Qibao

The next reworked album is not for the squeamish, vegetarians or devout animal lovers.

They better not click on the photo, which in itself looks harmless: the album behind it isn't, especially with the bigger size photos...

Don't say I didn't warn you if you choose to ignore these words (and note that despite my somewhat dry sense of humour, I'm really only partially kidding here)...

It was the next - rather gloomy - day in Shanghai, visiting Qibao... from that same brochure:

Located in the center of Minhang District of Shanghai, only 18 kilometers (11.18 miles) from the downtown area, Qibao Ancient Town can satisfy your curiosity about ancient water townships without the bother of either long distance or the rush of crowds. As the only ancient town forming part of greater Shanghai, with a history spanning over one thousand years, Qibao is more than just a living fossil of ancient Chinese conurbation and urban planning.

The town was built in Northern Song Dynasty (960-1126) and grew into a prosperous business center during Ming (1368-1644) and Qing Dynasties (1644-1911). Qibao is the Chinese for 'seven treasures' and there are two popular theories about its derivation. The more reliable one says that the name originates from the Qibao Temple, famed for its good reputation. It was this that contributed to the growth of business and culture of the previously unknown town. The other theory seems more popular among the local people who tell folk tales about seven treasures. These were an iron Buddha made in Ming Dynasty, a bronze bell also dating from the Ming Dynasty but said to have mysteriously appeared from nowhere, a Gold Script Lotus Sutra written by an imperial concubine of the 10th century, a one-thousand-year-old Chinese catalpa tree, a jade axe, a gold cockerel and a pair of jade chopsticks. Actually of these seven treasures, the existence of only first four can be verified while only the Scripture and the bell have survived to this day.

Click on the photo to see the whole album...

Click here for the total index.

Favorites?

Sometimes people ask me: what are your own personal favorites?

Well, actually nobody has ever asked me that, but let's pretend...

I have a bunch, with some favorite-favorites, so when they ask me that question I always show them at least this one:

Or, depending on my mood, this one:

No just kidding... Charlie is cool, but he's no match...

I meant 'or this one':

If you stare at it a bit you can almost hear the silence... I think it's the still water responsible for that effect... anyway...

The weather was nasty.

It was cold - December, around 5 degrees Celsius - and drizzling almost the whole day. My shoes were soaking, the water was creeping up my trousers and my mood wasn't too great after slouching through the rain with only 4 hours of sleep.

But that all lifted pretty quickly when I saw the scenery.

And there are some advantages to not so great weather: less tourists polluting the nice scenes and the rain and mist do give a different atmosphere you won't find in the brochures.

It's Zhouzhuang, an hour drive from Shanghai, also called 'the Venice of China'... you can see why...

From a Chinese travel brochure:

Zhouzhuang, one of the most famous water townships in China, situated in Kunshan City which is only 30 kilometers (18 miles) southeast of Suzhou. It is noted for its profound cultural background, the well preserved ancient residential houses, the elegant watery views and the strong local colored traditions and customs. In the Spring and Autumn Period (770 - 476 BC), Zhouzhuang was a part of the fief Yaocheng and called Zhenfengli. After being donated to Full Fortune (Quanfu) Temple by Zhou Digong, a very devout Buddhist, in 1086 during the Northern Song Dynasty (960 - 1127), Zhouzhuang got its present name as a memorial of the donor. In an area of half a square kilometer (124 acres), 60 percent of the Zhouzhuang's structures were built during the Ming and Qing Dynasties, which is from 1368 to 1911.

These photos are from one of the reworked Shanghai 2007 albums, click on any of the photos above, to see them all.

Click here for the total index. You'll find all the reworked and new albums under 'New albums' (how convenient...).

Shanghai 2010, album III

And finished the third album of my August trip to Shanghai.

Click here for the album with some 12 photos.

Click here for the total index.

Shanghai 2010, album I

And finished the first album of my August trip to Shanghai.

Click here for the album with some 26 photos.

Click here for the total index.

From the top...

Jin Mao tower, seen from the Shanghai World Financial Center (the big monster)... the somewhat smeared out lights weren't my idea but are due to the glass in between that prevented me from falling down 492 meters... the glass was quite greasy, hence the light dispersion...

Click on the photo for the bigger version...

Old and new

Bell tower near People's Park at Nanjing Road West...

Do note that this photo involves some trickery. One of the annoying parts of photos that involve sky, is that in certain conditions you can't get the subject and the sky in one photo to be exposed properly (not too bright and not too dark). If the sky is ok, your subject is too dark, if the subject is ok the sky is too bright. You get these white, washed out skies. Depending if the sky is actually blue or clouded also is of influence: clouded doesn't help. There's tricks to avoid this problem. One involves taking several pictures of the same scene with different exposures and merging them later on. And although I've never tried, I assume that involves a tripod, which I don't use on city trips, that's just too much. Then there's graduated density filters, which I don't own, and polarizers, which I do have but didn't try. I doubt if they would have helped.

In this case the sky was completely blown out. 'Blown out' on a technical level means the light is so bright that the sensor doesn't have a value for it. The value of the pixels goes beyond what they can hold, so they're left behind at the maximum, which is pure white. This also means there's no information in the blown out part. Adjusting brightness won't help to recover details, cause there isn't information in that part, just white.

Usually I don't mess with my photos a lot. I adjust the sharpness a bit, the contrast and brightness, fiddle sometimes with the white balance, but that's about it. However, in this case, cause I liked the composition, I decided to go a bit further and simply replace the white sky with a piece of Shanghai sky from another photo, taken a few minutes earlier. That's quite easy to do in Photoshop cause the white part is recognised by all kind of tools rather easily.

Otherwise the photo is genuine, those buildings are really there :-)

Click on the photo to see the big version...

Hungry women...

It's the month of the Hungry Ghosts - for ancestor worshipping, Buddhist and Taoist Chinese not to be taken lightly: when the gates of hell open and the dead walk among the living (you and I may laugh about it, for a believer this is a scary month) - but ghosts are difficult to capture on digital (works only well with a rather expensive special filter and a black light)... so in stead... at a food stall in Shanghai...

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Love...

... at the Expo...

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Big monster...

... peeping through...

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Traffic at night

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It's Shanghai...

... cause no matter how high they go, how many new towers they keep building, this one is unbeatable... no doubt in my mind this is the signature building of Shanghai, and will be for a long time to come... What it lacks in height it certainly makes up for in other ways... it's definitely one of my favorites...

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On the river

Part of The Bund, taken from a boat on the river...

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Skyline

Part of the skyline in Pudong...

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Towers in the evening

Part of the skyline in Pudong, taken from across the river in Puxi...

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Ye Shanghai

Shanghai December 2007 - click for the bigger one...

So why this photo from the past?

Well, I'm going back!

Ever since that rather short visit in 2007, I have wanted to see more of Shanghai. Of all the cities I visited in Asia it was the most spectacular one. Vibrant, full of surprises, developing at a tremendous pace, with so much to see and so little time. Even there I already knew I wanted to go back, for a longer stay, and now it's going to happen.

When?

In August.

I just dread the number of photos I'll be returning with...

Shanghai album III

And the final album about Shanghai is finished.

Some nice ones of food, if you're interested in duck heads, goose necks and pig snouts... (be warned)...

Click here to view them...

Shanghai album II

Just finished up the Shanghai photos of the third full day, which we spent in Zhouzhuang.

Click here to view them...

Shanghai album

And since this is still supposed to be (also) a photo blog, the next album is finished, arrival and the first two days. All at bigger sizes and some a bit spruced up. It's just the first album, there's more to follow.

Click here to view them...