Saturday, May 10

Shanghai

Met with the photographer and Ming, a principal from our NY office, to walk the site of a very large project that was one of the main reasons for the trip. The weather was overcast and started to rain as we were finishing our walk through.

Afterwards they took me to an area that was restored into a shopping and eating destination. We sat and had lunch for close to three hours. Eating, drinking tea and talking about photography. I then walked back to the hotel and accidentally fell asleep for 4 hours. Oops. 

image.jpg

Friday, May 9

Arrived in Shanghai. 

Checked into the hotel and then went to the office... right next door! 

I had a drink with the Managing Principal of the Shanghai office (Ron) at a Morton's Steakhouse. Not exactly the welcome drink I had expected! 

I returned to the hotel and was met with a new kind of electrical socket. While it looks confusing, our two prong plugs work fine. Turns out I didn't need the adaptors and converters I brought!

image.jpg

Looking back while moving forward...

The past few weeks have been full of contradictions. It was very busy yet I didn't get as much done as I had thought. China is in some ways very much like any other big city but also very different. The weather was terrible and then perfect. The trip flew by but at the same time seemed like an eternity.

I wanted to take this time on the plane to review my three weeks and record it for my future memory. While this part is more for me, it is easier if I write it to you... hope you enjoy...

Wifi on the airplane is both a wonderful and terrible thing!

Somewhere over Japan. Where the highways go through the mountains!

Somewhere over Japan. Where the highways go through the mountains!

5 min later.

5 min later.

Digging a hole from China...

Time to dig a hole back to America! 

I start the long trip home in 6 hours. Will land in Chicago at 6pm Thursday night. It will be so nice to be back!

As I was leaving the Forbidden City today. 

As I was leaving the Forbidden City today. 

Now that is a GREAT Wall...

Do I even need words?

image.jpg
image.jpg

Today I went on the most spectacular hike of my life... also the hardest! The Great Wall is absolutely amazing and the views were breathtaking. 

I signed up for a tour of the wall and found one with just one other couple. I was picked up at 7am, they were picked up at 8 and we arrived at the bottom of the hill at 9:45. I had my worries about the hike beforehand, and it lived up to them... it was much more difficult than I expected! According to the tour website the altitude difference between the start and the highest point is 1,392 feet. My pedometer said 194 floors. I will be honest and tell you that I was tempted to turn back half way through the hike to just get to the wall! 

Here is a view from the starting point, you can see the tiny tower in the middle of the picture. I should have known at this point that it would be more than the "moderate" level that their website claimed. 

image.jpg
image.jpg

Even some of the downhill parts were knee wobbling. 

image.jpg
image.jpg

The whole experience was worth the hour long pain of the hike up to the wall. The reason that I chose this particular hike was because we started on an unrestored part of the wall and walked to a restored part (will post photos of the unrestored in few days). It was interesting to see the contrast between the two. 

To end the experience we took a toboggan ride down. It was so much fun and so fast! All that work to hike up and such a quick zip down! We timed it perfectly at just under 4 hours and the rain started as we got off the toboggans!

It was an absolutely spectacular day... and I hope I can move my body tomorrow!

Last night in Shanghai...

I keep singing the song "One night in Bangkok" as I think about this being my last night here. 

I will keep this quick because I have to pack up. The next 4 days will be very full and will fly by. Three cities. Two shoots. And a once in a lifetime experience... that I will talk about after it happens!

Only one photo today... this is for mom... look at the size of the boat!

image.jpg

I promise that some day I will fill in the details of what I have been doing. It is hard at the end of a busy day to spend time recapping. 

Bonus image from the "antiques" market. 

image.jpg

The white skies of Wuhan...

It has been a frustrating week of waiting for the weather to cooperate. I haven't taken any photos since last Thursday! Even without shooting I have been busy processing images and meeting with people.

On Sunday we traveled to Wuhan to photograph an international school. We walked around the site in the afternoon and got just a tiny bit of pale blue skies. Little did we know that we should have taken advantage of that because it was our only glimpse. 

We spent all day Monday and half the day Tuesday waiting for the sun. I really don't know what to call this weather since pollution isn't something that they can forecast. 

Day one around noon. There are many more buildings hiding in that haze. 

Day one around noon. There are many more buildings hiding in that haze. 

Day two around 8am. I can only hope that most of this was fog. 

Day two around 8am. I can only hope that most of this was fog. 

The forecast called for sunny days, and the second day was sunny eventually but the pollution levels were so high the sun never created a solid shadow. It is strange to know that it is sunny somewhere up there, but it felt like a dreary rainy day. We finally gave up and went back to Shanghai. 

Blah. 

Blah. 

I worked from our Shanghai office today to weed through the more than 500 emails that have come in during the trip! This was the view from our office. Oddly I think the photo makes it look much nicer than it actually was. 

Sadly this was refreshing although still gross. 

Sadly this was refreshing although still gross. 

I will try to write about positive things very soon...

