Tag: Beijing

Beijing Blue Skies… Not

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Blue Skies in Beijing? This is a normal day in the Chinese Capital. Smoggy, white air. This was taken from the 14th floor in down town Beijing. We spent there about one week in late July and we did not see a glimpse of blue sky or sun. Sun was trying to break through this white mess, but never succeeded. Temperatures outside were around 95F, with humidity it felt like 105F. I didn’t have any problems with breathing and walked a lot, but just the view of this air was disgusting.

Beijing is an interesting city and a lot going for it, but till they figure out how to clean it up it won’t be super travel destination.

BeijingAirWhite

WangFuJing Painter

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WangFuJing is one of the premium shopping streets in Beijing. It is pedestrian friendly, has many nice shops and restaurants. On our first day in Beijing we stopped there for dinner at Dunn Lai Shun Muslim Restaurant (picture is coming in one of the future posts). After dinner I was waiting for my wife and daughter on the street, watching people and taking some photos. This character was not far from me talking to some folks, he was very animated and I thought he would make an interesting memory about this evening and this street, so here you go. This guy is some type of painter. Couple nights later we were back on this street and I saw him again, walking with his canvas.

WangFuJingPainter

Getting Ready for China

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In just short three weeks we are going on a quick round the world trip. Today I booked the last of the links in our journey. I have a short story about visa application process, which I’ll share some time later after we safely land in all of our destinations.

Someone said that round the world trip must be done by visiting at least 2 other continents, but heck I don’t care, we are going from one very big continent to another very big one and we cross it all the way from east to west. So we are going round the world. First, we are going to spend some time in China by flying into Beijing (over Pacific) and making our way to the western part of it – Urumqi. From there we’ll fly into Kazakhstan, spend some time there and then make our way back home via EU and Atlantic – so see, it is round the world trip, maybe only in the northern hemisphere, but it counts.

I’m looking forward to eating great Chinese food, great Uyghur food and best mix of Kazah and Russian food. Also, I’m looking forward to some hiking on the Great Wall, maybe some hiking around Urumqi and Almaty. And of course, I plan to take many pictures.

Last time I was in China about 16 years ago, long time, no see.  How jiu bu jian! I’m excited to go back, even just for a few days.

Here is a picture of Chairman Mao at the entrance to Forbidden City on TianAnMen square. As you can see it has some ghosting to it. See, while in China, I took all pictures with this 35mm point and shoot. It took fairly decent pictures for the very limited $ and ease of use. But, not this time around. I think  Mr Mao was not happy that day, his spirit was probably running around China, and he decided to stop by the mausoleum, which somewhere around there nearby, and check out his old flesh and bone. I was innocently taking pictures and camera, after all it is Chinese made, probably sensed his presence and had a little hick up. So there you go, the ghosting is evident. Haha.

On this trip I’ll have DSLR, Thailand produced, we’ll see if ghost of Mr Mao is still around and messing with people cameras.

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