Look for this block of shops

To get there, take line 3 orange line to 충무로 station and get out at exit 5. Continue straight towards Myeongdong and one you pass a big tower called Kukdong Building, turn right and immediately turn left on the next small junction. About ten meters later on your right will be a small camera shop called Yeongsang 영상 Camera. Go up to the second floor and there is a black and white photo developing shop. In a small corner of the shop, the old man there will CLA your mechanical camera.

This is what the first floor looks like. Follow the sign to the black & white shop upstairs.

Mine took only 2 hours. About the time it takes to develop a roll of film and cost a reasonable 100,000₩. The finder all clear now an all mechanical parts humming along, it’s cheap and at the same time fast. I was initially expecting a week before pickup. Who knew I could browse the camera shops around the area and pick it up on the same day.

Taking apart the M2

Highly recommended shop. Thanks to rangefinderforum.com for the initial directions. Shop opens 10am to 7pm. However the owner is sometimes downstairs in a used camera shop.

Street Performer in Kaifeng

Night Market in Kaifeng

Hanging around in Kaifeng

No phone while driving? Nice one...

National day in China is special. For the party member, this is the 60th such celebration and from what I’ve heard, there will be more fireworks burnt tonight than during the Beijing Olympics and the giant footsteps will make its way to Shanghai, if what I heard is correct. To me it’s quite obvious they will use more fireworks for the 1 Oct celebrations, especially when you consider it will be celebrated country-wide.

Debate aside, along with the midautumn festival, I get to have 6 days off. All of it public holidays.

Now I’ve been fixated on Henan province since early this year when I read about it. Early golden dynastic years of the Chinese empire happened here. Out of the 8 ancient capitals of China, 4 are located here. That would be Zhengzhou, Kaifeng, Luoyang and Anyang. After the first emperor set up camp in Xian, the capital quickly moved to Henan (I believe it was Luoyang, but wikipedia will tell you what it was). Of course Longmen grottoes/caves are here. So is the very commercialised Shaolin temple at Song Shan. Better still, my chinese surname, Chen, the top 5 most common chinese surname, originated here in Henan. The article I read indicated it was in Puyang. My search on the web says another town to the east of Henan which I doubt I will visit due to time constraints. More googling says that it began when Chen state was established, and so on, and the town inside Chen State is today Zhoukou, not too far from Zhengzhou and Kaifeng.

Retro province requires retro equipment. Leica M6 and M2 doing the duties for Henan Province along with 15 rolls of film.

So, the masterplan is to fly into Zhengzhou and cover all 4 ancient capitals and their most important sights and cover two thirds of the cities which are the possible origin of my surname. All these in 6 days.

Henan's Zhengzhou Airport

Will go light. Everything hand carried. Will bring the Ricoh GR Digital for grab shots. Main cameras will be a Leica M2 with Abrahamsson’s Rapidwinder IXMOO for black and white film. This will be mated to a 35mm f2.8 Summaron. A second Leica M6 with 50mm Summicron will be used for colour film. For film, will bring 17 rolls, all from ERA100, Tri-X in IXMOO cassettes, Neopan 1600 for night time, Velvia 50 in case there are landscapes to shoot, Kodachrome slides, Kodak 160NC and finally Ektar 100. That’s a lot, but got to be safe. GPS navigation will be provided with my old workhorse the Garminn eTrex Vista, and backed up by Nokia E71. All these blogging will be done with the E71. The audio recorder PCM-D50 will come along to record ambient sounds.

30 September 2009:
2231hrs: Arrival in Zhengzhou after an hour delay caused by outbound traffic back at Shanghai Hongqiao. Tomorrow is the start of a long holiday, and happened to be the 60th aniversary of Modern China. Zhengzhou airport is quite impressive. I counted 10 aerobridges in a glass building not unlike Pudong airport in design, except the facade is vertical instead of obtusely angled. I had no luggage checked in so it was straight out the door, a ticket booth to buy your 16 RMB bus ticket and crossing a few lanes to board the CITS bound bus. They don’t seem to stop on the way, so telling the counter lady Zhengzhou would do. Had a dejavu, like the airport in Xian I remembered. Same layout, same way to take the bus.

Trip takes 45 minutes on a modern highway. It drops you off in an area full of night clubs, including one that is called Hot Dancing Club… Curious, curious.

Indeed.

