Majiagang Pier, Changxing Island

The term “non-linear” applies especially to this post. I have made 2 trips to Changxing island over a few weeks, both times armed only with black & white film. As usual, I would type out this blog post on my Nokia E71 and then combine and edit them on a Macbook when I’m back in the comforts of my living room. However, somehow I got the post on Hengsha up and I forgot about this one till March 2010. So here I am, working on getting it out of my clogged up draft box.

As I originally wrote: after Hengsha, it is only natural the next island on the Yangzi River Delta to visit would be Changxing island, a lot bigger than Hengsha and slightly to the west. Not the biggest of course, that honour would go to Chongming island, subject of a future trip which I planned but never got to carry out before this post went online. It is not too difficult to get to Changxing. Same bus or metro to Wusong port and a boat to Majiagang, which is the only pier on the island, I was told. There are a lot more boats to Majiagang than to Hengsha, and the same for the return trip, so it shouldn’t be any issue to get there and back and advanced ticket is not necessary.

There are not too much information about Changxing Island on the internet, at least not the English internet that I can search for. I was told that this island contains many orange farms, of the green skinned type. Lokam, some call it. Shanghainese would go there in their car in autumn and pick them, like a novelty item as if reminding them of the agricultural origins of Pudong. As the ferry passes by Changxing Island on the way to Hengsha, all I saw on Changxing was a lot of shipyards, so I have expectations of orchards, four-stroke tractors and shipyards.

Eventually I would spend a total of two weekends to survey two sections of the island, the middle  and the far western end. It would be total nuts to walk the whole island. Changxing is at least 30km long from one end to the other.

First Survey: 15 August 2009

Central Changxing Island hike

Tried to wake up early, as I expect a long long walk on Changxing. Left home at 0700hrs after packing my own lunch, as I don’t expect to waste time to look for a restaurant when on the island. After a quick breakfast, it was the usual bus 952 from People’s Square to Wusong port. At the Baoshan ticketing office, the next fast boat I could find was at 1000hrs. This means I have at least one and a half hours to waste at the waiting room. I plug in my iPod and Fring on my Nokia E71 and tried to get productive going through some podcasts.

Boarding time

Boarding the fast boat to Changxing Island

I have on me my old Lowepro Rover AW backpack, which I do not use too much anymore as I have found better alternatives. Inside is crammed with a Mamiya RZ67II medium format camera with 50mm and 127mm lenses. Originally I was thinking to bring 2 magazines and both black & white and colour film, but to cut down on the weight, it will be a black & white trip this time. Lunch went on the top of the bag, and the Sony PCM-D50 audio recorder in a pouch attached to the belt.  Navigation is provided by Garmin eTrex Vista, and backup with Nokia E71 running google maps in case I need to check if a path leads to dead-end or not.

Huangpu River traffic: Mainly barges

1043hrs: Arrived at Majiagang port. Took less than an hour to get here. This place is busier than google maps suggested. Leaving the port gates, we are all greeted by motorcycle taxies and minivan drivers, offering to have you anywhere on the island for a pittance. Too bad this trip is all walk for me, no cheating on any other type of transportation. Just about every car on this island is doubling as a makeshift bus or taxi. There are some roadside stalls selling dried salted fish (because you could smell it).

Everyone seems to live in houses here. Not small huts either, these are 2 storey bungalows. But it would not be fair to call these luxurious, but rather, standard houses you would find on a typical chinese rural community. Not really farm houses either. They all seem to have tiles on the outside, which brings the class down a notch or two in my opinion. But you are on an island, so maybe style is not the concern. The only minus about these houses is that the cars that travel on the 2 lane highway have their horns permanently set to honk all the time. To make things worse, they prepare to overtake half a kilometer a way.

One of the small township on the island. This is one of those 120 film rolls that got partly fogged because of user error. But came out quite artistic.

