Waiting out the Day

Due to popular demand I’m posting a colour version of “Waiting out the Day”. I’ve had a number of emails requesting this for various reasons. So. Here it is.

Also, I’m nearly finished the first post in the “Travel Photography Tips” series I’m putting together based on my limited but eye opening experience in the world of travel photography. It should be posted within the next day or so.

I’m entering a few travel photography competitions over the next few weeks and I’m finding it hard to decide which photos to use, so, I thought I’d put it to public vote

Please, if you have even 5 minutes to spare, click on this link. A new browser window will open with my “China 2006″ collection displayed in it.

If you could take a few minutes to browse through the photos and then add a comment to this post stating which photos you think have the most merit, I would be very appreciative. Each photo has a title… just quote that in your comments on this post.

For those of you that are interested I’ll also be posting some “Travel Photography Tips” over the coming days and weeks so stay tuned.

Yangshou from Dragon Bridge

I’ve finally started working on my photos from China. I’m entering a few of them in some competitions which close in a few weeks so I’ve had to get a move on.

The greatly reduced in size album of “China Photos” can be viewed here. They’re split in to places again but all up theres under 50 shots. They’re the final “premium” colllection if you will

I’m pretty happy with my first “major” attempt at travel photography. I definately learnt alot about what’s good to shoot and what’s not, but I think all in all, the best shots are the ones with people (locals) in them. They are random, they have character and they are always different.

Anyhoo, I’ll be posting some tips on travel photography soon, as well as information about the competitions I’m entering.

P.S. the attached panorama was taken in the Yangshou area. I like it because it gives the viewer an idea of just how many of those “kasts” there are scattered as far as the eye can see.

Danish Karaoke

By popular request, I present to you the next video in the China installment. “Danish Karaoke”.

This is actually quite a funny video. The song the girls are singing is “Big Big World” by Emilia. It was released in the early 90s and I’d never heard of it before. But somehow, somewhere the Danish girls knew it and so they sang it. I’ll let you be the judge of how well they did

Translation:
Indeværende er ligefrem en hel sjov video. Den sang den piger er sang er ” stor Stor Jord ” af Emilia. Den var løst i den snarlig 90s og I’d aldrig nogen sinde hørt i sig i nærværelse af. Men other , et eller andet sted den Dansk piger kendte sig hvorfor de sang sig. Jeg vil lade jer være den pÃ¥dømme i hvor nÃ¥ de gjorde

This video uses QuickTime 7.0 so if you don’t have it, you’ll need to get it from here.

Download Low Quality 360×288 - 8.2Mb

Download High Quality 720×576 - 137Mb

Yangshou by satellite

I thought this was pretty cool.  The picture on the right is Yangshou by satellite.  You can see the limestone casts very clearly, especially when compared to the more generic mountain ranges to the top right of the photo.

That’s all I had to say for now

The Crew in Hong Kong

Well I’ve spent most of today putting together a little video in honour of all those who Sue and I travelled with through China. I’m planning to put together a few other videos over the next few weeks that are more aimed at displaying what we did on the trip rather than who we did it with.

The music in the “Meet The Crew” clip was pulled off the Animatrix soundtrack. It’s called “Beauty Never Fades”. I haven’t paid too much attention to the words, but I like the sound of the track. The aim of the video is to be a “memory” of the people and the experiences we had. I think the music fits this.

I’ve made a low and high quality version of the movie but I’ve only posted the low quality version. (It’s still 25Mb). Please note: You will need QuickTime 7.0 to play this movie. If you don’t have it you can download it for free at Apple’s QuickTime site.
So, for those of you that choose to download the “Meet The Crew” video, enjoy

Download Low Quality (QuickTime 7.0) 320×288 - 25.5Mb

Download High Quality (QuickTime 7.0) 720×576 - 206Mb

Local Food on Temple Street, Hong Kong

Well we’re back in Hong Kong and the trip is almost over. We went out tonight for a “last dinner” on Temple Street and were served a selection of Cantonese style dishes which included a few of the local seafood specialities.

Everyone is pretty tired and we’re all looking forward to going home but at the same time don’t want to leave.  I know Sue is looking forward to the roast dinner Mum is going to cook for us on Friday night

After dinner we went out for a short while to a local Karaoke bar and had a bit of a sing-a-long.  I’ll post some of the video footage for this when we get back to Oz.  It was quite funny, especially when the danish girls got up and sang a song in english that none of us had ever heard before!