One thing I really hate when in a foreign place are those taxis with faulty meters. They are the ones waiting patiently when you arrive and explains the difficulty in getting to your destination due to the traffic. It is close to midnight. I got quoted 40 RMB. My GPSs both told me that the place I wanted to stay in is 5 km away. Even in Shanghai, 5km will cost me less than 15 RMB in a traffic jam. Told the guy to go prey on a REAL foreigner and I started walking. Experience tells me the number of dodgy taxis is inversely proportional to the distance of the center of action. Picked up one about 1 km away and rightly, cost me 10 RMB including 1 RMB tip. And no traffic jam naturally.

View out the hotel, smack in the middle of Zhengzhou. The bright thing is Erqi Square.

Zhengzhou: Hotel room so big it seems they have problems wondering what to do with the space...

Local Chinese hotels in tier 2 towns are hard to explain...

Its close to midnight once I got to the hotel, thanks to the hour or so delay causing us to take off at close to 9pm instead of the scheduled 8pm. Will get some needed sleep now. Tomorrow will head off to ancient capital of Kaifeng.

1 October 2009:
Breakfast at a chinese business hotel. There’s the fried rice, and vegetables stir fried in many ways, but mainly vegetables. There are spicy cold dishes and hot orange juice. Makes me miss turkish breakfast somewhat. No tea, which is strange for China.

Erqi Square in the Morning

Shopping centers surround Erqi Square. Being the important October holiday, this place is heavily decorated.

Its an early start today at 8am. Wandered central Zhengzhou around Er Qi Square with my meterless Leica M2, sure the tricky lighting means a number of wrong exposures. Zhengzhou is just like any other big chinese cities. But noticeably, there are more beggars on the street. They are all mothers with kids, didn’t notice if they were spaced evenly apart, so half-half chance of a syndicated begging scam. So i conclude either the city council does not clean up beggars as well as other chinese cities or perhaps this is a sign that behind the modern facade of this place, it is really just a poor province putting on its best mask.

Tramp on the street of Zhengzhou - Pardon the graininess of some of the Tri-X film here. I had 4 rolls of fogged up Tri-X for this trip. Unfortunate, but can't rescue it.

Waiting for the bus at Zhengzhou long distance bus station

All buses from here are filled to the brim. No passengers on the roof though.

Long distance bus station is nearby. However the queue today is horribly long. Guessing up to 50m long for the ticketing booth. Not surprised as it is Oct 1 today. The start of a long holiday. The space is not too big but there are hundreds of buses here ready to leave in batches. Signboards indicate where the bus is off to, and there are tens of rows of these, mostly within Henan province.

0938hrs: Kaifeng bus does not leave at this bus station as it is not long distance enough or some bullshit like that. So after 30 minutes of waiting in line, I’m not about to go off and re-queue another time. So detour is pending. Reckoning. And so I checked the bus to Zhoukou and there’s one at 10am for 59 RMB. Thats rather expensive, which either denotes this place is freaking far away, or it is just due to the festive prices.

So I am off to Zhoukou. A last minute search on wikipedia before leaving for Henan last night gives conflicting account for the origins of the surname Chen. Chinese National Geographic says it’s Puyang. Wikipedia says Chen State is now where Zhoukou is. I have no way to verify but one way to be sure, this crowded bus station gives me a good way to be sure, I can go to Zhoukou and Puyang to be sure I have been to the original Chen city!

1249hrs: Long time running, because the bus stopped at another station to pick up more passengers. As if it was not loaded enough, they loaded the aisle too, hey, why not fill up the overhead compartment too, Mr driver? But you know when you are in rural China when they do this. We are 10km out of Linying just befor hitting Luohe. It’s a toilet break, at a rather overkill highway stop. There is a proper restaurant here, and stalls for tidbits, corn on cob, and fat sausages.

Zhengzhou even has a tall television tower. This is on the way south towards Zhoukou

1350hrs: Finally got to Zhoukou. Along the way, actually all the way here there are farms on the side of the 2 lane double carriageway highway. Closer to Zhoukou I noticed farmers drying corn on top of flat roofs, like they do in the tibetan villages of Sichuan. The soil here looks dry, bet it has not rained for some time.