Came across this stockyard for bricks

So I set a course due north east and walked till I hit the coastline where I could see Chongming Island, cutting through villages and farms, and orange orchards. Its not east to be discrete when carrying a Mamiya RZ67 as it looks as though I’m there to hunt for wild boar. This camera is just too big! But I love the medium format negative that it produces.

1305hrs: Finally hit the coastline after having to cut through some plantation, helped by satellite maps from my mobile phone. Found a way to get to a bund, and now sitting on a ledge at N31.42274, E121.68030 having my packed sandwich while enjoying the view of the bridge that connects this island to the main Chongming Island. I have heard of a long bridge somewhere near Shanghai, and I didn’t know it was linking Changxing and Chongming Island. I don’t think the bridge is ready yet for traffic yet but it does look long as hell. There are plenty of wetlands plants here, swaying in the wind, with nice cooling wind blowing so that it is not too hot. Perfect peaceful time to spend half an hour on lunch and just relaxing before the trek back to Majiagang.

Walking along the dykes

... plenty of machinery left here, construction can be found everywhere. This one looks like a moon buggy.

Wide open plains, this is looking towards Chongming Island.

More construction workers

I think they're mixing cement here, found while walking through a village on the island

As expected, not all roads are paved on this island

It is quite common in China to see mobile phone numbers scribbled all over

A farm of some sort. For a while I thought it was grass, but I defer from making conclusions. Just makes a nice photo scenery.

1421hrs: Reached km0 of Fenghuang Highway, which should lead me straight back to Majiagang. The way back is just plenty of walking. Other than large breakwaters and dykes, majority of the island is mainly farmland. Not too many shops, so do stock up on tidbits and water before you venture out here. There are no restaurants that I have seen so far. They could be clustering around the Ferry Pier.

1530hrs: At Majiagang ferry terminal. No problem getting a ticket back to Wusong Port. The large waiting room at the terminal is noisy and full of locals. I don’t see any tourist today. Maybe this is a good sign.

Ferry waiting room

And there were plenty of seats in this waiting area...

1647hrs: Back in Wusong Port and hungry. Time to look for some dinner. It was a nice long walk today. Most of the trip was boring, but the northern shore of the island is perfect for a quiet picnic. What is better than a totally secluded place with only the occasional local and no tourists and best of all, quiet and has a great view of the Chongming Island bridge?

22 August 2009:

Western Changxing Island Hike

0800hrs: Back at wusong port queueing up for the day’s ferry ticket. Weather today is again forecasted rain but very very smoggy, but not worse than the typical smoggy Shanghai day. The ticket office seems emptier than normal which is strange. Bought a fast boat to Majiagang for 18 RMB, and like routine, went straight to waiting room 1&2. Boat number is 153, and I guess I will be at Majiagang before 1000 hrs.

Motorcycle taxies waiting for passengers to alight from an incoming ferry at Wusong Pier

Packed a Mamiya RZ67 and a Nikon S2 in my small 20L Arcteryx backpack so that I don’t look too much like I have heavy photographic equipment. Lunch today will be a few buns from last night. Should be enough to keep me going all day. Water will all be in a 2L Camelbak inside the backpack. Bringing a Goosen Luna Pro light meter and the Sony PCM D50 audio recorder with a 16GB memory stick, about the most modern thing I have currently. Navigation is via an old Garmin eTrex Vista backed up by google maps on the Nokia E71.

There are many boats going to Majiagang on Changxing Island, but for some reason when you purchase tickets there is only one time on the counter. Trying to fill up the next boat? The fast boats are always filled up it seems anyway. Not tried the slow boat on the way to Majiagang, with more seats it should be a lot more vacancies on those. However, time is something I do not have much of, so no slow boat going there.

Ah, just like a professional sailor...

On the way to Changxing

0937hrs: At Majiagang. With the smog, the view at the port is quite different from last week. The dry dock named Emei Shan seems to be sinking, at least by design so that the large ship being repaired there can leave the dry dock. Smoggy but sunny day, so guessing at least sunny f/16 minus 3 stops all day long.

