Last weekend I went to Weihai with Alicia on her company trip.
Steven, Laura, Sulu, Alicia, and June
The two butterfly photos below are by Alicia. I taught her a little more about how to use her camera and she was really happy with these shots. I agree – pretty!
(photos by Alicia)Tags: alicia, butterflies, weihai
Unfortunately, my good lens had a slight malfunction so it’s in the repair shop so I had to use another lens – one without a polarizing filter! My sunglasses working surprisingly well but I put them one after most all of the lightning had passed. I’ve learned you really need a filter to cut down on the sky brightness when photographing lightning (especially when it is afternoon), or the bolts hardly show up.
Tags: lightning
I am obsessed with catching lightning. I got about 20 bolts today in about 1,000 frames.
Tags: lightning
I’m quite happy with how these turned out. They are shot through glass, but quite clear and I love using a narrow depth of field.
Tags: lizards
Johnna, Jade, Finn and I were going to go to the Railway Museum, but when we got there we discovered it was closed from 11:30 to 2:00 every day! (It definitely did not say that in any of the listings!) So we went to the Insect Museum instead. There was a lot more than insects – a seal, bunnies, goats, crickets, snakes, fish, monkey, reptiles… but I think I did manage to get some good shots. Note to self: Bring glass cleaner to wipe off all of the grubby hand prints before shooting.
Shanghai Natural Wild-Insect Kingdom
1 Fenghe Lu, near Binjiang Da Dao
丰和路1号， 近滨江大道
Tags: Alborns, insects, museum
We took the cable car up to the wall, walked for quite a while along the wall, then took toboggans down the mountain. It took a few hours and we were all exhausted by the end. All except the two-year-old, who had her own personal Sherpa to carry her the whole way.
Our whole group (photo set up by Jon.)
Tags: brendan & johnna, jon, mike & casey, mutianyu, paul & suzy, The Great Wall
We stayed at The Schoolhouse in Mutianyu, which is a tiny town about an hour and a half outside of Beijing. It was a pretty cool place. The first day we just hung out, napped (after the late night and early morning on the train), watched the Rugby (Mike brought his projector and laptop, and streamed the game live in Slovakian to their make-shift AV room), ate, played games, and walked around the town.
Tags: friends, mutianyu, the schoolhouse
On Friday we took the train to Beijing as the final part of Brendan’s birthday surprises. He just thought it was a family trip – until there was a knock on his cabin door and Paul, Suzy, Mike, Casey, and Jon and I were there with a bottle of bubbles singing Happy Birthday! I think he would have fallen over if he hadn’t already been sitting down.
Mike and Jon got a hold of my camera and fisheye lens and took most of the photos in the gallery. The tiny confine of the train compartment was a perfect place to use it. More to come!
Tags: Beijing, brendan, friends, jon, mike & casey, paul & suzy, train
Brendan’s Tattoo from Emily Minor on Vimeo.
On Sunday, we met at Crystal Jade for lunch to celebrate Brendan’s 40th birthday.
Johnna told Brendan about the tattoo she’d had designed in a song… and then told him the appointment was in 30 minutes! He didn’t back out and a group of us hung out while he was getting it done. This is a time lapse video of Ting from Shanghai Tattoo.
This is what Brendan had to say about the day:
I turned 40 on the 25th of July. With help from a lot of friends, and particularly Paul and Suzy, Johnna had been planning my 40th for many months. I had absolutely no clue what she had planned for me!
We started the day with a Dimsum brunch at Crystal Jade in Xintiandi, and then had a wonderful banana birthday cake made and decorated by Suzy. At the end of brunch Johnna sang a song about me set to the tune of a Sonic Youth song! The last verse was about my present; a tattoo! I was pretty cool, calm and collected at that point because I had been talking about getting a tattoo for years. That’s when Johnna told me the tattooing was starting in 30 minutes and had already been designed! At that point all of the blood drained from my face.