Zhoukou itself looks just like any other medium sized agriculturally dependent city in China. I’m ready to believe there are at least a million inhabitants here. Roads are wide and straight, suggesting it was modern, and there are many motorcycles and tractors on the road. Motorcycles are modified into 3 wheeled motor trailers and most of the time there are girls or old women sitting behind it. Air is foggy, polluted and dusty. You’d be happy to be able to see the sun. And unmistakably you’re in rural china. People here speak strange putonghua. She said 40 RMB for the ticket to Kaifeng, and it took me a few tries to understand. For sure they modify the tones. Its like putting the standard pronounciation into a random tone modifier. Just have to ignore the tones and work by context. And yes, people speak loud here. And I’ll say it again, I’m definitely in rural China!

Just outside Zhoukou, the bus stops at this workshop to fill up the fuel tanks.

Zhoukou bus station: This has to be the crappiest bus I've ever seen in China... No offense.

Zhoukou public transport - I hate these. You'd assume they're dirt cheap, but they like to haggle.

... Bringing the goods to the bus station

Not too much time to spend here. There are a few tourist signboards coming into Zhoukou pointing to areas of interest linked to the Three Kingdom legends including, if I remember correctly a memorial to Lord Guan, then again there has to be millions of these around. One dot on my GPS, and I will now have to leave you, provincial capital of the area used to be known as the Chen state. Being a Chen, at least in my pinyin name, I cannot even imagine skipping this town. Even if it means 8 hour detour for an hour visit.

On the way out of Zhoukou, the bus goes straight north on a small road. Here the farming communities are obvious. They dry out corns again, some stalky twigs and the occasional black stuff, which smells like dung. There are so much of it, they really dry them all on roads. Two laned ways become one as half of it is covered with yellow corn kernels.

Outside Zhoukou I got my first glimpse of corn land

Corn everywhere...

And more...

And when you think you've seen enough...

.... you get more corn.

1826hrs: That was a long long way to Kaifeng. Arrived at the long distance bus station, located next to the railway station. Busy area as usual, as for all railway stations in this country. To be safe, I bought the ticket to my next destination, Anyang for noon tomorrow. Will wake up early and visit downtown Kaifeng tomorrow morning.

2011hrs: At Kaifeng’s night market on Gulou Rd. Its noisy, and there are plenty of stalls. Closer to Gulou is where all the food stalls are, and they all seem to be serving stuff on skewers to dip into some kind of shop. Away from the bustling center, stalls start to sell household necessities, and some with those games you’d find in cheap arcades, mainly tossing small rings onto some statistically close to impossible bottles. This is where I will have my dinner tonight. And while shooting the night market, the tape on my Leica M2 IXMOO cassette broke at the end of the reel, meaning not am I running out of film, but I will need to take it out of the camera in a dark room tonight! There goes my planned Neopan 1600 shots of the night market! The backup M6 is sitting in the hotel room, unfortunately.

Dinner. Dumplings.

Not really first class restaurant, but it will do.

and then it's time for dessert at the night market

I don't take hairy crabs, but they have it too...

Are those whiskies?

This I'd take one... the cups were flimsy as hell though.

These two guys were mashing together peanut candy with massive high leveraged hammers. Surefire crowd pleaser.

Locals...

Kaifeng’s night market is easily the size of the one in Xian. And coincidently also filled with chinese muslims. With their skull caps, not ladies in burkha of course. If I were allowed a wild speculation per hour I’d even say that the night market is identical to Xian. Chinese muslims pounding peanut cake, pear tea, brochettes with lamb and plenty of spices. I am starting to love night markets. Dirty but good food, and cheap. Had dumplings, then an apple (supposed to remove the skin I know, but lazy tonight) and topped off with a cup of pear tea. Dont think the total bill ever hit 15 RMB. There is a valid reason for tonight’s frugality on my part. Most chinese hotels take 2x room rate, one part pre-paid room and another part deposit. They can’t do deposit with my Unionpay card, so most of my cash is tied up there. Not that I have a lot of cash in the first place. The ATMs in this town are all out of cash.

Well, this is funny. Walking down the road a few km to my hotel and passed a roadside stall, same old dirty joints you’d find in third tier cities and there’re these well dresses chinese girls munching down their spicy noodles. Across the road is a KTV. So that completes the picture. 2110hrs, and I’m passing the eastern city wall and across the river. I’d better stop blogging before I get run over by a Kaifeng driver.

Kaifeng at night: Notice the night markets

2 October 2009:
0757hrs: I hate people who press the lift before the whole family arrives. And the whole load of people has to wait for them. Families are very much guilty of this social atrocity. And this was my first annoyance for the morning.

Morning in Kaifeng

Morning in the streets of Kaifeng, Inflated decorative lions??? No!!!!

