National Day celebration
Predominantly middle aged men and women dancing to ballroom music at a small square.
Bright light, big city at the Bund.
Optical illusion: reflection (onto a parked tour bus) of bright lights, big city.
River boat cruises
Spectacular view at Pudong Financial District across the Pujiang or Pu River; the spotlight was from the World's 3rd tallest building, the Jinmao Tower.
Sea of humanity at Nanjing Road.
River trips at cut throat prices.
A cooking contest.
Puppies for sale.
Kids learning to deliver kung fu blows with stable horse standings.
Tibetan wonders.
A tutti-fruity store. He protested, "No photography!"
And counting down for Expo 2010 in Shanghai...
An urban mass, the criss crossing structure is where I now work.
High end apartments at unaffordable whopping pricesNational Day Holiday: Streets of Shanghai
It was not much for this past long 7-day holiday, lasted from Sunday, October 1st through Saturday, Oct. 7th. In fact, many had to work on Saturday Sept. 30th as well as this Sunday Oct. 8th; these two working days would replace the actual working days of Thursday and Friday. Hence, the officially allocated holidays were from Monday through Wednesday. Due to the above arrangement, the whole China was able to go on the long stretch of off days, of course, with mood to celebrate their National Day and personal holidays. This culminated to the largest human migration in the single 7-day on Earth, considering billions of Chinese souls. Well, this was also the best of time to see the humongous humanity at work in China. Peoples were everywhere. Yes, peoples. People here and people there; or literally in Chinese proverbial saying, people sea people mountain or ren shan ren hai.
For me, the whole week lasted like it was any other days except that I rested, rested, rested and lazed about, nearly rotted, slept a lot, and read very little. I woke up routinely early, did house chores, watched a very entertaining and hilarious comedy variety show from Hunan Province Channel and lots of documentaries, predominantly foreign imports dubbed into Chinese, cooked lunch with dinner inclusive, later drowsed off for an hour or two after lunch, and after that I would randomly picked a place to hang out on the streets of Shanghai.
Many locals had claimed to have strategically chosen to remain at home in order to avoid the ritualistic holiday crowd pouring into the City. In fact, many were out of the City to jam other cities or countrysides as well. One of the very pleasant and windy evenings, I was checking out the crowd at the Bund. It was a very thrilling and somewhat entertaining experience, cautiously making my moves grooving into the dramatically intensified caliber of the uproarious crowd. Pricking my ears, I could detect a dozen varieties of Chinese dialects spoken, and those from the international travelers; and with heightened level of safety precaution for the programmed amplifiers constantly blabbering, repeatedly informing or bombarding the crowd to guard for their personal valuables.
With modest restrained behavior and apparently well aware of the one eye shut City Teams, who were on duty and around combing the area, most vendors kept their make shift floor displays within their individual territory, drawing curious crowd who bargained for their interested targets or making holiday spending spree. Occasionally, some were being hassled around into buying those sparkling, crystal products, counterfeit name brands, moving toys, cute and cuddly softies or puffies, as well as highly creative organic reed-weaved animals.
My foot got stampede twice, and twice due to someone backing off to find their best camera positions when aiming at their travel mates who posed for memory shots, with the spectacular backdrop of the Pudong Financial District on the other side of the Pujiang or River Pu. This is enough to explain the limited amount of contingent breathing space when jostling in between the crowd, and unless one tilted his or her head to look out for the mid-autumn moon, and not a single star that could be seen though, to find last relaxing resort or solace for vast visual clarity, deep space beauty or inpenetratable atmospheric space above the bobbling and bubbling human heads.
While taking an evening walk to check out street activities nearby where I live in Pudong or East of River Pu, the following occasions took place on the pedestrian street right by a modern and contemporary design shopping mall, where practically all name brands from all over the world would be housed:
I was aiming and shooting at the crowd sitting encircled on the ground - a Tibetan man in his suitable only for winter costume was selling his trade - and all well focused on their interested subjects, those colorful beads or stones, macrame, bangles, buddhistic relics, etc. Though without any usual unexpected camera flash spilled at the crowd, the Tibetan man was so offended that he started to curse, I believe, with his bad language. I pretended, ignored him and walked away like nothing had happened. I know Buddha will never forgive him for his illicit language; guess I had intruded into his personal space. I could have, and should have, summoned for the City Street Management Team to get him for plying illegal trades on the pedestrian street. In this case, if so happened, the whole street would have gone into complete silence. Not too far away and all in their true blue uniforms, three men from the City Street Management Team were standing under the Phoenix tree puffing cigarettes, apparently enjoying their time off after the always seemingly choreographed acts of Tom and Jerry chases around the city blocks.
Later, another man had asked me to pay him RMB5 for taking photo of his display. I countered him that he had to pay the same RMB5 to sell legally on the pedestrian street. He was completely muted by my cheeky and bold display of legal adversaries. I floated away, happy with my hard won battle shot.
Apparently the result of long day under the sun and her face so scorched or sun burned, a young woman had a small box full of CDs, with titles exclusively from the US and Europe, at the back of her bicycle, an easy way for her to transport and take off when the Tom and Jerry rounds would repeat many times in the same area. These CDs were actually intercepted by the Customs, but who only knows how or where she and others would be able to get them and sell them on the streets. For me, I bargained for several copies of CDs. She would sell them at RMB15 per CD; I stood firm at RMB10 per piece. Eventually, I got a single CD of Balinese traditional musical recording and 2-CD set of WOW Best Gospels in 30 years, all for RMB30. She expressed her silent contempt that I bargained down. After paying her in cash, she made faces at me; in turn, I 'retaliated' the same to her. Again, I walked away - also happy with my 'hard' bargain of the day.
