Here is a shot from the Bund of Shanghai. It shows the new area of Pudong surrounding the river. I usually don’t do creative re-imagining of these places, but I had some extra time and was really bored last night in the hotel!
I happened to be in China exactly one year before the Olympics and the entire country is in an excited maelstrom over the upcoming Olympics in Beijing.
I also was very lucky to meet and talk to Dou Dou Huang ( his profile here ) who is a world renowned dancer and one of China’s shining stars. He was part of a dance troupe that was doing some choreography and preparing for a big ceremony tonight that will take place at the Oriental Pearl tower in Shanghai.
I was taking a lot of shots of the performance, moving around from spot to spot. The big finale of the performance is when Dou Dou Huang breaks out of the other dancers, grabs ahold of a cable hanging from high above, and does this death-defying jump about 20 feet into the air, riding up the Beijing 2008 banner in a Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon move.
Dou Dou and his wife dolly were very nice and spoke perfect English. He told me that he was just in New York where he was in charge of choreography at the Met. I told him that was no big deal because I did the same thing 10 times last week. His wife was really cool too. Her name was Dolly. She gave me "their" card and it said "Dolly and Dou Dou" with their email address.
Since he was such a great performer, I tried to impress him by singing a song that I learned about China on one of my favorite shows, When the Whistle Blows. I had the chocolate cake and everything.
You can see below if you zoom in that his silhouette is the exact same shape as the Beijing 2008 logo. I don’t know if he held his body like that on purpose or if I caught it just right… but amazing nonetheless!
Here is a shot of Shanghai - the Pudong new area from across the Bund. A diamondvision floats by, showing the Chinese the latest consumer product of aspirational value.
I can’t believe the size of Shanghai. Not only is the current size unlike anything I have ever seen, but the current construction will dwarf it’s current state, currently.
They don’t call it "capitalism" - they call it "market economy". Whatever they call it, you don’t see people reading Mao’s Little Red Book any more.
On the way to meet some friends on the Bund in Shanghai, I came across this cool martini bar so I grabbed a quick shot. I thought the lights and colors inside were really slick.
The last Hong Kong picture went over so well that I thought I would post another one. I’m going to smoggy and humid Shanghai for a bit and will try to snap some pictures between meetings for y’all.
I took the ferry over to Lamma Island from the port of Hong Kong. It’s the third biggest island in the area and a nice escape from the concrete jungle. It has only about 6,000 residents and is home to a lot of ex-pats - especially artists and musicians. I stopped and had snacks at a cool place called “Deli-Lamma” and spent the late afternoon and evening hiking from one side of the island to the other.
I started out at Yung Shue Wan and hiked for several hours around the outside of the island until I made it to Sok Kwu Wan, which you can see below. It is a little fishing village where a bunch of people live out on the water. You may have to zoom in to see the little WaterWorld village… very cool and different.
Has my iPhone evolved into a sentient being? Am I in the middle of a campy Star Trek episode where Data is trying to figure out what it “means” to be human?
I brought my iPhone with me to China so I could listen to music and flip through the albums with my fingers because it is cool rather than functional. But upon landing in Hong Kong, I got this SMS message: “Welcome to PEOPLE’S Hong Kong! Calling home / other countries? Dial <001>
I thought this AT&T thing only worked in the US. That’s what the man said to us, but now I have reasons to doubt the man.
How does my iPhone know I am in Hong Kong? A few weeks ago at a lunch with Will, we put our iPhones very close to one another on the table while we ordered our food. We were hoping that perhaps they would mate and spawn a third iPhone. But maybe what really happened is my iPhone started to learn from Will’s iPhone. I don’t know what it could have learned, other than how to dress conservatively and part your hair in such as way as to make you look one-quarter inch taller, but that does not explain the Hong Kong Recognition Enigma.
Perhaps my iPhone is confused and thinks I am Steve Jobs because I sometimes wear all black in speak like a vainglorious huckster. I cannot say for sure, but I will continue to explore what happens to the iPhone in various countries.
The pic up there on my Apple is the one I took of Hong Kong from The Peak on the previous night… Here is a link the full size.
I had a long day waking up at 5 AM to take a series of subways and trains up to Shenzen for some meetings. I was hot and sweaty and in the kind of meeting clothes that aren’t great for being hot and sweaty in. Anyway, I can’t complain… I made it back to Hong Kong just as the sunset, so I headed up to The Peak for a shot.
In the foreground is Hong Kong and on the far side is Kowloon.
I made it to Hong Kong just as the sun was setting today (July 28th). I headed over to IFC2 to have a drink and watch the sunset. I was lucky enough to catch an unexpected fireworks show across the bay right after the sun went down, so I snapped this shot for y’all.
I know it is strange to post fireworks shots two days in a row… but… hey it’s kinda cool I guess to see awesome fireworks in two different cities.
I spent another few days in airports… did not get a chance to post for a bit. So here is something from Hong Kong…
