Suwon old city wall

Architectural detail: An old door with armored metal sheets taken at one of the secret entrances into the city along the wall.

Alright, I’m here now in a new country, ready to explore the place out and what a better place to do this than during the golden weekend. We are now around end of September, and this is what the Korean calls their Thanksgiving and what happens is that the whole of Korea goes on holiday for a whole week. Equivalent to the lazy christmas week for the Americans and a shorter version of the French summer holidays. Offices will be closed. Everyone will either go home to visit their elders or gravitate towards the summer playground of Jeju Island. Whatever it is, I’m not about to go far on this long week, in fear of highway traffic jam, lack of return tickets on trains and flights, and overpriced hotels. Hell, I’ve not even had time to visit any place around Seoul yet. So its time to do a little research on Wikipedia and Google Maps for the best place to visit for this long weekend.

Suwon City, nothing special about it. This is the view from the top of the hill where the wall passes through.

Old city walls separate the ordinary residents from the Kings that live inside the wall. Not true of course, just cooking things up.

Map view of the walk. Train station is on the bottom left. Wall is that baloon formed by the orange line.

The old town of Suwon looks interesting. What it is, in short, a town with a core that has its ancient city walls intact. From the map it looks a lot smaller than the city walls of, say Nanjing or Xian in China, but perhaps they don’t have as crazy an enemy to protect against; who knows. Best of all, Suwon is just an hour or two out to the South of Seoul allowing travel by Metro in the morning and returning late in the evening. So the plan was hatched. I will need to plot a GPS course this trip while walking the whole circumference of the city wall, which looks achievable in a day.

I has been some break I have been having, so packing up for a day trip is starting to be difficult. My muscle memory doesn’t apply to packing. Small bag, a DSLR and a lens or two, Audio Recorder, GPS and phones is all I need for this. I’ve started to move towards using the iPhone and Android phones for navigation. Although good for live Google Maps, it still doesn’t replace a stand alone GPS for the ability to hang it out of the bag for 10 hours straight collecting GPX information every 3 seconds.

All ready, I leave late around 1 in the afternoon, thanks to my inability to wake up early for trips. It should still be summer this late in September but the cloudy day is causing temperatures to drop to around 20c. Weather forecasts is not too good, with chance of rain, but in the 30-40% range so I take play the probability game and didn’t pack a rain jacket.

Getting there is easy, just find my way to Metro line 1 heading south. Will be taking a train to Sindorim station on line 2 and then change to line 1. Line 1 also branches off towards Incheon city, so be careful not to get on to the wrong train. There are announcements in English so it should be easy. Line 1 trains are also a trekking advertising board, with all the recommendations of mountains and sights at the stations that it stops on the main map above the train doors. I take note. Stations are spaced quite far apart once out of Seoul, so the trip took a litte longer than I planned.

Arriving in Suwon train station, the first thing that grabs your attention is a large AK shopping mall with everything, even a Baskin Robbins, so this is a good place to stock up on water and other necessities for the walk ahead. I make an unconscious plan to return around dinner time so that I can have a meal before returning to Seoul. At least today there seems to be quite a number of foreign workers hanging around the train station. More than what I have seen in Seoul, outside of Itaewon of course. I see Africans, Filipinos and some Indonesians. No idea what they’re doing here, either there’s a big place that hires foreign workers or they’re here for the same reason as me.

The start of the wall on the left of Paldalmun

This part of the wall is quite obviously reconstructed

My walk along the old wall of Suwon starts at Paldalmun, which is the one of the main gate. The road leads up to it and then goes around it treating whatever is left of the gate as the centre of a roundabout. And this is dead in the city center. There is a tourist information center here but closed today thanks to Chuseok holidays. Looking at the map, the left of the gate is the part of the wall that goes up a hill and on the right side is a river. I thought it would be better to climb the hill first and then downhill all the way rather than ending the trip with a hill climb, so I will start on the left.

The start of the wall passes through a small forest. These stacks of rocks is something locals do while making a wish. No they’re not supernatural, although I thought it was so when I first saw it.

What’s sure here is that the wall is definitely reconstructed. There’s something not very pleasing to me about reconstructed wall. I prefer it in the original state. It even has flags and long staffs with fake plastic blades to represent a battle ready Suwon from ancient times. Having a new wall where the old wall is not the same thing. I shall go on a long monologue about reconstructing historical architectures in a different blog.

