Monday, April 27, 2009

A little trip to China - A photo blog post!

A picture says a thousand words. With this saying in mind, I thought that the best way to write about my latest getaway to a second tier city in China called Changsha is to do a photo blog-style post.

And so..voila!







This lady had pushed her street-side cart from her countryside farm all the way to one of the university areas of the city to sell Tianjin-style snackfood. She does this every morning and gets there by noon - just in time for lunch. The lengths and lengths of crunchy sweet or savory rolls are sold by weight to university students and residents alike.



The twisted biscuits are coated in caramel, and very sweet but doughy. I really enjoyed the square pieces of ground dough, nuts and caramel that were chewy and crunchy at the same time.




Window shutters of a residential apartment block in the rain. A piece of architecture that really caught my eye.






Doggie fashion in China. Such cute little red and black sneaker boots! - I could see this on Etsy ;)





Looking through the window of a corridor in a old apartment block of a community called a "Dan Wei". I learnt that Chinese families are given an apartment if they have served the government somehow for some time. This was in a university 'dan wei' - many of the residents were elderly but at some point in their lives, had worked for the university.



Graves on the side of Mount Yuelu after the Ching Ming festival. This festival is where families pray or pay respects to their ancestors. They light firecrackers to ward off evil spirits and bad luck.


A peek out the window. Someone had put their laundry out to dry.






The entrance to an apartment block in a 'dan wei' - the colourful letterboxes in an otherwise quite old and drab building caught my eye. I love how the old bicycle was positioned just right outside!





Burnt candlesticks at a temple in Changsha.


Drying nuts (?) on a make-shift balcony of mops.





These little bamboo rickety chairs are what we sat on in some restaurants in Changsha. They are so tiny that it took awhile to get used to. My knees were practically in my face! The food in Changsha is predominantly spicy. People tend to eat heavy lunches washed down with local rice wine or beer. The beer was so light that it was almost watery - drinkable for me as I am not a fan of heavy wheaty beers ;) Even though it was a weekday there were huge groups of people having long lunches..and getting drunk!






A small road makes way for make-shift markets. This "seafood" seller sold frogs and eels (?) - the latter was being gutted by the roadside very deftly.




I love this photo of the market. Everything here looks so fresh and bright - which is such a contrast to the surroundings. Colour in country China seems hard to come by and the markets are one place where you suddenly have all this colour!






The city centre of Changsha on a rainy day.

5 comments:

Lisa said...

Lovely glimpses into another country.

Unknown said...

Oh my gosh, I'm so jealous of your trip! Beautiful pictures!

Unknown said...

ahhh! that doggie kills me i love it!

Audra, Green Meadow Lane said...

Wow! Your pictures are amazing!

Bejewelled Bespoke said...

Thank you everyone for the comments! =) I've done a fair bit of travel recently and hope to be posting more of it soon =)