Planned to spend the morning going around whatever is around the center of Kaifeng city. On the map not much is more than a few hundred years, possibly because this place gets flooded periodically by the Yellow river.

0831hrs: At the Grand Xianggou Monastery in the middle of town. There is a 30RMB ticket charge, normal for a monastery. Reading the notice board for tourists outside the place, it says, 555AD during Northern Qi Dynasty… Ok, ten most famous monasteries, and this is funny – please maintain silence in the monastery ground. As I was reading this, a man shouts into his mobile phone as though his microphone was placed on the battery side away from his mouth.

Xianggou Monastery: Ticket Booth

Xianggou Monastery: Entrance

Xianggou Monastery: Local tourists, I love them all...

Xianggou Monastery: Prayer Flags

Xianggou Monastery

Xianggou Monastery: Reading monk

Xianggou Monastery

Xianggou Monastery: No idea what they're building a wireframe elephant for...

Xianggou Monastery

Xianggou Monastery

Xianggou Monastery

Xianggou Monastery

Xianggou Monastery: Music notes & instruments

Xianggou Monastery

Xianggou Monastery: dishing out prayers?

There are a lot of local tourists here. Blogging away while waiting for a trough in the wave of tourists. Photos look better when it is simple with clutter of groups with the same red caps. Its 9am and the sun is up but the pollution gives light close to the evening sunset colours. Warm colours. The way photos looks best.

1238hrs: Leaving Kaifeng bound for Anyang, yet another ancient capital. This one might be the oldest of the 4 I will come across this trip to Henan. I don’t expect to see anything remaining though. The longer it is, the deeper underground they are.

Kaifeng is a little bit of a revelation so far. Walked the streets last night and more this morning. It doesn’t have a big impact tourist location, but spend some time here and its charm starts to show. There are cars, but reminds me of Shanghai a decade ago, where most cars are taxis and buses. Now most get around by electric cycles, and I estimate they out number petrol guzzlers by 5:1 at least.

Here in Kaifeng, shops still promote their wares the old way. I’ve seen many processions of young sales men/women with company vests or sash holding placards with the promotion they are trying to push across. There is always a leader and some noise, be it drums or an audio recording of some sort. Obviously, the bigger the troupe the more glamourous your shop is. I’ve seen that most are 4-5 people large, but one hawking kitchen wares was about 20 long including 8 maidens holding a large drum on their collective shoulders. The men had the honour of holding the boards. Older shops would sometimes do it the old way, an old man with deep and loud voice standing on a chair on the sidewalk attracting customers into a small leather shop. I have heard that this was they way they do it during the dynastic days and there is a skill involved, no doubt.

Shops try to outdo each other. It is not difficult to find shops putting their wares on the sidewalk. The biggest proponent of this are the alcohol shops. Their goods comes in boxes, so it is easy to put as many boxes outside your shop to show you have plenty of stock, and in effect, I guess, that you have plenty of business as well. And the next shop always has more stock to offer. I don’t see this competition between shops elsewhere.

Kaifeng main shopping street early in the morning.

Public Bus

On the streets of Kaifeng

Construction

Kaifeng even has a church

Holy pants

Downtown Kaifeng

Taking the bus

Old street just around the corner from the church

On the streets, there are more trishaws than taxis. No, these are mostly not human powered. They look like the same shitty rickety mechanical mess meant to transport people, and not to look good, but we are in the 21st century now and electric powered motors have found its way into them all. These 3 wheeled carts are everywhere. I did not take them, preferring the ultra cheap 1RMB buses. Bonus is that Google maps on my E71 now does public transit routing with the buses and it worked even in Kaifeng. Travel just got cheaper! As long as you don’t get to pay roaming data charges or course. Just point to where you want to go and the bus numbers appear in the routing.

Kaifeng Train Station

Little personal transporter can be seen loitering around public transportation hubs here

Long distance Bus Station. On my way to Anyang now...

As the bus inches its way up north, horns used all the time although the traffic in front looked clear to me. My garmin states 65kmph. We’re back to the countryside, evident by the drying of corn kernels on the emergency lanes on both side. The standard form of transport here are the 3 wheeled tractor, a cross between tricycle and muscle 4 stroke motor and motorcycle tires. I guess these are goods transporter but they seem to be ferrying people more than goods. Even trucks here, full sized trucks have 3 wheels. Either 4 wheels are unlucky, thus 3 (5 wheeled transports might be a little difficult to manouvre) or it is cheaper to maintain 3 wheels. Guess i will never know the reason and this will remain one of those mysteries of rural China.