Well, so much about painting the town with my readily available camera, and, yes, a maximum use of my brand new Canon Digital IXUS 750. This digital wonder did capture night shots very effectively.
Lastly, the withered leaves had collected at my feet - as Memories of Cat goes...Yes, autumn is here to stay.
It was not much for this past long 7-day holiday, lasted from Sunday, October 1st through Saturday, Oct. 7th. In fact, many had to work on Saturday Sept. 30th as well as this Sunday Oct. 8th; these two working days would replace the actual working days of Thursday and Friday. Hence, the officially allocated holidays were from Monday through Wednesday. Due to the above arrangement, the whole China was able to go on the long stretch of off days, of course, with mood to celebrate their National Day and personal holidays. This culminated to the largest human migration in the single 7-day on Earth, considering billions of Chinese souls. Well, this was also the best of time to see the humongous humanity at work in China. Peoples were everywhere. Yes, peoples. People here and people there; or literally in Chinese proverbial saying, people sea people mountain or ren shan ren hai.
For me, the whole week lasted like it was any other days except that I rested, rested, rested and lazed about, nearly rotted, slept a lot, and read very little. I woke up routinely early, did house chores, watched a very entertaining and hilarious comedy variety show from Hunan Province Channel and lots of documentaries, predominantly foreign imports dubbed into Chinese, cooked lunch with dinner inclusive, later drowsed off for an hour or two after lunch, and after that I would randomly picked a place to hang out on the streets of Shanghai.
Many locals had claimed to have strategically chosen to remain at home in order to avoid the ritualistic holiday crowd pouring into the City. In fact, many were out of the City to jam other cities or countrysides as well. One of the very pleasant and windy evenings, I was checking out the crowd at the Bund. It was a very thrilling and somewhat entertaining experience, cautiously making my moves grooving into the dramatically intensified caliber of the uproarious crowd. Pricking my ears, I could detect a dozen varieties of Chinese dialects spoken, and those from the international travelers; and with heightened level of safety precaution for the programmed amplifiers constantly blabbering, repeatedly informing or bombarding the crowd to guard for their personal valuables.
With modest restrained behavior and apparently well aware of the one eye shut City Teams, who were on duty and around combing the area, most vendors kept their make shift floor displays within their individual territory, drawing curious crowd who bargained for their interested targets or making holiday spending spree. Occasionally, some were being hassled around into buying those sparkling, crystal products, counterfeit name brands, moving toys, cute and cuddly softies or puffies, as well as highly creative organic reed-weaved animals.
My foot got stampede twice, and twice due to someone backing off to find their best camera positions when aiming at their travel mates who posed for memory shots, with the spectacular backdrop of the Pudong Financial District on the other side of the Pujiang or River Pu. This is enough to explain the limited amount of contingent breathing space when jostling in between the crowd, and unless one tilted his or her head to look out for the mid-autumn moon, and not a single star that could be seen though, to find last relaxing resort or solace for vast visual clarity, deep space beauty or inpenetratable atmospheric space above the bobbling and bubbling human heads.
While taking an evening walk to check out street activities nearby where I live in Pudong or East of River Pu, the following occasions took place on the pedestrian street right by a modern and contemporary design shopping mall, where practically all name brands from all over the world would be housed:
I was aiming and shooting at the crowd sitting encircled on the ground - a Tibetan man in his suitable only for winter costume was selling his trade - and all well focused on their interested subjects, those colorful beads or stones, macrame, bangles, buddhistic relics, etc. Though without any usual unexpected camera flash spilled at the crowd, the Tibetan man was so offended that he started to curse, I believe, with his bad language. I pretended, ignored him and walked away like nothing had happened. I know Buddha will never forgive him for his illicit language; guess I had intruded into his personal space. I could have, and should have, summoned for the City Street Management Team to get him for plying illegal trades on the pedestrian street. In this case, if so happened, the whole street would have gone into complete silence. Not too far away and all in their true blue uniforms, three men from the City Street Management Team were standing under the Phoenix tree puffing cigarettes, apparently enjoying their time off after the always seemingly choreographed acts of Tom and Jerry chases around the city blocks.
Later, another man had asked me to pay him RMB5 for taking photo of his display. I countered him that he had to pay the same RMB5 to sell legally on the pedestrian street. He was completely muted by my cheeky and bold display of legal adversaries. I floated away, happy with my hard won battle shot.
Apparently the result of long day under the sun and her face so scorched or sun burned, a young woman had a small box full of CDs, with titles exclusively from the US and Europe, at the back of her bicycle, an easy way for her to transport and take off when the Tom and Jerry rounds would repeat many times in the same area. These CDs were actually intercepted by the Customs, but who only knows how or where she and others would be able to get them and sell them on the streets. For me, I bargained for several copies of CDs. She would sell them at RMB15 per CD; I stood firm at RMB10 per piece. Eventually, I got a single CD of Balinese traditional musical recording and 2-CD set of WOW Best Gospels in 30 years, all for RMB30. She expressed her silent contempt that I bargained down. After paying her in cash, she made faces at me; in turn, I 'retaliated' the same to her. Again, I walked away - also happy with my 'hard' bargain of the day.
Well, so much about painting the town with my readily available camera, and, yes, a maximum use of my brand new Canon Digital IXUS 750. This digital wonder did capture night shots very effectively.
Lastly, the withered leaves had collected at my feet - as Memories of Cat goes...Yes, autumn is here to stay.
Jeremy
Greetings from Shanghai
Sunday, October 8th, 2006
Greetings from Shanghai
Sunday, October 8th, 2006
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