Big irregular boulders stacked up to form the wall. I believe that this part looks like an original part of the wall.

The first part of the walk was tough but not terribly so. Only reason it is so is because the darn hill. Its not a terribly high hill, but a hill nonetheless. Once I get to the top it is mostly level. The wall is punctuated with turrets and command centers. The ambience is enough countryside to be able to take a relaxing walk punctuated with the occasional car horn and traffic noise but perhaps faint enough not to be able to notice it. For me its loud enough I don’t do too much ambient audio recording there. There are signs on the wall describing each architectural feature of the “advanced” wall design, like regular areas where there’s a section sticking out of the wall so that archers can shoot sideways at infidel invaders – for lack of a better word – and arrow port holes on the wall that slopes 45 degree downwards. I find some of them so perplexing how one could shoot an arrow through a 2m long square hole without touching the sides and attenuating the force and range of the arrow, but got to trust the ancients.

This is one of the secret entrances into the city along the wall.

New part of the wall, this is at the top of the hill

Turrets like this punctuates the wall. Provides a place for the soldiers to hang about and a good place to shoot arrows at invaders while being chickens.

Command centre: There is a stair that leads to the second floor where the King can look over the whole battlefield.

Architectural detail of the Command Centre

Detail of a Bell located at the top of the hill close to the Command Centre

And the thingy to hit the bell with!

There are also a bunch of secret gates apparently built at hidden locations to allow transport of provisions during battles and at the top of the hill there is crossbow turret at Seonodae just next to an impressive command tower on the top of the hill. There is a ticket office there but today there is no one here so I get to save 1000 Won. The rest of the walk around the wall is easy, but long. No problem for families with prams to walk entire circumference with some heavy lifting up and down stairs.

If you notice in the map posted earlier, there is a river that runs through the old town. At both ends of the river, where the wall runs over the river there are huge gates (only one on the North still survives today) where gates prevent boats from entering when closed. However I have no idea how they could prevent the siege party from poisoning the river water and forcing Suwon to give up the battle. Then again when I look through the history books, looks like this place was never used as a place of residence for the King since he never survived to see it completed, hence the capital stayed in Seoul.

After the Command Centre, it is downhill all the way

Where this was taken I was still on the wall, but at one of those areas for archers to be able to shoot at invaders sideways, like a little balcony.

This is one of the gate at ground level, notice the extra level of protection given by the curved semi-wing that sticks out from one side?

Nothing much to talk about most of the walk. Its just a wall. That’s the thing I’m going to go on about. I’ve been walking along ancient walls that has not been renovated, displaying the injuries sustained in wars and scars. Each one seems to have a story to tell. You walk around and wonder how each mark was inflicted. There is a sense of intrigue and imagined plot. When a wall is renovated, it looks as fresh as the corner Macdonalds restaurant. Sure, you can tell me that some famous event happened there, but I’m distracted by the new thing sitting there.

This is a screen out of Apple Aperture showing the path and where the pictures were taken. I went clockwise, and the pictures were quite regular till the end when it started to get boring.

*end of post*

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…

Free Range Chicken at Xidi (Ricoh GR Digital)

Tunxi Youth Hostel lobby wall (Leica M6 + 50mm f2 Summicron + Kodak Tri-X)

Anhui Province: Up at 6am after sleeping 8 hours to worry about whether my stuff are all dry. Doesn’t help that my hostel room already starts to smell damp, not from my airing, but just a general matter of things when you don’t pay too much for a room. Considering the night before was a bed made of board with 1cm of cushion, the one last night was a lot better.

0714hrs Huangshan Youth Hostel, Anhui Province: Up for breakfast. Looks like it will be another cloudy day. Since I have been out for some days now, thought I’d indulge in a little coffee and english breakfast, which here probably means bacon and many eggs with toast. Waiting for my lazyman tour to the villages so I can take things easy today before catching the 9pm train back to Shanghai.

I have also realised I might need a larger camera bag as I cannot store my extra 105mm lens in the Thinktank Speeddemon bag. It sits right in my left pocket in my cargo shorts. Not exactly very comfortable. Maybe a lens drop in case will do next time.