Leaving Kaifeng

On the way to Anyang

... through rural China

Go to Henan Province Part 2…

Typing this on the flight from Singapore to Istanbul.

Trips with a historical slant can be stale for those who prefer to ignore the significance of places beyond its heyday. I have a feeling that most parts of my upcoming 2 week trip will be of interest to only a small minority. I have spent almost 3 months reading Edward Gibbon’s excellent “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”, referencing wikipedia and making notes on google maps, charting the locations as I go along. Luckily for me, most of the action towards the end of the Roman Empire centers around present-day Turkey.

The focal point of course is on Constantinople, also known today as Istanbul, where Emperor Constantine decided to establish the first Christian kingdom, arguably because he decided to side with the growing popularity of a new religion. Sacked a few times by passing crusaders and finally falling to the giant cannon of Sultan Mehmet II of the Muslim Ottomans less than a thousand years later. In Istanbul I would expect the signs of history to be more obvious, but it would be a challenge to find the remains of the wall where the muslims breached the city wall.

Planning to stay 3 days in Istanbul. As for the rest of the trip, the rough planning is as follows:

After Istanbul, and using it as a hub, I will do two day trips. First of it will be to Hadrianople – present day Edirne – next to the Greek border. This is where the Ottomans set up their capital and headquarters before heading out to conquer Constantinople. I expect the city to be bland,with history hidden behind a modern facade, tourists passing through, oblivious to the role this city played in the founding of present day Turkey about 700 years ago. A day trip out of Istanbul should be sufficient.

Then there’s Nicaea – present day Iznik – where a bunch of church elders held a meeting a bit more than a thousand years ago and decided on the Nicene Creed, a story setting the relationship between the key figures of today’s Christian church doctrine. All other conflicting views were banished, and purged. Iznik is famous for the tiles that graced many Ottoman monuments in Turkey. Again, I’m expecting a ruin or two but nothing more than the pleasure of getting GPS coordinates in a city steeped in historical significance. If time permits, perhaps Iskander Kebab in Bursa not too far from Iznik before returning to Istanbul.

To save time, I plan to then take a flight down to Nevsehir, in Cappadocia. A bus from the capital would take too long, losing up to a whole day to get to the heart of Turkey. At Urgup, I have made advanced booking on a rental car which will be with me the whole trip in Cappadocia while I try to cover the whole area in 3 days. It is probably ambitious to do so with public transportation, so we shall see. Distances seem quite short so I shouldn’t have to use up tanks of petrol everyday.

Planning to spend 3-4 days there depending on my mood. Cappadocia would be the landscaping part of the trip, and my DSLR and a couple choice lenses and tripod will come with me for this purpose.

The next few day post-Cappadocia is unclear at this moment. Will probably make it up as I go along. One possibility is to go to Kayseri, hanging around the most muslim city of my trip, and taking the overnight train down to Adana to have a kebap, and finally down to Antakya (ancient name: Antioch). The second plan is to skip Kayseri, but since I’m not in the mood to apply for a Syrian visa, not sure what I will do in the 3-4 days down south in Antakya. Will worry later. All I know is that I have to be in Adana at a certain time the day before the flight back so that I can catch a domestic flight from Adana back to Istanbul, where I will spend another night before leaving Turkey.

Total duration: two weeks. This will be during Ramadan season, so I’m prepared to fast if I have to, eating breakfast and dinner only.

Equipment wise, I have the standard blogging machine, my Nokia E71 that will double as an alarm clock as it has the most irritating ring of all, and tripling as a GPS backup since it has google maps allowing me to have an eye up in the sky if required. Primary GPS is my trusty 10 year old Garmin eTrex Vista loaded with world map for this part of the planet. For the first time, I will bring a PCM sound recorder to get ambient sounds into my archives, honours going to the Sony PCM D50 recorder. A trip is not a trip without cameras, of course . I will have the usual 3 cameras. People shots will be made with a Leica M6 Classic and just one lens, a 35mm Summicron ASPH which should be versatile enough for close up action. Bringing 20 rolls of film, Kodak Tri-X, Chinese-made ERA100 and Fuji Neopan1600. Not forgetting a single roll of Kodachrome, just in case. DSLR for landscapes with a rugged-ish Nikon D300. Lenses that will come along: 12-24mm f4 AFS, 10.5mm f2.8, 28-70mm f2.8 AFS and my favourite all-round lens: Micro-Nikkor 105mm f4 AI. All Nikkors. Point and shoot honours will go to a Ricoh GR Digital in a belt holster for quick grab shots. A light Gitzo 1531T travel tripod and RRS BH25 tripod head comes along. All these goes into a Kinesis  Journeyman bag configured for half gears and half clothes. A Kinesis M550 multipurpose bag serves as a day and accessory pack when I need to move fast.

