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Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Beijing Photodiary Part 2

初一
First day of the New Year.
I visited the 庙会 (Miao Hui). It is a carnival of sorts held in the 15 days of Chinese New Year, featuring a staggering array of streetfood and snacks from all over China, and also carnival games, traditional Chinese performances and stalls selling all sorts of knick knacks.Great way to bask yourself in the festivities.

Typically chinese - a sea of people
Guess how this was taken!
Day 2 of CNY
I went to Wang Fu Jing's snack street where they sold all kinds of weird food from all over China. Trust me when I say the Chinese eat everything and anything, because they sold dried seahorses on sticks, starfish, fried crickets, black scorpions among some of the freaky foods. Of course they have the more typically Beijing ones like pigs' organs soup, pigs' intestines, roasted lamb legs, grilled pork knuckles, grilled pigeons...and many more!

Pig intestines - it's actually yummy!

3rd Day of CNY
I went to one of the oldest streets in Beijing where everything was still kept authentic. They had some of Beijing's oldest brands such selling traditional cloth shoes, tea, Traditional Chinese Medicine and silk since the Qing Dynasty period. To top it off, they have a cinema from probably the 30's too!

The original size of steamboats in the past
Old film cameras, with a rickshaw in the background
Traditional cloth shoes - 100% hand stitched
Tianan men
I stood waiting in the crowd for 1 hour just to witness this.
Day ?
The first snow in Beijing. Snow came extremely late this winter. Usually it will snow 5-6 times each winter, with the first snow usually in December, but this winter it only came after the new year in Febuary. You can't believe how delighted I was to see the entire city dressed in white. Everything looked so bright, so clean, and so new. I literally danced around the house when I saw that it snowed at night and dashed out to the nearest park to get some photos.

The Water Cube used for Olympics looked stunning at night
I was the only lunatic snapping away
alone while freezing my ass off.
This was the second snow of Beijing, and it was much heavier than the first one. I went out to the Forbidden City to capture some shots.

The small "park" at my grandparents' apartment.
Dad said I looked like a doll in this one.

This was my last day in Beijing. The second day after it snowed, the sun came out and I went out to the Forbidden City again and managed to capture some shots of the clear blue sky.

A mini bunny snowman that an old lady made! She was armed with a DSLR too.

Well wishes for the New Year written by the visitors
Forbidden City, taken from a bird's eye view up a small mountain. The snow on the rooftops has melted slightly...


For the afternoon, I went to a cafe called Sculpting In Time with my friend and her cousin. I simply love the cafes in China, they all have very tasteful decoration with their own unique styles, wifi and great coffee. This cafe came with a vintage clothes and lifestyle goods store in the first floor and had two floors dedicated to its patrons.



This last shot in my camera was taken by my friend's cousin. He is completely a noob when it comes to photography (see the focus is totally off), but somehow he managed to get this shot when the sun just hit my face from the window of the cafe. I didn't even realize I was being photographed.

I like this photo for its spontaneity. Goodbye Beijing, my birthplace. I'll be back to visit again, in maybe 4 years' time.

P.S: Hope you've enjoyed this series! Let me know what you thought of my photography and whether you'd want to see more photodiaries in the future :3

3 comments :

  1. Pig intestines? Eek! During my time in China, I found it hard enough to stomach sitting at the same tables as an entire cooked fish, head, tail, eyeballs and all! >_<

    I just wanted to tell you - I love your photography! You have a great eye and they're very visually interesting. You capture really beautiful moments, you should be proud. I hope you post more photodiaries in the future for sure!

    xx shabby
    http://lapoubelleverte.com/blog/

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  2. @Grace

    Hi Grace,

    thank you for your kind words! I will continue to improve my photography to capture even more beautiful things! (:

    Anyway, almost all of us in Asia cook our fish like that. Haha it's extremely normal. People in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, Korea...it's all like that!

    (maybe with the exception of Japan since they eat sashimi haha)

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  3. Hi there! I enjoy viewing your nice snap shots! I came back from China (Xi'An) 2 weeks ago and I had started to miss the place! I did not have enough time to explore other parts of China but would definitely love to do so soon!

    Cheers! (^_^)

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I would love to see what you say!