Water Lilly Leaves Hongcun Village (Nikon D2H + 40mm f2 ULTRON)

0823hrs In tour bus at Tunxi, Anhui Province N29.71073 E118.30611: Someone please remind me why in China it is a lot better to go on your own than to join a tour. This is a small bus with a dozen people in it, all locals except for me I guess, there are a couple with Beijing accent, and complete with the stereotypical always-smoking chinese male in his 30-40s. No chinese with rolled up long pants yet… I can’t do that as I’m on bermudas. So we are going around Tunxi city picking up passengers. My GPS are not getting the full signal it should be getting because of the dense buildings in the city. And I do have a tour guide as well, too bad she speaks only Chinese. This will be fun… Looks likely we have picked up all the passengers, and should be on our way out thru the south west of Tunxi…

Drying Chillies (Nikon D2H + 40mm f2 ULTRON)

And now I know where I will be going today… The two villages of Xiqi and Hongcun. And here I have my tourguide talking about the time ex-President Jiang Zemin visited this area. As usual, the stamdard procedure in the bus is to take down the phone number of all those in the bis just in case the little ducklings get lost during the tour. Luckily this one walks to everyone and asks because I will have issues writing my name in Chinese characters! Alright, time to get a little nap here in the bus while we move along at 60kmph according to the Garmin.

N29.88901, E117.95902 Anhui Province: The bus is passing by an area where it seems there are plenty of city slickers in bright life jackets traversing the calm looking rapids at this gorge. The scenery here consists of a road meandering at the bottom of a valley surrounded by hills covered in bamboo and with a river running beside the road.

Big chair, small chair (Ricoh GR Digital)

Passing by many villages on the way to Hongcun (I think that is where I am going) and this is the first time I see horses being used as a trasnsport in China. They are on the road, used as individually and also to pull cards. Horses here seem smaller than usual and looks well groomed. What do I know about horses.

Drawing Hongcun Village (Ricoh GR Digital)

Tourists streaming into Hongcun through the main entrance (Ricoh GR Digital)

0941hrs Hongcun Village, Anhui Province: Haha, it doesn’t really get more touristy than this, as expected. There is a proper entrance with a ticket booth and all those. Also full of chinese tourists and their cigarettes.

Reflections of Hongcun Village (Ricoh GR Digital)

Another view of the same lake at the entrance (Nikon D2H + 40mm f2 ULTRON)

Lotus flower, I guess (Nikon D2H + 105mm f2.5 AIS)

Hongcun village entrance is surrounded by a little lake with a humpy mini bridge in the middle. If anything, this place is swarmed with art students doing their sketch or watercolour. Some better than others. All alleyways are full of budding artists, and it is difficult to take humanless still life shots of anything here.

Angular roof outlines are common here (Nikon D2H + 105mm f2.5 AIS)

... as are villagers using the open piping system, or what I call the DRAIN (Ricoh GR Digital)

... one thing is for sure, this place is full of tourists, or all shapes and sizes (Nikon D2H + 105mm f2.5 AIS)

There are some nice little lakes in the town and squares where things look bright for once and looks old enough not to seem renovated at first glance. The quaint factor is definitely there, except for the art students who are everywhere. I think I might have mentioned it countless times before in this post. Off the beaten track there are plenty of small corridors where after a time they will all look the same. The architecture is supposed to be Huizhou but obviously its written in all guide books and mentioned by the tour guide but being a non expert, i will only recite blindly. Although the roofs are angular like normal, the edges are always made with a border thats rectangularish with the typical edges adorned by stone creatures. Walls are always white and the roofs are always dark stones.

More roof details (Nikon D2H + 40mm f2 ULTRON)

I took a path out into the hills of the village where you get passed by old people balancing two pails what smells like sewage water or piggypoojuice presumably as fertilizers. Stinks for sure. The feeling is definitely rural China here. But one thing you’re not going to escape here, that’s the art students. They’re in the hillsides as well. Anyway, I have my DSLR, RF and Point & Shoot out at the same time shooting away, including a full roll of tri-x on the Leica M6. Yup, even deliberately missing the art students, it is possible to take a full roll here.

Crescent Moon Lake along with inhabitants (Ricoh GR Digital)

Look! No tourists nor students here! (Nikon D2H + 40mm f2 ULTRON)

The moon crescent lake is quite a nice place to shoot your photos. The only problem is, it is not possible to shoot something without any tourist or art student in the picture, but I try anyway.

Lunch time! (Ricoh GR Digital)

1145hrs Lunch Time: The tour guide would herd us all into the mini bus, whisk us around the corner to a restaurant and advised us to run in so we don’t miss the table as there is another tour bus ahead of us. So we all squeeze into a mini room, 9 to a table and barely a minute later, 8 dishes of mainly vegetables and tofu arrives. 15 minutes later we’re all done and back into the minibus… Chinese efficiency!

