took us to an Inner Mongolian souvenir market. Oh lord. If you want to buy a ten foot carpet with prancing horses woven on it, or a Mongolian dagger, or Mongolian “specialty” food, or really anything remotely Mongolian, this is the place to go. Once I entered the retail portion there was only one long winding aisle that led to the exit. Of course, the twists and turns prevented you from seeing how long it was going to take you to get out – clearly this was another cleverly thought out cash extraction machine. After walking for about twenty minutes without slowing down to look at what was being sold, I finally reached the exit and got back on the bus.

At this point I was furious at my tour guide. She had somehow convinced me to come to the desert, but failed to mention that going to the desert was going to require 8 hours of driving, or that the desert was a huge tourist trap. I essentially spent the entire day on a bus for a 30 minute camel ride. We finally arrived at the Hohhot train station and I practically ran off the bus, glad to be free of the grasps of the tour group. I managed to board my train to Datong, Shanxi smoothly and it left at around 10pm.

I was in the hard seat section of the train, which is the cheapest class. It was a little bit loud and cramped, but was full of interesting people. I was surrounded by migrant workers except for a middle-aged woman across from me, who was a doctor coming back from a conference. Because I missed my first train, my train did not get into Datong until 2am. Half asleep, I made conversation with the woman across from me. When we finally arrived, she gave me directions to the hotel my travel agent made reservations at, which saved me from wandering aimlessly in downtown Datong at 2am. Exhausted from the frustrating day and from being awake for nearly 24 hours, I stumbled around Datong until I found my hotel. I thought the awful day had finally come to an end. But, alas, not quite. The lady at the front desk informed me that they did not have any reservation under my name, and that the only rooms they had left were the more expensive 3-person suites. Too tired to go exploring for a hotel with open rooms in Datong at 2am, I took the 3-person room for the night.

So Inner Mongolia wasn’t exactly how I had envisioned it. Being with a tour group, led me along a well-traveled path of tourist traps. That being said, I still had a great time exploring the grasslands and met a lot of interesting people on the tour. The second day on the desert sucked – it was just one of those days where everything went wrong. However, since the vast majority of tourist in China is done through tour groups, I’m glad I got to see what the experience is like, but it definitely will be a while before I sign up to travel with one again. Luckily, I had an amazing time in Datong and Wutaishan, the subject of my next blog post. Stay tuned…

Chengde

2011-08-04T05:05:00.000-07:00

Today was my last day of classes at the UChicago Beijing Program! Eight weeks really flew by. Tomorrow I'm taking a train to Hohhot, the capital of Inner Mongolia. I'll spend a night in a Yurt on the Xilamuren Grasslands and then of off to Datong in Shanxi, where I'll check out the Yungang Grottoes (huge buddhist cave carvings). After that I'm going to explore Wutaishan for a couple of days. Wutaishan is one of the four sacred Buddhist mountains in China. Then it's back to Beijing and over to Hong Kong for about two days before I catch a redeye back to the states. I'm thinking there will be lots of photo opportunities on this trip, so keep an eye out for posts coming soon (probably not until after I get back to America in a week or two though).

Here are some photos from my last trip out of Beijing to Chengde, the imperial summer resort town. The emperor used to come here to get out of the Beijing heat. We got to check out the imperial summer palace, a replica of the Dali Lama's temple, and Sledgehammer mountain (whose name will become obvious when you see the pictures). Enjoy!

Two people enjoy tea in a resting spot on a mountain in Chengde.

A river in the Imperial Summer Palace in Chengde, China.

Pule Temple in Chengde, China.

Prayer wheels at Pule Temple in Chengde China.

A boy plays at the summer palace in Chengde.

The Putuo Zongcheng Temple complex, completed in 1771 during the reign of the Qianlong Emperor. It is modeled off of the Potala Palace in Tibet. Seeing this copy made me want to visit the real on in Tibet.

A taxi comes down a road on the outskirts of Chengde, China.

I went exploring outside our hotel in Chengde. We were in the middle of a village/industrial area, and I bumped into a worker coming from a construction site. He tried to talk to me but his accent was so strong that I couldn't understand a thing he said. As he walked away I snapped this picture of him.

A man comes outsides to see why his dog is barking at night. I had to use manual focus for this shot because it was so dark that there was no hope for autofocus. I think I got it semi close.

A crazy rock formation shaped like a sledgehammer in Chengde, China. We hiked to the base of the rock and were able to rub the handle of the hammer.

Stairs in Pule Temple in Chengde, China.

Prayer flags at the Putuo Zongcheng Temple. I used my on-camera flash to light the flags in the foreground against the backlighting.