Enough on the equipment. This setup allows me to move fast and to jump on buses and planes without any big bulk. It’s heavy for sure, but nothing big plate of kebab at the day cannot soothe. And so it begins…

Another view of the Hollywood-esque sign in downtown Keelung

27 June 2009

This is my second trip to Keelung. The first trip is here. So no long introductory pleasantries in this post. Tapping this out on my E71 as I go along, and with my fat fingers, the less I type the better it would be. Now that I’ve made my apologies, I’ll let my laziness take it from here. Will make the pictures do all the talking.

This weekend the port is devoid of any large ships, unlike the first time I was here

And before I start a post about Taiwan, why not start with a photo of the bikes!

By train from Taipei central train station. 43NTD by TRA train. The tickets can be bought at any of the TRA counters, but may be a lot quicker to go to the basement next to the entrance gate to the trains and buy the ticker at the vending machine there. First mistake of the day for me. First train starts just before 6 am. I took the 9:34am train. Quite obviously I woke up later than planned.

The weather forecast is wrong today. Was expecting thunderstorms but got greeted with a years supply of sunlight in a day. Its hot as hell and I have a large umbrella from the hotel with me. Not a day I feel like spending wholy outdoors out of the shade! Taking bus 301 to the Dutch City (Taibaizhuang). Fare seems to be 15NTD. The bus is a small mini bus with blaring local radio in Taiwanese. Loud advertising, and loud old 80s style songs.

The first route I took was a deadend, but nice photo opportunities, so it was not a waste

Bus 301 is driven by a mute thug. Dropped me off at the last stop that looks like nothing much. A few exploratory walk, and it looks like the right direction is towards the sea and on the left is a little road up the hill. According to the map, this road leads either to the Baimiwong fort or a Power Station on the top of the hill. Temperature is soaring today, sunny by far.

Baimiwong Fort parking lot; who knows where those planes came from

View of the Port of Keelung from the fort

An arty photo of tourists on a hot day above the remains of the fort's guns

Baimiwong Fort with power station smoke stacks in the background

A better view of the power station

Got up to the top of the hill and Baimiwong fort is up here. The power station is at sea level and doesn’t look as though there is a path to go down there. Nothing special about this fort, 3 big guns that are no longer there, and a hill top lookout that requires some extra stairs climbing. As with most places in Taipei, there is a couple here for a wedding photoshoot. I wander for a while, took a picture or two with the 2 cameras I have with me and then its time to go back where I came from.

Roadside construction crew on the long walk back to Keelung Port

Port cranes up close

At one of the temple I stumbled across on the way...

... you will always find appetizing street food anywhere in Taiwan

Was hoping to go westwards but there are no road other than a highway which I probably can’t walk on. So the only way is to walk back towards Keelung and see if there are anything interesting along the way. So far this place is quiet. Very very quiet.

Fishing Village at Siehe Road

With a popular looking swimming spot

But what I'm interested in is the port itself

Boats are repaired here in the village, I don't think they manufacture the boat here, as the all look in the state of repair.

Now this is funny, its a boat equivalent to tail whipping. What's funny is that it looks deliberately aimed at the anglers and most of them had to raise their rods in response.

And in the background, notice the temple dedicated to fishermen?

This Taiwanese version of the Pinyin is confusing at best. Went on Zhonghua Rd (also labelled Jhonghua here) after emerging from the Zhongshan tunnel and went north west wards towards Waimushan. There are quite a number of cyclists here and they mainly ride mountain or touring bikes with straight bars but the trend now seems to be big bikes with small wheels. Looks to me like riding mules. Not my cup of tea. So I continue the walk and turned into Siehe Rd onto the coast. In front of 2 big fuel tanks there’s a small fishing village with a temple, roughly the typical taiwanese village. There is a little area for swimming as well. Plenty of weekenders swimming. After a while shooting fishing boats it started to rain and the sky is starting to turn dark and I set -3 stops on my M2′s sunny f16 setting.