1216hrs En Route to Xiqi N29.92810 E117.93848, Anhui Province: So we are on the road again, my gps is acquiring the plots again and once again I am getting a headache from blogging on my E61 Nokia while driven by a furious chinese mini bus driver. Horns ablazing, I have always been surprised how they managed to avoid running over 90% of road traffic here, consisting of transport carts pulled by humans or animals of bicycle, slow electric motorcycles and the many pedestrians who walk on the road. Its a display of amazing chinese road choreography I tell you.

What everyone sees before entering Xidi (Ricoh GR Digital)

1231hrs Xidi Village, N29.90367 E117.98611, Anhui Province: We are dropped off at a medium sized bus station for your buses and herded off by local tour guides. They explained the village’s main archway, talking about the figurines on the arch. Thereafter they proceeded into the village entrance and right then I have already lost my group. All I was told was to meet back at the bus in 2 hours time.

Everything is turned into a souvenir stall (Ricoh GR Digital)

But what you notice more, are the tourists (Ricoh GR Digital)

And more waves of tourists (Ricoh GR Digital)

But in some pockets, locals still exist (Ricoh GR Digital)

Sometimes mingling with the student artists (Ricoh GR Digital)

Not an issue for me. I proceeded to enter a couple of houses, they are usually occupied but have significant historical value to them. The occupants are definitely making themselves present, easy lounge chair in the main foyer, souvenir stalls and towels hanging all over.

Xidi is much bigger than Huangchun, at least it feels like it, and it is definitely possible to get lost here. The big difference is that there are a lot less art students here. No they’re not nonexistent, just you will see less of them.

Countryside just outside Xidi (Nikon D2H + 40mm f2 ULTRON)

Alleyways (Ricoh GR Digital)

And more alleyways (Ricoh GR Digital)

I wandered to the little stream than runs the north of the town, and this looks like the pipe water of its time, villagers washing anything worth washing in them. Clothing or food. Soon I’d hit the countryside and the stench of manure. Its not uncommon to find pots of manure, fresh from wherever or whoever. Sometimes when you see people walking with 2 pails balances on a bamboo and holding a medium sized scoop, stay clear. You will smell it when they pass. I’ve seen them brining it out to the fields. But funnily enough, at the last house before the pig sty and the farm covered with natural fertilizers, I find another lone art student. Not too impressed with his drawings though.

Where is the artist? (Nikon D2H + 40mm f2 ULTRON)

Xidi Barber (Ricoh GR Digital)

I did also stumble across a small silk worm farm outside someone’s house. In the less popular narrow alleyway with the fast flowing drain/water system, its common to see one of two art students waterpainting and old inhabitants sitting next to them dehairing pieces of pork or chicken and chatting to each other.

Silkworm Farm (Nikon D2H + 40mm f2 ULTRON)

If you stand the occasional stench and the presence of animal poo on the sidewalk, this place is quite peaceful, off the tourist routes.

Guess what is in those two pails? (D2H + 40mm f2 ULTRON)

I’m sure the pavillions and buildings are interesting on the inside but I don’t bother after visiting one or two.

Our tourist mini bus (Ricoh GR Digital)

1430hrs On the way back to Tunxi: Nothing like riding in a furious minibus listening to The BBC’s Breezeblock with Dr Alex Paterson from The Orb. Everything seems so calm and in slow motion. winding our way back to Tunxi along the narrow gorges, while the tour guide explains to us the local culture again, something about tea. Ended by singing us a song, and then her phone rings and realised we left a tourist behind! No problem. Our furious driver stopped in the middle of the 2 laned road in the narrow valley floor and proceeded to do a u-turn to pickup the forgotten tourist.

Nice trojan horse dust bin (Ricoh GR Digital)

1927hrs Tunxi City, Anhui Province: Got the tourbus driver to drop me off at the Tunxi (Huangshan City) old street so I can take a 3 hr walk back to the train station. Had dinner on the way and switched my Leica M6 to Neopan 1600 film for some night shooting. Seriously there are not too much difference here compared other chinese cities with about 1 million people. Trishaws, bicycles, the occassional farmer with their more elaborate tractor or cycle carts. The mode of public transportation here are taxies, buses, motorcycles with a crude metal shield behind for the passenger or bicycle rickshaws.