1021hrs: Took a local illegal bus to a place to the west end of Changxing with a name I forgot but have the coordinates for. Stopped just in front of an army shophouse. Everyone inside are dressed in uniforms but wonder what they do here. There is a bus stop across the road and I noticed there is a bus that leads back to the pier every hour on the first quarter. Took note of it by snapping a picture with my mobile phone. Its time to take a walk… To the coastline!

Rural transporter

Farmhouses

This little bit of treeline cover helps sheltering me from the hot sun

... but it mostly looks like this.

New home in the middle of nowhere

But I prefer this one for "house in the middle of nowhere", but this one is anything but new. Notice the phone number scribbled on the wall.

There are giant breakwater dykes in this end of the island, and I’ll just follow it for a few kilometer. The big issue today is that it is very very hot. I wouldn’t be too surprised if it got close to 40C today in the hot sun. There are not too many trees out here for shelter, and the cemented path does not help either. I must have walked more than 10km by the time I got back to the place where I started. The scenery here is less of a wetland, as I originally thought from Google Earth, but more of large desolate landscape surrounded by concrete dykes. Good potential for simple landscape photography.

Landscape always looks better when shot in medium format

Road to nowhere. On the GPS it looks like a straight few km in the hot sun.

And finally, the elusive orange/lokum plantation

Time to walk back.

1354hrs: Back to the place I was left off. A public mini bus stands idle and the driver is sleeping inside. This has to be the 1415hrs bus back to Majiagang. Bus costs 3RMB. The one sitting here seems like the right one. Once the driver sees more than a person standing outside the bus he opens the door and turns on the aircon. The buses here do not seem to have number, they go by the destination displayed at the front, which is a bit of a problem for someone like me.

In the bus back to the pier

1426hrs: Back at Majiagang pier. Bought a fast boat ticket back at 18RMB leaving at 1545hrs. Which is just nice as this leaves me time to roam the pier looking for more things to explore. First up would be a visit to the waterfront to try to recreate the picture I took last week but lost because of a roll of fogged up film. Left my 127mm Mamiya lens at home today so unlikely I will get the same exact shot but will try.

Feel thirsty enough to crave a bottle of ice cold beer. But figured a bottle of sugared water would be a better choice considering I’ve probably lost quite a bit of salt through sweating today. Then its time go go into the boat waiting room, which is a 2 storey building. As with any transport area, you are greeted by a guard and an xray machine. I see that here no one puts their bag into the machine.

This guy distributes gas canisters for cooking. At the pier.

Waiting Room

Waiting room

The waiting room seems to smell of urine. I was wondering if the floor is the toilet, but I guess its the unkept public toilet up on the second floor where most passengers wait and board the boat. Its fine to wait here except for the chain smoking men up here. They smoke all the time, never do you see them without a stick in their mouth.

1621hrs: Back in Wusong Port. Greeted by illegal motorcycle transporters, but this is quite normal outside the big urban centres in China.

And I leave you with this shot of a chinese easy-rider...

*end*

No it didn’t. Light did REALLY get to the film. Processing was via 1+100 Rodinal on stand development in 27C water for 1 Hour. To my surprise (seriously, there was no big surprise!), the base was all dark, no frame marking at all, and there were just a small trace of image on it. First frame was 90% destroyed, and other than uneven fogging, some Photoshopping might recover some details.

And it did. Actually, the result is less Holga, and more wet plate collodion with a little age induced fogging. Possibly making some nice artistically inclined shots. Here they are…

First picture of the frame. No, its not god rays, but a ship under repair on a floating dry dock. Being the first frame in the roll, this one took the full brunt of the fogging.

All these rural places in China are full of these crude minotaur of a vehicle. The fogging is apparent, but there's also a little texture in it. This frame is in the first half of the roll, so I'm guessing this is the texture of the black backing paper, that somehow managed to transfer itself to the film during the fogging.

This one I like. Looks like the result from a lost world war 2 negative of some Japanese port. No, its Changxing Island circa 2009. And the texture is also here. This one is actually frame no.2.

