Pictures from Beijing

One of the things the city of Beijing is doing before the Olympics is painting all the grey and a bit sad looking apartment houses along major roads. They get a quick paint job. Almost overnight. No scaffolding. No repair. Just paint. A quick face lift.

It is difficult to see in the picture. But this house looks so much nicer and cleaner than before! And when you drive a long e.g. the 3rd ring road, you see lots of them. They don't look that much different then before, but somehow different, and when you look closer, you realise, they have been all painted! I should have invested in a paint selling company...

In Beijing new bars and restaurants open weekly - and some may close for the Olympics, if they do not meet some standards. I discovered this "Italian" gelateria behind the Russian Market. It sounds almost Italian.

Beijing: Photo update

New Parking at Panjiayuan Weekend Market! "New York style car elevator".



The origami lamp at the new Sushi Bar next to Kunlun Hotel, opposite Jia Yi (Taka Kura Sushi Bar, minimalistic cool interior, expensive, cannot beat Hatsune)


A kids party in Beijing. Most of the kids' birthday parties are big. All classmates are invited together with parents on a weekend. Sometimes there is a bouncing castle, sometimes a magician, sometimes there is face painting, there are some little games to play, there is always food and drinks of course and a big birthday cake with a sugar spiderman or barbie on top. And there was this party that had all of it plus an acrobatic show. Amazing.


A tree gets a police escort. Maybe a new tree in front of a police station?


The other bird nest(s) in Beijing. Can you see them? Actually despite the pollution there are many birds in Beijing.

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Today I am glad to be able to access my blog, to sign in and to post words And pictures. What a progress!

Beijing Daily Pictures - Ducks

Attention, these pictures are not for the Western stomach...


You can see delicious duck necks and duck heads!
Amazing, how the colour of each dish is the same...



Taken today at Wanda Plaza, an office and entertainment complex with lots of tiny restaurants in Beijing.

PS: I love Beijing Duck or Peking Duck! That famous dish is is so different and really delicious!!!

Beijing Daily Pictures

These days I have to run some errands and while stuck in traffic I took the pictures (above: new CCTV tower and neighbouring constructions taken from the 3rd ring road while driving from South to North) out of the car. We had a couple of grey days lately. The visibility was poor and the air quality not better. However today, the sun is making her way through and Beijing looks friendly again.

Blind Date in Dashanzi

Recently I was contacted by one of my readers. Emma, a professional photographer from the UK, was planning a trip to Beijing (among other destinations in Asia) and asked me if we could meet. She found me via my blog which inspired her travel planning. So one morning she had arrived in Beijing and called me. We fixed a blind date for the next day afternoon.

Her speciality is botanical photography, and as I wanted to propose a flower stand to be featured in urbane, the magazine I am writing for, I had this idea to do some quick photo shooting together in Liangma Flower Market before heading to Dashanzi. I thought it is a nice coincidence. You never know, maybe the magazine decides to buy her beautiful pics. Among others Emma is preparing a garden photo exhibition in the UK and plans to export the concept to Asia.


So that afternoon, Emma cycled all the way from her Kelly courtyard Hotel in the West to our house, where we first met. I was impressed. She only called me once from a public phone (I have never tried that before) to get directions: 'From that Embassy, do I have to go East or West?' - Emma is another proof that it is a prejudice that women have no orientation. We got along like we knew each other before. She is very easy and looks very Greek. - Then off we went to the Liangma Flower Market. It was interesting to observe a professional photographer. She has an eye and she works fast. She has different discs for different subjects.


Then we left for Dashanzi, 798 Art District. Also here pre-Olympic construction! Deep trenches for canalisation are bordering every single street. Mountains of earth narrow the ways. Some galleries and cafes have disappeared. Parking areas, new shops and new galleries are on the way.


What looks like an art installation is just another new gallery opening soon.

What a great weather to visit Dashanzi Art District. I love that factory atmosphere.

Factory and excavator in 798 - working class meets art meets tourists

Someone new in the neighbourhood...

... and someone leaving soon (exhibition ends Sunday April 6)

Emma and I spent an hour in this Beijing art district without visiting one single gallery. The whole site itself is an attraction. You can find art everywhere. We both liked this graffiti. (It is not for sale.)

Art is everywhere.

Princess Haiku?

Photo Source: Suzie from BeijingNotebook

Beijing Images by Peter Kurz

Peter Kurz from Munich is a talented photographer and his photos are art to me - not only because they are beautiful, also because they transport what I like about Beijing. Last November he and our common friend visited me in Beijing and we did most of the sight seeing together. When we exchanged our photos - he sent me his on a CD packed in a sweet surprise Christmas parcel full of Lebkuchen and Marzipan - I was so excited to see how he saw Beijing through his lens. I got his permission to publish some of my favorite pictures. I picked 11 for this post (click on the picture to enlarge).

The first day of my friends’ arrival we grabbed our bicycles and cycled to the Houhai area. The picture above was taken from the Drum Tower around 5pm and shows the view to the South.

We cycled back home through Donzhimennei Dajie a.k.a. Ghost Street where this picture (above) was taken in front of one of the many many restaurants that open 24h and have plenty of red lanterns hanging outside. It is called Ghost Street because it never sleeps.

This photo (above) is taken in the Forbidden City, in the area of the concubine quarters. The ox blood red of Chinese ancient walls, its different washed-out tones always fascinates me.

Main gate of the Forbidden City with Mao painting at Tiananmen Square is a must see at night. The picture was taken out of our driving car.

This is the oldest shoe shop in Beijing, south of Tiananmen. I like the reflections in the window.

Here ends the 'red series' and below starts Peter's 'blue series'.