Just hanging around the train station waiting for the train tonight back to Shanghai. Had 3 bananas for energy. The streets from the old street to the railway station here in Tunxi quickly gets quiet.

So I am now at the end of another trip to nowhere. The theme of the current trip is the countryside. Started first in Jiangxi Province, with a visit to Wuyuan and stayed at a tea house in the village, after a long trip from Shanghai via train, bus and finally motorcycle. The next morning met up with the motorcycle guy that brought me there to Xiao Likeng village so that I have I person to bring me around the countryside. Weather cooperating, and early morning, Jingling’s scenery with the broad valley floor filled with white coloured houses in clusters are amazing. Can’t wait to come back with my medium format Mamiya in April/May when the flowers bloom. Mr Yu will be my driver again of course. Too bad I had to skip the area around Qinghua because of the rain yesterday. Back in Anhui, today’s trip to Hongcun and Xidi was, although a tourist mecca, not too bad once you wander off the designated tourist path. The people there don’t seem to mind being photographed. Maybe they just dont bother because they get it all day long.

Back to Shanghai (Ricoh GR Digital)

I’d like to say I feel refreshed after these 3 days in the countryside of Anhui and Jiangxi provinces. I am definitely physically tired, slept at least 8 hours per day since reaching here but most likely mentally rested. 

Signing out from Anhui…

I am contented like this Xidi Villager (Ricoh GR Digital)

Morning in Xiao Likeng (Leica M6 + 50mm f2 Summicron + Fuji Neopan 1600)

Morning in Xiao Likeng (Ricoh GR Digital)

Jiangxi Province: Had a nice long 8 hour sleep last night here in Xiao Likeng in Jiangxi Province, afraid of the mosquitoes because of the countryside, but the sleep last night was peaceful enough with the windows wide opened and sound of cascading water outside all night long as the room was just next to the fast flowing canals. There doesn’t seem to be too much to do here so most inhabitants are asleep before 9pm, which you can tell by the lights all going off. Villagers walk around at night by bring along torch lights as there are no street lighting. What do you expect from a little village like this, right?

So here I am waking up at 6:30am, ready and packed up to go. The good thing about packing light is that I can check out of the inn I was staying in and could just go around the village to take pictures of the morning activities. Other than kids walking to school, the majority of villagers crowd around the pavillion square in the morning. There is a motorcycle with a big basket on its back full of chicken, and 2 guys with large chunks of pork, presumably you ask for a certain size and he will cut it to scale. It was not busy like a typical market, so I guess its just catering to the few hundred that live here. 

Villager doing morning shopping for live chicken (Leica M6 + 50mm f2 Summicron + Fuji Neopan 1600)

Likeng Pork Seller (Leica M6 + 50mm f2 Summicron + Fuji Neopan 1600)

0815hrs Jiangwan, Jiangxi Province N29.37054 E118.04676: Met up with my motorcycle driver at 0730hrs sharp, and this guy has been a good tour guide (Mr Yu, mobile number: 1387 0330 588). On a cold and misty Friday morning, he first stopped me at a concealed lookout on the road, to take a nice lanscape view of Wengkou Village. He was probably surprised to see a guy with 3 cameras. Took a couple of photos of the village situates at a bend of the river, the wind still calm so you see perfect reflection. Too bad for the thin fog, but i took many photos from the same spot.

View of Wankou Village from the highway (Ricoh GR Digital)

Square top (Ricoh GR Digital)

Then it was back on the motorcycle as a pillion rider without a helmet. I was staring at my driver’s standard issue chinese square top hair cut all the time while he tells me about how the Wuyuan county used to be Anhui and how the current president Hu Jintao is an Anhui boy.

Navigation System (Ricoh GR Digital)

The ride to Jiangwan was nice and cool. Me and my GR Digital were rather active, shooting the roadside lifestyle. An old woman was pushing her grandson or great grand son on the main road in the morning. By the way, my part time tour guide’s recommendation is to come during Mid April as the rapeseed plant flowers during that time and there are flowers aplenty to see.

Jiangwan village has this large temple, otherwise there is nothing else of note (Ricoh GR Digital)

... except for villagers (Leica M6 + 50mm f2 Summicron + Kodak Tri-X)

Jiangwan village market (Ricoh GR Digital)

0833hrs Jiangwan, Jiangxi Province: Nothing much to see in this place, but they charge entrance fee anyway to get in. The town next to the river is full of new buildings built in the old architecture, nothing to stop and shoot.