Pinyan

Today was a quiter day and so I took the opportunity to go walk about and take some photos.  I managed to get a few decent shots and also the panorama attached to this post. If you click on it you can see the bigger version.  It might give you all a better idea of what the valley and villages look like.

It’s a shame, but this is our last day in rural southern China.  We hop on a bus this afternoon to head back to Guilin where we’ll catch the evening train to Hong Kong. It’s about a 17 hour train trip which isn’t bad compared to others we’ve had.

I think what I came to really appreciate in this part of China was the simpleness (is that a word?) of everything. Sure, the area is slowly becoming more and more touristy which is destroying much of the day to day life in places such as Pinyan and Yangshou, but it’s still very different from the cities and of course anywhere in Australia.  Apart from tourists, not much has changed in hundreds of years. Even technology has only made a very small impact on village and working life for these people.

I will miss this part of China…

Dinner in a farmers house

Today we walked from Dazhai to Pinyan (I think that’s how you spell it). It was about a 4 hour walk up and down the rice terraces in the Longji Valley. These terraces are massive! They stretch for kilometre after kilometre and are extremely well manicured.

The weather here is a bit cooler than in Yangshou, but it’s still quite humid and apparently it’s perfect conditions to grow all sorts of crops in.

After we arrived at Pinyan we sat down and had lunch which was one of the best meas I’ve had so far. Not because the food was necessarily better then anywhere else, it was more the fact that after walking 8kms I was very hungry

After lunch Sue and I booked a 50 minutes foot massage. It was very relaxing but unfortunately it was over too quickly. 50 minutes isn’t long enough. I’m sure it was a funny site to watch, 3 westerners sitting in a line in a hostel dining room getting a foot massage from 3 very short Chinese women. This leads me to my next comment…

The people are very very short in this part of China. Richard, our guide back in Yangshou explained that the Northern ‘Han’ chinese eat much more wheat based food and due to the extra protein from this they grow to be quite taller and larger. I know this to be true because I came accross quite a few chinese men in Beijing that were taller then me and I’m 6′2″. However, in southern China the people eat much more rice due to its abundance and less wheat. This results in shorter people. Now, I’m not sure how proven this theory is, but the southern chinese in general are quite a bit shorter than the northern chinese.

See below for a height comparison:

Above is a photo of me dancing with a local chinese woman during a cultural show they put on for us tonight. You can clearly see how short they are!

Before the cultural show we had dinner in a local’s house.  It was an eye opening experience and the food was delicious. The culinary highlight for me was the frog meat.  I didn’t think I’d like it but I ended up having about 3 servings of frog leg or frog head.

The style of meal commonly used here is called the “hot pot”.  I think I explained this in an earlier post, but basically you sit around a hot pot full of stock and throw all the food into it.  Obviously the food cooks and then you just pick it out with your chopsticks and eat it as you go.  It’s not the most relaxing way to eat and it’s quite random because you never know what you’re going to pick out (See picture top right).

The cultural show was interesting. It was basically a lot of singing and dancing.  Sue was picked to get up and sing (call it a cultural exchange) so she chose “Waltzing Matilda” which I have on video.  I’ll post it when I get all the video stuff sorted out so stay tuned…

Longji Man

Today we left the Yangshou area and made our way to Longsheng.

Longsheng China is situated in a densely forested area of over 2,400 square kilometres and has a population of only 160,000 people. It’s surrounded by mountains on four sides and lies 100 km north of Guilin. This place and the countryside is classic China, incredibly manicured rice fields, terrace after terrace, an engineering marvel. Quite stunning.

To get there from Yangshou we hopped on a local bus with our new guide, farmer Tang.  This bus took us back to Guilin where we put our bags in storage so we could travel light for the next few days.  From Guilin we hopped on yet another local bus which took us probably half way to Dazhai (the village we are staying in tonight). Finally we boarded a 3rd bus which took us to the base of Dazhai.

We walked up the terraces and along the terraces for around 45 minutes before we finally arrived at tonight’s resting place. In my opinion, this place is one of the most peaceful places I’ve ever been on earth aside from central Australia.  It’s very green and all the buildings are made entirely from wood. As a result, the entire area has a very “natural” look to it.

Tomorrow we’re hiking along the terraces to a nearby village called Pinyan.