Wednesday July 13 2011 we ( Monika & Me ) left home at 4AM to go to the Saint John Airport to begin our much anticipated trip to China.
Friends - Hoa & Tran Giang had
invited us to visit & they would show us around. We flew to Toronto ( 2.5 hrs) &
from Toronto to Hong Kong (15.5 hours in the air ) & arrived at 1PM local
time July 14. We drove immediately in to Main Land China where we remained
until July 30 , when we returned to Hong Kong Airport for our flight home.
The weather was very hot, 30+ every day , & very humid. My glasses &
camera lenses fogged up every time I went outside -that threw me for a while &
you will see some of that in the pictures. I did take a lot of pictures. There
were some challenges. The heat & humidity already mentioned plus we had no
control of the vehicle or schedule. Many are shot from a moving bus or
from behind a window - a reflective sheet of glass. I kept a lot of
technically questionable shots because they illustrated for me an interesting
aspect of life in the areas we visited.
As our hosts , our tour companions , & our environment were all Chinese we
were in total immersion. It was an incredible experience that we thoroughly
enjoyed. Very different in many ways ; in other ways very familiar. Often what
you see, is a consumer society , driven very much as ours by trends ,
brands , & fashion. The food was great & many of the meals were
exceptional. That is not to say we didn't appreciate the occasional taste
of home , as some of the hotels offered bacon & eggs & coffee in the breakfast
buffet.
Usually I present the
photos in the order they were taken. I thought for these pictures it might
be more helpful to to group them by topic or location. Many choices are quite
arbitrary as some photos might legitimately belong in several groups. Four
pages are devoted to pictures of people. You might find that these
pictures are also informative about the various locations where they were taken.
Monika is responsible for more than100 of the following pictures.
Enjoy
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Index Page China 2011
Page
1 Tour Stops Includes Changjiang Bridge , Pearls , Jade , Silk , Tea , Medicine, Temple &
Tomb
Page
2 Buddha
Wuxi :-
Lingshan
Buddhist Temple , Fountain , Restaurant & grounds
Page 3
Temple
Nanjing :- includes
Confucius Fu Zi Temple & Jichang Garden
Page 4
Shanghai
Shanghai:- includes Nanjing Road Shopping at night and Old Town by day
Page 5
Tower
Shanghai:- Shanghai's famous Oriental Pearl Tower &
the city below at night
Page 6 Garden
Suzhou :- Lingering
Garden
Page 7 Movie
Hengdian :-
(Hollywood East) Qin Dynasty Palace Movie Set
Page 8 Lake
Hangzhou: Includes
stops at West Lake
Page 9 Song Dynasty
Dance Show
Hangzhou: - Impressive
Live Show with Hundreds of Actors / Singers / Dancers depicting Song Dynasty
Stories
Page 10 Wuzhen Water
Town
Wuzhen:- China's Venice - a 600 year old canal town
Page 10 Walled
City
Nanjing :-
Worlds
oldest & largest city wall & Zhonghua Gate from Ming Dynasty
Page 11 Huazhou Huazhou:-
Home
town of Hoa's father - where we spent last 3 days of our trip
Page 12 Various
Familiar Brands, Flowers, Flying , China
Page 13 Bicycles Scooters Umbrellas
Ubiquitous - these stand out in stark contrast to home
Page 14 , 15 , 16 , & 17 People Look
@ me - Me - Monika - Hoa - Tran(Jenny) - Friends -acquaintance Tour Companions ,
Strangers
Page 18 & 19 Shops & Shopping It
is a retail World
Page 20 Streets & Highways Streets
& Highways - need I say more - most pictures in this group are shot from a
moving vehicle
Page 21 Food Restaurants Hotels We had to eat sometime
Page 22 Buildings mostly
in passing - from the buss - or from the hotel
Page 23
Drive By
as
seen at 100Km/hr
Page 24
Construction & Local Life
Building everywhere & a look at everyday life
Family
Home
Photography
Copyright
2011 by
J. Gordon Anderson
All rights reserved.