Jiangwan itself seems to be famous for a large temple and the fact that Jiang Zemin, the previous president came over to say good luck to some students. Wandered through the small streets and nothing of note. The only thing interesting was a bunch of old locals crowding around an old well and arguing with each other in the local dialect.

en route to Jiangling (Ricoh GR Digital)

The next stop would be up the hills and alond the valley to Jiangling rice terraces. The road passes through Xiaoqi village but the tour buses there says to me I should avoid it. Which is a good thing because as the road climbs up to Jiangling, the scenery becomes more and more surreal. The weather could be a little more cooperative, with the haze clouding the view, requiring contrast adjustment in lightroom, but the views were nice. A valley surrounded by high mountains while a couple of clusters of white houses on the valley floor. Another place for 35mm lenses, anything wider and there will be a lack of detail. I asked the driver to stop the motorcycle at every bend while I got off to take a couple of frames. Wanted it to come out well so it was on 0EV and +0.7EV bracketing. Well worth the trip for this view.

View from Jiangling (Nikon D2H + 40mm f2 ULTRON)

View from Jiangling (Nikon D2H + 40mm f2 ULTRON)

View from Jiangling (Nikon D2H + 40mm f2 ULTRON)

After Jiangling, I’m off to Qinghua village, at least 20km away. Unfortunately once we left Jiangling terraces, it started to rain. I tucked beneath the cycle raincoat, but still drenched from shorts down. Decided instead to cancel the trip if its going to be raining the whole day. Asked the driver to make a detour back to Wuyuan city. Its not even noon yet so there will be time to catch the last bus today to Huangshan city (Tunxi). If i remember well, tomorrow will be raining too. I guess I better look for something to do in Huangshan city tomorrow then.

Villager walking along hill side path at Jiangling (Leica M6 + 50mm f2 Summicron + Kodak Tri-X)

Village just before Jiangling, didn't get the name of the village obviously (Nikon D2H + 40mm f2 ULTRON)

1133hrs Wuyuan North Bus Station, Jiangxi Province: Got here all drenched. Paid the driver 100RMB for roughly 50km of travel and a little bit of tour guiding. Nice guy. Wanted to give him more to spoil the market some more but he wouldn’t take it.

Sweeper at Yixian bus station waiting lounge (Leica M6 + 50mm f2 Summicron + Kodak Tri-X)

The next bus to Huangshan is at 1240hrs. The cost is still 34RMB like yesterday and this time the ticket comes attached with what looks like an insurance certificate. A mini one at that. Don’t know what it says about the bus driving on the way back! Yesterday’s trip here gave no reassurance. The driver was definitely very experienced nagivating the tight roads! I’m sitting at the bus station with my jacket spread over a chair to dry and my shoes as well. Will need to change into new dry socks soon as they were all wet from the rain.

Yixian Bus Station waiting lounge (Leica M6 + 50mm f2 Summicron + Kodak Tri-X)

1641hrs Tunxi, Anhui province: Back in Huangshan city, and have managed to check into the Youth Hostel just to the left and across the road from the railway station. A room cost 140RMB and there are towels in there this time. The room comes with ample power points to recharge but what I am after today is to dry out all my bags drenched from the morning in the rain on a motorcycle. My thinktank camera bag was drenched from the bottom so the cameras are wet. Lucky it is not one of those consumer models which should be soaked by now.

Obligatory doggy portrait (Leica M6 + 50mm f2 Summicron + Fuji Neopan 1600)

Having lunch at a small local restaurant by the train station. Understandably it is empty, no one really eats at 5 pm i guess. But for me I have not had a proper breakfast and lunch yet except for some cereal bars and 2 bananas.

Out for lunch-dinner near the train station at a small chinese shop. They surprisingly have an english menu but I try my luck ordering with my chinese. Ordered a chili chicken dish and wild ferns, which is actually quite nice. They seem to cook with plenty of red vinegar and soyasauce here.

Untitled, but shot at Jiangling Terraces (Nikon D2H + 40mm f2 ULTRON)

Tomorrow will be a day for the old villages around Yixian town. Was thinking of grabbing a public bus there but the hostel also does day tours for 180RMB and I guess it might be worth it as the entrances charges to those UNESCO sanctioned villages are quite steep. In the mean time, will take a break back at the hostel and dry up my shoes and bags.

