If you were asked to make a sign written in Chinese, wouldn’t you want to have a Chinese person check it out? Especially if it is a sign millions of people would see, or if it were a notice on your company’s product? I think the Chinese must be very perplexed why many so many English speaking people stop and take a photo of their ‘No Smorking’ and “No Smooking” signs.
There are LOTS more examples…. Read on. Click on the image to see the entire sign.
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I see Bicycles EVERYWHERE
So how does one find their bike here? Once found, how do they get it out?
In the cities, what initially looks like a two lane road is really a six lane road. Along both curbs are fast moving scooters and bicycles going both ways. Before stepping into the street, one must look both ways for scooters, motorized carts and bikes. Then upon crossing both lanes of automobile traffic, you have to look BOTH ways again. Vehicles, we were told, have the right of way. We saw very few wrecks and the traffic just flowed. Our bus driver once had to back out into very heavy traffic. He just went slowly, kept backing out into the traffic that simply flowed around the bus. Those who could scoot by did until their path was blocked. No horns honked, as drivers just flowed around him, like molasses in January. That could never happen in the States. If one did attempt it here, there would finger pointing of sorts and much horn honking…. Oddly enough, there were very few wrecked cars and no old beat up vehicles. All the cars appeared to be quite new.
These are photos of a more rural area in far western China.
Notice the wedding dress
The Race is ON!
Hey Woman,
Take me to Market
China’s Building BOOM
Each city we visited in China had much evidence of the governments efforts to convert China to a land of cities from a land of farms. On a return trip from the Great Wall, some of us on the tour bus started counting the cranes but stopped as we could not count fast enough and we totaled over 100. I asked each of our guides for details about this building boom but did not get consistent answers. Fortunately many of my questions seemed to be answered in a feature article in the International New York Times from November 11, 2013 “In New China, Hope Fades and Homes Crumble.”
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Train Toilet, Squatty Potty
Squatty Potty
Now for the important stuff about China. The Chinese are known for seeing western products and doing their best to imitate them. Not so with the toilets…. My wife said there would be a line of Chinese women at these Squatty Potties and the one western style commode, when there was one, would be open and unused. They also do not imitate our plumbing. The silver looking toilet was the one found on the 19 hour train ride we encountered…. That is another story… There is a lady on the train, the bucket lady, whose job it was to get a pail of water, pour it into the commode and voila, like magic, the entire restroom was sparkling clean once again, if it wasn’t for all of the apparent ‘misses’ from the 36 people per car sharing the bathroom on the rocking and rolling train. The bucket you see next to the commode is for ALL the toilet paper, yes it goes into the bucket, not the commode. Out on the streets, we would see a man sweeping up fallen leaves, or a dime sized piece of paper, but inside the toilets, well we could not wait to get back out on the streets.
While walking the banks of the Sacramento River near Redding, California I heard a surprisingly loud racket sounding like loud drums beating. I soon found the source of the noise were salmon spawning. Here is a short video of a couple trying to make it upstream to their spawning grounds.
Panorama Point Rainbow
One cold morning I went exploring the area around Crested Butte, Colorado. I turned and went up a hill to see the fog from the warmer lake water meeting the frigid morning air. This is a site we would see on occasion in the winter on Lake Michigan. What I often find intriguing is that sites such as these are everyday for some. One reason this clip was chosen is no cars drove by on their way to work. Also, the guy with the circular saw gave it a rest for a while…..
The beautiful and brilliant golden color of the aspen trees is a familiar sight to anyone living in the mountains of the western US. It is great family fun to have a fall picnic and have the kids run around and try to catch the falling leaves. Or as I have done here, after taking several photographs, I simply laid on the forest floor, watched and listened. The photo taken from this scene is in the Fall Colors Gallery.
Beautiful View
Above the town of Crested Butte, Colorado, and beyond the ski area, is a National Forest. But before getting to this public land, one must pass through 1.5 miles of private land. It is hard for me to imagine that this is someone’s view each day. Crested Butte has some of the most beautiful mountains and land in Colorado.
Aspen Trunks
Sometime I’ll become all wrapped up in a particular scene and with nobody to pull me away, I will get way too involved in a not so special scene. The way these three aspen tree trunks fanned apart symmetrically with the other aspen trunks in the background seemed really special. I even returned to the same spot later in different light. Upon working on the photo days later I am now not so sure…. I think it may only be blog worthy…… if that. What do you think?