The inner courtyard of Putuo Zongcheng Temple.

This is the roof of a temple next to the Putuo Zongcheng Temple in Chengde, China. It is adorned with nine golden dragons.

The Streets of Beijing

2011-07-25T02:10:00.000-07:00

I'm already 3/4 of the way through my stay in Beijing. I swear time speeds up whenever I come here! Last Thursday and Friday my program went on a quick trip to Chengde, a small city outside of Beijing known primarily for the Imperial Summer House that the emperor used come to to avoid the hot Beijing summers (not to be confused with the Summer Palace, which is much closer to Beijing). Pictures from that trip are coming soon, but in the mean time here is a set of pictures I've accumulated over the past few weeks. Enjoy!

Buildings next to the Xizhimen subway stop and train station in Beijing. HDR created using Lightroom Enfuse, which produced a much more natural result compared to Photomatix.

Passengers on a public bus.

The sign for a guesthouse in Haidian district, Beijing.

A night market selling kebabs.

A family waits for cab on the side of the road near the Dongwuyuan market in Beijing.

A women waits to get a cab in Haidian district in Beijing, China.

A man hails a cab in Haidian district, Beijing.

People eat outside at a night market.

This peach vendor asked me to take his picture, so I obliged :)

Tiananmen Square. Taken from the National Museum.

A man selling pastries stares at me out of his shop window.

All Around Beijing

2011-07-11T00:31:00.000-07:00

Today's post has no unifying theme - these are just a bunch of pictures I've accumulated from my third and fourth week here. There are photos from Panjiayuan - a large antique market, street vendors, and the Lama Temple. Check out the description under each photo for more details.

Things are well here. I turned 19 earlier this week and had a great birthday party with students and teachers from the UChicago program. I also upgraded my Chinese name (previously 满汉声) to more authentic name (满汉声 is apparently not a name a Chinese person would give to their children). How I got my new name is going to be the subject of a future blog post, but in short a Buddhist master gave it to me. My new Chinese name is 金汉生. More about that later though.

Enjoy!

This is Zhongguancun road, the main road that passes by the east gate of Renmin University. Further north is the heart of Beijing's high tech district. I took this shot from the UChicago center in Beijing. Since it was taken through a window I had to photoshop out some of the refections afterwards (in the original there is a creepy reflection of my head in the sky).

Cold noodles, or 凉面，is one of my favorite dishes in Beijing. This is a noodle stand in an alley nearby Renmin University.

A woman lights incense and prays at the Lama Temple.

The entrance path leading to the Lama Temple. I wanted to try to find a composition different than your typical temple photo.

A man takes a rest inside on of the halls in the Lama Temple.

A man makes a sign on the side of the sidewalk in Haidian District, Beijing.

A man stands in front of a store in Panjiayuan, a large antique market in Beijing. The sign to his right reads "Chicken Blood Stone" ("Bloodstone" in English), which is a type of red stone used in jewelry and seals.

A man sells antiques at Beijing's "Dirt Market". While most of the antiques here are imitations, there are occasionally legitimate artifacts.

Communist paraphernalia at Panjiayuan.

Panjiayuan, Beijing's antique market, is also known as the dirt market. On the day I went there were a couple thousand people at the market.

An enormous construction operation in the Beijing suburbs near the airport. There were probably 30 cranes in total working on an apartment complex.

a quickr pickr post

The Great Wall

2011-07-02T21:07:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I visited the Jing Shan Ling Great Wall. It's hard not to be impressed by the scale of the wall, and the beauty of the surrounding landscape. Like the Forbidden City, taking original photos of the Great Wall is very hard, especially with uninteresting light. I tried to stick to my telephoto lens and used a split-tone effect in Lightroom in hopes of achieving a semi-novel look. Let me know what you think.

a quickr pickr post

Random

2011-06-30T08:32:00.000-07:00

These are a bunch of photos that I've accumulated so far that didn't really fit into any of my previous posts. Enjoy!

An unusually clear day in Beijing after a large rain storm. Taken from the UChicago center in Beijing. Click the photo to see a larger version.

A man takes a break inside a van in Zhongguancun.

A group of men take a break next to the one of the many large glass buildings in Zhongguancun.

A man talks on the phone in Zhongguancun.

The National Theatre in Beijing. Unfortunately they don't let cameras inside but I'm a big fan of the architecture.

a quickr pickr post

The Forbidden City

2011-06-26T16:00:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday I visited Jingshan Park, which is probably my favorite park in Beijing. I love the dramatic view of the forbidden city and the groups of locals who sing in dance around the park.