Mr Yu, the motorcycle driver (Leica M6 + 50mm f2 Summicron + Kodak Tri-X)

Mr Yu's motorcycle after the rain soaked trip (Leica M6 + 50mm f2 Summicron + Kodak Tri-X)

*end of Day 2 post*

Day 1: Xiao Likeng (Nikon D2H + 40mm f2 ULTRON)

GPS Plots for Jiangxi and Anhui Province trip

Xiao Likeng Village (Leica M6 + 50mm f2 Summicron + Kodak Tri-X)

This is another one of those quick decisions. Before I know it, I’m already on the 2235hrs N418 train to Huangshan. This is an overnight train that will take 12 hours to get to Huangshan City, also known as Tunxi. I’m no stranger to Chinese hard sleeper trains.

As usual, picked up the middle bunk. Hard sleepers have compartments with 6 beds, 2 columns of 3 bunks. The cushion is at least 5cm thick, enough for me. The trick is to get the middle bunk, for me at least. Top bunk smells of smoke (someone is always smoking in the non smoking train) and there is always someone sitting on your bunk at the bottom. Ticket cost 169RMB one way and it is now possible to buy return tickets in Shanghai.

Untitled (Nikon D2H + 105mm f2.5 AIS)

Packing was quite difficult. On one hand I wanted to pack light as I could be village hopping a bit, but I’d want to also pack quite a number of photo gears. At the end, decided not to pack long pants, purely shorts, 3 t-shirts, socks and underwear, of course, and premium disposable toileteries from my many trips to Tokyo. The D2H comes along with spare EN-EL4a battery, 40mm ULTRON, and 105mm AIS lens. Thought about my new 12-24mm lens but had to cut down on weight. theres also the Leica M6 with 8 rolls of film and a 50mm Summicron lens. And the trustworthy Ricoh GRD.

Blades of Grass (Nikon D2H + 105mm f2.5 AIS)

Anyway, train is zipping along now and it should be time to sleep. And then I had another eureka moment with this system. When you board the train, a conductor comes along and switched your train ticket for a credit card thingy. I then realised that is how they keep track of who is going where. Between every stops they will come to wake you up and exchange your card thingy widget back to your ticket. That way they know who has a ticket, where they are going and will be able to catch fare dodgers! Genius!

1004hrs Tunxi Train Station: As far as this station goes, it is a typical chinese train station, complete with the touts peddling tickets for buses to Huangshan, and they don’t stop. They are like canaries, one old woman even said it was going to rain up on the mountain, of course she was selling cheap plastic ponchos and doesn’t help when I told her I was not going to Huangshan anyways.

1033hrs Tunxi new bus station N29.73255, E118.28796: Ok, google maps showed a bus station near the train station past a Youth Hostel, but this is the old station. It is not functioning anymore. Took a taxi about 10 mins to the new station, and according to my gps, it looks like its on the way to the Huangshan airport. Taking a bus to Wuyuan town as my base. According to the time table, there are 3 buses from here, 0810, 0900 and 1230 is the last bus. My ticket cost 34 RMB one way. Guess I might have to buy the return ticket at Wuyuan as soon as I get there. This station has a largish hall, with overclipped Kenny G playing in the background. I have an hour to burn. Wonder what to do…

Tunxi Old Street. Notice the middle of the road is used to park bicycles. (Ricoh GR Digital)

Tunxi Old Street: Blackboard I found in the back alleys with lesson on how to greet foreigners! (Ricoh GR Digital)

Human-pulled carts are still common in Tunxi (Leica M6 + 50mm f2 Summicron + Kodak Tri-X)

And more carts (Nikon D2H + 40mm f2 ULTRON)

1056hrs Tunxi Old Street: With almost 2 hours to kill, I took a taxi to the old street, which the first taxi driver boasted as being the best around the region. Locals here have a habit of parking their cycles on the middle of the old street, and it is probably a non issue since no cars go on it anyway. All the shops sell souvenirs, but there are not too many tourists here on a Thursday morning. The shop houses are definitely old looking, with laundry hanging everywhere. The old road could probably squeeze 2 lanes of small cars, but not much more for anything else.

Most cycles in this part of China has a built in umbrella (Ricoh GR Digital)

1202hrs Tunxi Bus Station: Back here again. Had a simple lunch of salty kungpao chicken with a little vegetables and plain rice. Not in the mood for a feast. The 2 bananas on the train was quite filling. Waiting at gate 13 for the bus to Wuyuan. The ticket has the time of the bus, the license plate number and of course the seat number as well. Its all in chinese, but shouldnt be too difficult to make out what it means.