A local motorcycle attempts to talk to a mural fish

Old and gritty, I just love pictures like these about Taiwan

On the outskirts of Keelung City

A few minutes rest (must have walked a few km in the hot sun) its time to walk back to Keelung. The shops are mainly closed this saturday except for the occasional beetlenut shop with bright neon lights and motorcycle repair shops.

Walked back to the main train station at 1645hrs and its time for a little ice mocha and catch up with a little blog writing at Starbucks.

End of train tracks in Keelung, this is the line that leads back to Taipei

View of Keelung Harbour at the center of the city

Because next would be a night out at the night market at Dianji Temple!! And so the warm rain of an almost tropical island started dripping, and now I’m glad I brought an umbrella with me! First off an oyster omellette (60NTD) egg on top, small oyster and lettuce inside and gelatinous paste at the bottom and topped with sweet sauce and something that looks like chilli but tastes like sweet red sauce.

Next up: starchy rice with mushrooms and a bowl of pork and viscous soup (70NTD). I think its enough, not going to stuff myself solid tonight.

Food!

And more food

On the way back to the train station, realised I have sun burn on my shoulder and sandal strap marks on my feet. Body all sticky from the sweat and its time to take a 30 min nap in the train and go back to Taipei main train station. Time check 1826hrs, a good 8 hrs out walking and exploring Keelung. Fine fine hiking day today, though a little hot, next trip will require me to cycle to cover longer distances.

Got to go back to Taipei now on my yacht... ciao!

*End of post*

Late night shoppers hanging around Nanjing Rd way after all shops have closed.

The standard tourist to Shanghai makes a pilgrimage to the perennially packed Nanjing Road. The picture of thousands of shoppers compressed through the use of telephoto lens is all over brochures of Shanghai. I could copy those, and maybe I would in the future for my project, but I was more interested in what Nanjing Rd looked like late at night, when most of the shops have already closed.

In every major city there is always that one place where you will find more out-of-towners than locals, and this is where touts, conmen, and the general unlicensed street traders hang around. So naturally, I had my iPod on with sound isolating Shure headphones so I can ignore most of them coming up to me. I’m sure I will have to spend some time waiting so I packed a book with me so I can find a bench and read it until the crowd thins down.

In my small bag, 2 cameras. A Leica M6 fitted with a Summilux 50mm f1.4 ASPH, my favourite lens for night time shooting, and a second Leica M2 with Voigtlander Nokton 35mm f1.2 ASPH with Tom Abrahamsson’s Rapidwinder IXMOO. Both cameras are loaded with Fujifilm’s Neopan 1600. There are no meter on the Leica M2 so I was expecting quite a number of rejected shots.

And here are the results…

The standard shot of Nanjing Road, but this one close to 11pm. There are noticeably quite a number of people still wandering around, along with touts selling underwater goods.

This is a large tidbit shop. With the shutter closed, it is still possible to see the workers cleaning up and getting ready to return home.

This private proprietor is clearly a late night worker. He is the only person in the shop, perhaps indicating that the workers have already gone home long ago.

Now this booth is filled with customers. I did not figure out what it was selling, though my guess would be lottery tickets.

And just like everywhere else in Shanghai, all public places are places to lounge around. Even late at night on Nanjing Road, it is possible to see people just hanging about when all else have closed.

And this is the other guy, myself being the other, reading at a pedestrian mall late at night.

... And before long, the cleaning crew would be coming to give the place a scrubdown.

And more of the scrubcrew...

And soon it's time for everyone to pack up their stuff and say goodbye. This guy is shirtless as it was a hot night. Definitely a Shanghainese.

And some came to Nanjing Road prepared with their pyjamas.

Maybe they all plan to sleep over?

There are no shortage of public transportation to get back late at night. These 3 wheeled motorcycles are everywhere on the pedestrian street.

As are the most popular mode of transport apart from the metro...

Security van, not police, so this van has to be there to pick up the security guards after the night shift.

But night time belongs to the cleanup staff

Shanghai No. 1 Store, at the beginning of the pedestrian walkway.

The Meridien Hotel, on Nanjing Road

And before long, it is quite obvious that the crowds are starting to thin down dramatically closer to midnight.

And in some areas it is just traquil, something not found very often in Shanghai.

These maintenance crews were getting ready to replace billboard posters.

And the last image to end this series... Hope you enjoyed it.

*end*