This night shot shows one of the largest screens in the world at The Plaza shopping mall, just north of the Silk market.

Buddhas and monks at the Panjiayuan weekend market a.k.a. the dirt market. I like the photo composition. It is vivid and serene at the same time. It contains contrasts like eternity and erosion, mind and material. Sized-up and mounted it would be great photo art.

Panda at Dashanzi 798 Art District, sprayed on the wall by artist 'AP'. Beside red walls, I like grey brick walls in China. It is part of Beijing’s scruffy charm. Seldom there is graffiti, only in areas where its wanted. And 798 is one of my favorite places for a fun walk on a Sunday afternoon.

I also like Beijing parks where old people gather to play games or exercise hobbies. I like this picture because it shows that Chinese people do smile! It shows two happy women, one plays a traditional Chinese two-string violin, the erhu, and the other one likes her interpretation of a famous piece (I guess).

The photo above shows a food stand at night near Wangfujing. I like everything in this snap-shot: the expression on the young woman's face, the simple Chinese screen door, the steamy kitchen and windows - can you see the water drops on the window? Nice shot!

Chinese 'Plattenbau', the communist architecture for residential buildings. Very simple, very grey, very dull. Despite the new architectural highlights in Beijing, this is still the dominating landscape.

Beijing is a city with many faces, although many old faces vanish, some will remain and make every visit memorable.

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Photographer: Peter Kurz, Munich Germany, email: perz(at)arcor(dot)com

Bio:
Peter Kurz, born in 1968, works as a medical doctor in Munich. Beside sports and travelling (thereof many trips to Asia) his interest is photography since the age of 15. This passion began with a second hand Minolta XG1.

Peter Kurz, Jahrgang 1968, tätig als Internist in München, neben Sport und Reisen (darunter zahlreiche Asienaufenthalte) seit dem 15. Lebensjahr begeisterter Fotograf. Die Leidenschaft begann mit einer Minolta XG1 (gebraucht gekauft).

All above images source and copyright Peter Kurz, Munich.

Happy New Year !

(photo: creative Coke advertising in Beijing at a bus station)

Happy New Year 2008 !

I am back in Beijing after a busy Christmas holiday back in my hometown in Germany. I guess every visit back home is just too short to see all friends and family members and spend enough time with them. Especially when you have these long holidays when all the shops are closed in good old Germany. Imagine: you have only a half day for grocery shopping on December 24Th (Monday) to stock for 3 breakfasts, 2 lunch and 3 dinners more or less until shops are open again December 27Th (Thursday) ... similar thing on Monday 31st. You can imagine the queues...
And you want to meet friends and parents want to meet you...

I have almost adjusted from jet lag. Here are some news from Beijing:

* first new thing on the plane: no more health form needs to be filled out. So from 3 forms down to 2 forms to fill out before immigration. Progress for 2008 where half million foreigners a expected in Beijing!

* the magazine I am writing for, tbj home, is gone, kaput, no more. BUT: it lives on in the form of urbane - a new name for "China's best English lifestyle magazine" (I am citing). New is the name and that it's distributed not only in Beijing but all over China (I am not sure if the first issue in January is already distributed all over China). And I am still in.

* If you stay with kids in Beijing: the magazine tbj kids is getting better and better. Since the new editor re-designed the magazine it is really worth reading. And the website is informative as well with a blog and a forum.

* In Germany I heard that the exhibition of Chinese terracotta warriors in Hamburg was stopped as some of the worriers that were deemed as originals were fakes. I was smiling about that 'scandal'. Hey, what do you expect? In China copying is a form of art. I am also amused to read at Danwei that someone somewhere heard a gossip that maybe all terracotta warriors, even the ones in Xian, might be made by modern hand (and original clay, of course). Read Danwei's (German) critical article here.

* One more thing about China and the German media. It seems more a la mode than ever to write about China. Of course the world focuses on China because of the upcoming big event, the Olympics 2008, that start on August 8 at 8.08 in Beijing. So I read articles in Germany about migrant workers, Chinglish, etiquette training, Chinese art scene etc.

* The air quality report (see blogroll) is back online. Even if the air of downtown Beijing is not surveyed anymore on the busiest streets but in less polluted areas, I am glad it is reported again. (I am not sitting at a traffic junction all day).

* Today I passed by a river near Liangma flower market and looked twice through the window as I could not recognize the area. It took a moment until I realized that all the hutong houses were demolished and cleaned up. I remembered that I wanted to take some photos there as it was a picturesque area in the middle of a developed business and residential area. Too late.

* In China we are still in the old year of the PIG. The new year of the RAT is still to come. Chinese New Year will be celebrated a week long in February and is a national holiday. My ayi wants to take off two weeks, better three weeks! help! The trip to her hometown in Anhui province takes 19 hours by train. She will be reunited with her 9 year old son and family.

* The national holidays in May, the May Golden Week, instead is cancelled by the government. This change was made in order to avoid the negative effects when millions of Chinese are travelling and to allow flexible holidays.


I discovered this photo art by Floriane de Lassee, a young photographer born in 1977 in Paris. It is available via the photo art gallery Lumas. It is not Beijing. It is Shanghai. She didn't do any shot in Beijing, but in Tokyo, Singapore, Paris, Istanbul, NY... I am fascinated and that's why I am posting it on my Beijing Notebook. Click on the picture to enlarge. Happy New Year!

Beijing: Picture of the Week

Courtyard house (siheyuan) with persimmon tree seen from top of the Drum Tower.

You may have noticed that I have taken the little "picture of the week" section from the top of the blogroll. The picture was just too small to be appreciated. My favorite pictures that I take while strolling through Beijing will be posted now regularly and in regular size.