Luckily, I loved the design and the whole story behind it. In Chinese, a set of boy and girl twins is called “龍鳳胎”, or in English; a dragon and a phoenix. This means the dragon/taniwha in the design represents Finn and the phoenix represents Jade. Neve’s Chinese name is 白星， or “White Star” in English, so she is represented by the star. The background is a traditional Maori Koru pattern.
At 2:30PM I sat down and Ting, the tattoo artist, got started. All our friends sat around in the tattoo parlour drinking wine and beer and periodically coming over to check out the progress. Jon provided some great advice on how to cope with the pain, and Mike provided cans of cold diet coke and a human fan whenever it looked like I was getting too hot!
It was all done two and a half hours later so we went downstairs and had a couple of quiet drinks. The guys all performed a haka to bless the tattoo, and then we moved on to dinner at 1221 – a Chinese restaurant that has been our favourite over many, many years. It was a great meal and a great way to end a huge day!
Tags: brendan, tattoo, time lapse, video
Nishant and Sandhya repatriated on July 1st, and Corinna and Andrew moved to Australia. Jon and I also left for the US on July 1st, so we had a farewell party before we all left for different continents. I set up my camera and laptop so everyone could take photo booth photos.
Tags: photo booth
There are vaccum-packed pig snouts next to the lunch meat.
This house is being moved. They just pick it up, put it on a truck, and take it to the new location. The highways are usually empty so there isn’t much of a problem with blocking the road.
Tags: moving house
Jon and I are back home. Here we are after the rehearsal dinner before Pete and Sara’s wedding.
Spotted outside of the gift shop in the Pearl TV Tower. Poor kitty.
These shoes were lined up in the window of a big house in the botanical gardens in Kunming. It looked like a lot of workers lived there. A lot of the gardens themselves were very dry and not in bloom, but I think this photo made the trip out there worth it!
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Tomorrow I’m posting my favorite photo from my Kunming trip!
Tags: blog
Pleasant Goat is a wildly popular Chinese cartoon.
Tags: bird & flower market
This guy hand-made some very beautiful bird cages.
Tags: bird & flower market, Kunming
These little guys were at the bird and flower market in Kunming. I hope the dye was at least non-toxic!
Here’s a few more photos from brunch at Cristal a few weeks ago. I think it’s a great place to enjoy some sun!
Cristal
4/F, 269 Wujiang Lu, near Maoming Bei Lu; 吴江路269号4楼， 近茂名北路
Lyle has an iPad! It’s pretty cool….. He got it to use as a netbook, which seems to be a good use for it. Everyone is getting used to typing on it. It’s much more ‘hunt and peck’ than typing due to the touch screen.
I’m in Kunming right now with my college advisor and his family. They lived here 8 years ago while he taught here.
Aaron and Lyle are getting a foot massage here…. they guys turned the bucket sideways so their feet could fit!
The Maori are the indigenious people of New Zealand. at the New Zealand pavillion at the Expo, they are performing the Kapa Haka several times a day. I was only at the expo for a short time, but managed to catch part of the show. Suzy and I took 15 Maori on a shopping tour; it was awesome to hear about their traditions of tattooing. I’m looking forward to going back to the pavillion to see their entire performance!
Tags: expo
This teahouse is at 135 Jian Guo Xi Lu, near Shaanxi Nan Lu. You buy your tea for at least 78 RMB and then a massive buffet of snacks is included. Inside it’s decorated with antique furniture, stone statues and trickling streams with fish swimming in them. It is a very pleasant way to spend a few hours!
Tags: tea
This week was restaurant week. Right now we are enjoying brunch at Cristal on the rooftop. It’s beautiful out, amazing food and free-flow champagne for 298 rmb. I can highly recommend this place!
Tags: cristal, restaurant
Today we were having mojito outside at Cantina Agave when a couple cars that were parked on the sidewalk needed to leave. First a Lamborgini, then a Ferrari, very slowly backed out, inch by inch, through the outdoor seating area.
Tags: cars
Planting flowers everywhere possible really does improve the enviroment. Sandhya said she read that they’d created new hybrid flowers that will withstand the flower-wilting hot summer!
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