Stacks of bricks. The actual shot of this is less interesting as the background is visible. The yard is not THAT big, but due to the fogging, it suggests an infinite storage area. On the contrary, but a nice surprise. This one is towards the middle of the roll.

This is a small river that cuts through the middle of Changxing Island. The fogging sets back the scene 100 years to the past. Nice!

Tractors here are all caked in some white alabaster thingy. No I didn't stick my fingers into it to confirm, but up till now I still don't know what it is for sure. This is one of the last frames in the roll.

Surprise, surprise! Now I’ve added another processing trick into my darkroom arsenal!

Leica M2, Summicron 35mm f2 ASPH, Kodak 160NC: Tobu line Train to Tobu-Nikko

Leica M2, Summicron 35mm f2 ASPH, Kodak 160NC: Spring Water Pool in Nikko Town

Its a scouting trip because I’m fed up with the weather. Its just too much. Cloudy and raining the whole weekend and I’m here expected to be hanging around all the time in Tokyo. Rain or no rain, I’m off to Nikko to have a look. The temples will be covered today, but what I will really scout are the wilderness and mountains this place offers. Next trip will be more specialized. However don’t think for once I’m going light!

In the backpack, a Mamiya RZ67 with 50mm lens, and 2 film backs. One loaded with Velvia 100 I don’t expect to use at all considering the weather, and a couple of Tri-X rolls. In the utility pack, Ricoh GR Digital and a Leica M2 with 35mm Summicron ASPH.

Leica M2, Summicron 35mm f2 ASPH, Kodak 160NC: Forest in Nikko

Train to Nikko, or shall I say, the cheapest way to get to Nikko I can find is the Tobu line to Tobu-Nikko from Asakusa Tobu line station. Cost 1320yen. Taking the 7:10 train today. The 7:30 express train cost 1400yen extra because its more ‘express’. One thing to be really sure is that your train car actually reaches Tobu-Nikko. The last few I saw has different destinations, so my guess is along the way they drop cars so only the Tobu-Nikko train actually gets there. The train is oldish, but hey, it moves. Going to take a nap… Been a chore to get to Asakusa before 7 am.

Leica M2, Summicron 35mm f2 ASPH, Kodak 160NC: Stream on the way to Jakko Waterfall

937hrs: And it has to happen. Just arrived at Nikko and the rain is coming down hard – for Japanese standards, that is. So hard it is probably stupid to walk anywhere in this rain. So its time for a morning katsudon and salad in a restaurant next to the station. Could be a nice weather to shoot b&w in. Although this place is not full of people today (likely because of the rain) its mostly elderly hikers at the station. Should have borrowed an umbrella on the way here! The buses plying the routes here are from the Tobu group and they look quite high class for a town bus! Too bad I have plans to take the bus today. Walk is good!

Leica M2, Summicron 35mm f2 ASPH, Kodak 160NC: Spring water for washing up and drinking?

1242hrs: Finished walking throught the shrine area, skipped all except a small one. Saw the pagoda. Quite a lot of tourists there. Didn’t feel right, and everything here requires some kind of entrance fee. Not for me. I’m sure this place will be preserved can I can visit it when I can’t walk sometime in the far future. Right after walked south to route 120 and followed it westwards and branched off to the right along route 194 towards Jakko waterfall. Its a good 2km uphill on the small 1 lane road, on the right is a hill, rather steep too. There are not too many houses, on the left side of the road however, are many what looks like summer houses, or holiday homes because they all look deserted. These houses overlook a small fast-flowing stream in a  valley. The road up to Jakko falls is quiet and when I was hiking it, and it was raining… Naturally since I was going light, I did not have an umbrella with me. Had my army surplus boonie on though, but I can guarantee its not waterproof. The backpack from Arcteryx was rain resistant enough, but unfortunately not the Artisan & Artist bag. It stops very light sprays but not rain. So with no one in sight, I’m holed up at a small shrine next to the falls waiting for the rain to stop so that I can shoot some velvia (light permitting) and the go back to tokyo. This place don’t even have a mobile phone coverage or even a vending machine! But it sure is peaceful here, bar the occasional sound of planes overhead.