Fake police with fake speed camera (Ricoh GR Digital)

The bus is nothing to shout about, it moves and it looks like it has not been taken care of for some time. The road starts off boring typical chinese suburb, then it starts to wind between hills and little villages with farms on the tight valley floor, best view is on the left of the bus. I sat beside a chinese guy that lives in Tunxi and visiting Wuyuan for the first time. Recommended a couple of places around Huangshan including the mountain but smart me didnt take note of it all. So, valleys, with tight roads, ocassionally having to give way to a large lorry as it was too narrow, then some plains, and finally Wuyuan. This town is so small it is almost impossible to know you’re already there. As usual, the bus drops you off not at the bus station but somewhere outskirts.

Once I get off the bus, there are already all these motorcycle for hire, plus driver of course. I jumped on one after checking the price. Costs 12RMB from Wuyuan town to Xiao Likeng, where I intend to stay the night. I hate riding behind on a motorcycle, they’re always too small for me, and after 5 mins it starts to feel uncomfortable. So here I am, backpack behind me, camera pack on one side, left hand holds a Garmin GPS to see where this pace is in spatial sense, and right hand holding mr Ricoh GR Digital. We seem to be back-tracking the direction I came from and a small turning and I start to realise how touristy this place is! Its the bus parking lot that gives it all away.

On the motorcycle with Mr Yu (Ricoh GR Digital)

Shopping lorry (Nikon D2H + 105mm f2.5 AIS)

1507hrs Xiao Likeng Village: There is an entrance to this village and a 110RMB entrance charge. Although the motorcycle cost 12RMB I told him to keep the 15RMB change, spoiling the market in the process. An entrance fee tells you something in China, its usually spoilt paradise when you have to pay to get in. But this place is not one of those. If you remove the loud tourists, and the western backpackers, even the signs in english, chinese, japanese and korean, Xiao Likeng is actually quite likeable. I was originally expecting a nice wide angle shot of the whole village but that was not to be. All pictures are close shots where the 35mm is king. Too bad I brought the 50mm out to play so. This town seems to be populated by old people, so great for those after posed pictures of smiling wringkly old people, because they were not smiling all the time for sure.

Xiao Likeng little villager (Nikon D2H + 40mm f2 ULTRON)

Xiao Likeng villager (Leica M6 + 50mm f2 Summicron + Fuji Neopan 1600)

Xiao Likeng villager with dog (Leica M6 + 50mm f2 Summicron + Kodak Tri-X)

It is possible to walk around the whole town in 1 hr. My walk took 2 as I did a couple of detours to the back gardens where they grow rice. There are 2 rivers that flow through the town and thats where the locals clean their dinner (and possibly mine too) and do their laundry. Water is reasonably clear, and flows quite well. There are artificial dams that gives the waterfall feeling throughout the whole town. I put up at the Guang Ming teahouse, a small room with aircon and shower with no towels for 60RMB per night. Not bad value. They serve dinner too at the tea house.

Xiao Likeng villager candid shot made by the quiet GR (Ricoh GR Digital)

Xiao Likeng villagers (Leica M6 + 50mm f2 Summicron + Kodak Tri-X)

2135hrs: Getting quiet in this town. Time to get some sleep. Took the phone number of the motorcycle driver i took this afternoon, told him to pick me up at 730hrs tomorrow morning for a multi village romp. Need sleep now… 

Villager and dog (Nikon D2H + 40mm f2 ULTRON)

Xiao Likeng Village at night (Leica M6 + 50mm f2 Summicron + Fuji Neopan 1600)

Dinner (Leica M6 + 50mm f2 Summicron + Fuji Neopan 1600)

Ordered too much for dinner tonight, a vegetable dish and a pork dish with too much fat in it. Didn’t finish the whole thing of course. The little pot of tea made me think that the whole meal was healthy. But at the end of the day, the taste is not too bad and it actually above average. Then again it could be because I was hungry!

And now to end this post… a sequence of pictures on stools…

Stool 1 (Leica M6 + 50mm f2 Summicron + Kodak Tri-X)

Stools 2 (Leica M6 + 50mm f2 Summicron + Kodak Tri-X)

And now with a trio with no stools (Leica M6 + 50mm f2 Summicron + Kodak Tri-X)

*end of Day 1 post*