One problem with photographing landmarks in China is that they have been photographed so many times already it's hard to get an original picture. To make matters worse I visited at the middle of the day the light was completely uninteresting. Even though the composition of these pictures is nothing original I hope red and yellow split tone effect makes them a little bit more interesting. Photos of the great wall coming soon!

The Forbidden City as seen from Jingshan Park. This is probably my favorite view in Beijing.

The north gate of the Forbidden City (also shot from Jingshan Park).

The building at the top of Jingshan park seen from the southern entrance.

Family Reunion

2011-06-26T00:32:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I visited my host family for the first time since I left in 2009. It was great to see them again and revisit my old apartment and neighborhood. According to my host mom I've grown considerably since I left, and apparently my Chinese has gotten better! When I first arrived in 2008 I took a picture of the three of us on the couch in our living room. When I left nine months later, I took another picture in the same place, and this time I took a third. I think its kinda fun to look at the changes. Hopefully when I visit in the future I can add to this collection. Many more photos to come - stay tuned!

Zhongguancun

2011-06-25T11:41:00.000-07:00

Last Friday I visited Zhongguancun, the high tech district in the northeast part of Beijing. I visited Zhongguancun in 2008, but I just stopped at the first computer market I came upon. This time I reached the center of the high tech area and was amazed by the ultra-modern glass architecture and the sheer number of electronics markets in the area. I felt like I was plopped into a sci-fi movie. When I was wandering around I peeked into Microsoft's Beijing officer, which has a visitor's center on the first floor. There I got to try out a Kinect (meh) and got to see a Microsoft Surface. For those who don't remember, the Surface is a multitouch table that was supposed to be used in restaurants and hotels, but as far as I can tell never really took off. Unfortunately the one they had on display was turned off and nobody was there to turn it on. It was still fun to see one in person though.

I've been having a great time here, but unfortunately my trip is almost a quarter over already. Photos of the Forbidden City and Great Wall soon to come. Enjoy!

Hordes of public busses jam Zhongguancun Road during rush hour.

The Chinese Steel Corporation building rises above a raised park in Zhongguancun.

The Sinosteel building is huge both horizontally and vertically. Even from this distance, the building extends horizontally and vertically for quite a ways.

A road in the Zhongguancun High Tech Area in Beijing, China.

Another shot of Zhongguancun, Beijing. The modernness of the buildings made me feel like I was plopped into iRobot

Beijing in Black and White

2011-06-19T00:52:00.000-07:00

I've been in Beijing almost a week now and I am loving every day of it! The weather is hot but it has been bearable for the most part (this may change in July and August). Class is enjoyable and the work hasn’t been overwhelming yet. It’s also interesting being on the Ren Min University campus, which is much different than living with a host family.

A few things that have struck me since being here:

There seem to be fewer smokers (not sure about this one, but it's just my impression).
The pollution seems worse (but it's hard to tell what is pollution and what is fog these days).
Pretty much anything that was once unavailable in China can be bought here now. You might have to search harder and pay a little more for it, but no longer do you have to worry about running out of deodorant in the middle of summer.

Murses. Lots of them, all over. Maybe I didn’t notice these in 2008, or maybe they just became “in”, but I can’t walk down the street without seeing a guy with one of these. Interestingly, my Dad predicted the rise of the murse about a year ago. For once, he may have been right.

I got a Canon S90 as an early birthday present (thanks Mom and Dad!) after my Canon G9 kicked the bucket a few months ago. The S90 I so small I just carry it in my pocket everywhere I go, and image quality is good enough that I rarely feel like I am making a compromise using it. It’s also a lot easier to photography people discretely when using a small point-and-shoot: SLRs are a little scary looking.

I have a bunch of pictures in the tube, but this first set I put together were all photos I felt looked better in black and white (which, oddly, was the majority of the photos I took the first week here). Expect more from Zhongguancun, my host family, and the Forbidden City coming soon!

My room at Ren Da. The foreigner's dormitory is disgustingly nice compared to the rest of the dorms on campus.

One of the many news stands on the streets of Beijing.

Large apartment buildings dot the Beijing skyline. Taken from the UChicago Beijing center.

Students play pool in the basement of a building at Ren Da.

A women checks on her drying clothes.

A small store on the side of the road in Xidan shopping center.

Two women look at a map at a bus stop near the Ren Da campus.

A hairdresser across the street from Ren Da.

One of the cafeterias near my dorm on the Ren Da campus.

The UChicago crest on a carpet at the UChicago Beijing Center.

A drink stand near the Xidan shopping center.

A man rides a cargo bike on the Ren Da campus at night.