Leica M2, Summicron 35mm f2 ASPH, Kodak 160NC: Jakko Waterfall in the Rain

1332hrs: Still at the shrine. No soul in sight. At least no physical person is anywhere near this place and its starting to get chilly since its up in the mountains. Just checked my bags and it looks like the Arcteryx backpack is not water resistant either. The 120 magazine for RZ67 is all wet. Its wrapped in plastic, but the little holes are letting in water. Took a couple of photos of the quiet shrine with 6×7 Tri-X. Light is challenging, and I think the rain will render the scene rather soft.

Leica M2, Summicron 35mm f2 ASPH, Kodak 160NC: Shrine near Jakko Waterfall in the Forest

Leica M2, Summicron 35mm f2 ASPH, Kodak 160NC: Timber mill on the way to Jakko Waterfall, Nikko

Waited till almost 2pm when I have to go back to the station, rain or shine, in order to catch the 4pm train back to Tokyo. Can’t wait any longer. When I got my little break in the rain, meaning its drizzling a little, I ran down to the valley floor, whipped out the RZ67 camera and took a few photos of the waterfall with 1/8s shutter speed and mirror lock up with Velvia 100 film. I dont know if its going to be sharp, but I’m using a 50mm lens so worth a try.

Leica M2, Summicron 35mm f2 ASPH, Kodak 160NC: Bare Trees on hillside, Nikko

Then its time to move quickly downhill towards the mainroad. Passed some nice looking forests, but the light was too low and the rain was still coming down so no photos. Everything is now wet. Should have packed a couple of plastic bags to keep the cameras in. When I reached the mainroad, cheated a little by taking the bus for 3-4 stops before getting onto the road again. When going through the city, found a little hut with fresh spring water and a sign that invites you to drink from it. Refreshing indeed. Time to rest a little and wring water off my hat and t-shirt.

Got to the train station at about 1530hrs, and bought a cheap 1320Y ticket back to Tokyo Asakusa station. Hung around the train station and had my little snack made of coated peanuts and bought a souvenir keychain (first souvenir!). Train back to Tokyo was uneventful.

Leica M2, Summicron 35mm f2 ASPH, Kodak 160NC: Abandoned Tennis Court

Nice trip overall. If not for the rain. I should have packed some Provia 400X film into the RZ67, I think I need to buy one one of these days and keep it handy. Especially shooting nature in Japan during this rainy season. A tripod would be nice too but I dont know if its possible at all to trek with a medium format SLR and tripod. The RZ67 was fun to use, not that difficult to use on the field, and I find that eventually I use the built in loupe to focus all the time since the side walls block the light and the image looks very clear. Only issue is that looking down all the time hurts the neck! At the end, I shot 1 roll of 35mm film and 1 roll of 120 film. The Ricoh was used only as a light meter the whole trip.

Leica M2, Summicron 35mm f2 ASPH, Kodak 160NC: Steps in a Shrine

Lessons learnt: I think I need to buy a can of teflon spray and have it sprayed onto the backpack and my camera bags in general. I might be able to carry one of the weather covers from my think tank pouches too. Need to investigate that. Nikko is a nice nature trek. There are a couple of places more I would like to go to, and will involve taking the bus in the future. Senjogahara Plains is one of the choice. I’m sure my legs are going to hurt tomorrow, but all in all, enjoyed this trip. Didn’t get to see too many places in nikko, but that’s the idea: its a scouting trip and it is better to take my time and visit just a few places and suffer a little. AT least I will remember this trip for some time! Now I hope my RZ67 shots shot handheld all the time comes out sharp. Oh, another trip where I forgot my GPS so I didn’t get any coordinates at all. Then again, since I was in the forest most of the time, I doubt I’d be able to get any satellite lock on at all!

*end of post*