 

 

Pandas, pandas, and more pandas...

I took the day off today and went to the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding to check out the bears! It was an amazing experience, I will let the photos speak for themselves. 

(I have great videos too, but can't post them on here. I will send a link when I am back in the states) 

I spent at least 20 minutes just watching these two. The mom was sleeping when I arrived but finally had no choice but to play after repeatedly being pounced on!

I spent at least 20 minutes just watching these two. The mom was sleeping when I arrived but finally had no choice but to play after repeatedly being pounced on!

Eat and nap.

Eat and nap.

Eat. 

Eat. 

Nap. 

Nap. 

Eat. 

Eat. 

Nap. 

Nap. 

Eat. 

Eat. 

Nap. 

Nap. 

Pose.

Pose.

Complimentary (and not so complimentary) upgrades...

The past two days I have been in a city in the middle of China called Chengdu. The architect and I arrived late Wednesday night and checked into the hotel. We were each upgraded to the biggest, and one of the nicest, hotel rooms I have ever stayed in. The room was the size of my apartment with 1.5 baths, a living room and a bedroom with a corner view. I was crushed that I would only be in the room for 6 hours, all if which should be sleeping! 

Thursday I photographed an international school. It was a very long day of running from shot to shot trying to catch the kids interacting in the newly renovated building. 

Towards the end of the day it was clear that I wouldn't have a shoot on Friday so I changed my plans and stayed in Chengdu for another day to go see the Pandas! Chengdu is famous for pandas (more on that later). I checked back into the hotel to find I was upgraded again! 

I checked in and ran back out to see the bridge across the street from my hotel all lit up. It was beautiful.  

The bridge is a pedestrian bridge... but most of it is a restaurant! 

The bridge is a pedestrian bridge... but most of it is a restaurant! 

Old vs New. The shorter high rise was my hotel. 

Old vs New. The shorter high rise was my hotel. 

After a day hanging with the pandas, I found that there was a mix up booking my flight and the only flight back to Shanghai was a first class ticket! I wrote this while sitting in the first class lounge waiting for my delayed flight. I have never been happier to have a flight delay! 

Friends make everything better

The trip has been great so far, but very lonely without any friends here. That all changed Tuesday when Maja arrived!  She and I have been to India and Istanbul together. She is a good friend and a great travel partner. She transferred to the Shanghai office in January but was in New York when I arrived here! She finally came back in time to make my trip more fun.

We met for dinner last night and she helped me find two of the things I was missing from home.  

You can't see them, but they snuck pickles on the pizza!

You can't see them, but they snuck pickles on the pizza!

 

It was nowhere near awful! 

It was nowhere near awful! 

The Chinese food has all been very good (except the one mystery lunch item that I would like to forget), but it was time for something familiar. I have also noticed the lack of chocolate on dessert menus, so thankfully this place is across the street from my hotel!

I am looking forward to the adventures we take Saturday!

 

Long days...

We had a 12 hour day on site today. The buildings are right across the river from the new skyline of Shanghai. 25 years ago that was all farmland. 

image.jpg
image.jpg

We are back on site tomorrow and then I fly somewhere tomorrow night. Not quite sure where yet! 

It is proving difficult to update everyday due to being so tired at the end of each day. I will update as much as I can. 

Don't you worry about me, sfcurity is very tight here. 

image.jpg

An afternoon off...

After working this morning we went for a dim sum lunch. Dim sum refers to a style of Cantonese food prepared as small bite‑sized or individual portions of food traditionally served in small steamer baskets or on small plates. We ordered 7 different dishes and I ate 6 of them! (I drew a line at eating something off a chunk of hot bone). 

To get to the restaurant we walked through an old part of the city that has been redeveloped into a shopping area. 

Love the eyes!

Love the eyes!

After a few hours at lunch eating and discussing the upcoming shoot I decided to walk back to the hotel. I am staying next to an extremely high end mall. 

Great shop window

Great shop window

I am off to sleep again (accidentally slept from 6:30 to 10:30 tonight).

Tomorrow I will explore the city in the rain. And keep trekking through jet lag like this little guy I saw today... 

Running away from being dim sum

Running away from being dim sum

I suppose I am here to work...

I hope this isn't what I wake up to every morning (change the time from pm to am). 

I hope this isn't what I wake up to every morning (change the time from pm to am). 

Today was the first full day and that meant going to the site to plan the shoot. Unfortunately we couldn't take any photos because the weather was foggy and rainy. 

​

The photographer and architect discussing the project. You can see two of our buildings through the window, we are standing in a third and two more are out of view. 

The photographer and architect discussing the project. You can see two of our buildings through the window, we are standing in a third and two more are out of view. 

 

Looking up in the atrium of one of the buildings. 

Looking up in the atrium of one of the buildings. 


Welcome to Shanghai!

I left New York at 11am Thursday and landed in Shanghai 2pm Friday and during the whole flight the sun never set. Still wrapping my head around that!

image.jpg