Wedding photography

Thought I would post a few photos from the wedding Vincent and I photographed in October. Enjoy!

Home Sweet Home

Well, it's just over a month and we've been back in Canada since June 9th.  It's been nice. Vincent is back working at Mosport with the racing academy he was at last year and I'm doing odd jobs until I get my contract back.

Sorry there hasn't been any photo updates, but now that we're home I'm going to assume not many people are checking out the blog.  

I have however set up a flicker account for some photography, since I'm getting back at it - so check that out

http://www.flickr.com/photos/uptopp/

and for now, we're probably going to leave the blog as is until we either have some super exciting news or we end up traveling somewhere new.

Asian Xgames

We have been really excited about this for the past couple of weeks, and were planning to make a weekend out of it.  Indulge in some western culture with "extreme" skateboarding, inline skating, bmxing and motocross.  We also had planned to meet someone we met in Zhuhai there.  None of it really worked out the way we had intended.  With the forecast suggesting rain all weekend our friend backed out, and we decided to just enjoy Friday's events.  Silly me - I read the website rules saying "no camera's unless you have a designated media pass", to my dismay everyone on the grounds was snapping photos of the contestants.  We also quickly learned that those competing seemed to lack more talent then those involved in the North American Xgames.  The only thing that truly impressed us was the motocross.  These guys on their bikes were pulling off supermen while doing a backflip (its just like it sounds, while doing a backflip the rider releases from his bike and just holds on to the back end). Really impressive stuff.

The weather was super amazing.. and we did enjoy getting out for the day.  However with the weather as nice as it was... Vincent didn't realize he brought screen to Shanghai until we got home and my skin tone resembled that of a lobster...

Another overdue update

April 7th Vincent and I had a 5:30am wake up call so we'd be ready to take our taxi to the airport.  I can't explain the excitement that I (and I'm sure Vincent) had getting on the plane and leaving JiaDing for a little while.  It's a nice town we're in but it's small, and lacks really any english speaking people.  So going somewhere new for what we thought would only be a week was really exciting to us.  

We were met at the airport by a driver for FRD and he drove us the hour scenic drive to the race track.  At first I was really excited to be near water, it was a refreshing breeze, and the scenery was great - at times I was tempted to have the driver pull over so I could jump out and take some photos, but I resisted the urge.  We finally made it to the FRD office for a few hours, Pete drove us around to show us the track while drivers were out practicing.  Even though I haven't been to the Shanghai office, I was excited to see the environment Vincent works in.

Vincent decided not to go into work the first full day in Zhuhai and thought it would be nice to walk to "the lady of the sea" statue.  We did see her on the way to the track, but not paying attention to the actual distance... so we set off for what Pete had said would be about a 45 minute walk.  Despite the extreme humidity on our walk when we first set out we continued since the day was nice and warm (much different from what we left in Shanghai).

As we walked we took some photos of a normal day of locals in Zhuhai.. along with some other neat things.

These look like ordinary row boats, but the person using the ores stand up... I thought it was neat

On any given day you can catch a lot of people along the 10 k waterfront we walked fishing.  I'm not sure what they are fishing for here (at some points they were pulling oysters and shrimp from the water)

As old as these boats are - I was quite drawn to them.  They remind me of an old painting.

At this point we had been walking for nearly 3 hours and starting to get tired, sore (well I was sore and growing some massive blisters on my feet) but we were determined to make it there on foot.

Another large fishing area - boats, nets and people filled the water line getting ready for a day out in the water.

One more break and another 35 minutes to go before we reach our final destination.  While I was resting, Vincent took my camera for a walk around "Lover's Road".  The main road in Zhuhai that leads around the water front.  The board walk for the most part was well maintained and many statues filled the lawn.

We finally made it.  Over 10k and four hours of walking, 7 breaks, two bottles of fruit juice and a truly great day.  We made it to the statue.  I'm not even sure what the actual draw is to her - it seems like at any given time the paths around her are crowded with people.  But at the same time, she is quite lovely.

The walk was probably my favorite part of Zhuhai.  Vincent and I spent a lot of time reading throughout the days - and would go to "The Old Junk" at night for dinner, hang out with other foreigners and check our email since Pete's apartment didn't have internet access.

We were hoping to get to Hong Kong the first week and get back to Shanghai as soon as we could, but Easter changed our plans since the consulate was closed for the long weekend we didn't end up going until Tuesday, and got to the head office a half hour too late to get our visa submitted that day - so we had an extra day to explore what Hong Kong had to offer.  I did enjoy the city more then most.  It was clean, relatively more quiet (considering the amount of people) then the other cities we've been to, and it was just more inviting.  

Our hotel was in Kowloon - off of Hong Kong Island, and we stayed on the 24th floor.

This is a view of Kowloon from our hotel room.

The corner of the block our hotel was on.  We went for a night walk after eating before heading back to the apartment to relax since we had the entire next day to site see we knew we'd be walking a lot.

Waking up we decided to check the internet to see what Lonely Planet suggested we did.  We found a few shopping centers and looked around a little bit, then took the metro to the tram that would take us to the top of Victoria Peak.

The Tram ride was relatively short, considering it went to the top of the mountain, the reason is that the tracks go straight up.  At times it felt like we were climbing the first drop on a roller coaster.

We spent a few hours on top of the peak, just walking around enjoying the day, view and amount of plants around us (when you're in busy cities all the time - its almost a treat to experience wild life). 

Once we returned to Zhuhai - our days were the same as before, relaxing during the day - and evenings were at the Junk.

Our last day we went back to Zhuhai International Circuit, and I spent most of the day taking photographs of the guys on their fast bikes.  When we were approaching the track,... I mean we were seconds away from me being ready to start photographing, one of the bikers hit some rubber dust stuff (I don't know the technical term..) and spun out.  All Vincent and I saw were feet in the air.  The crash was pretty epic and note worthy, and the selfish part of me wishes we had made it in time to photograph.  But the guy was okay - only a big bruise.

Now I'm back in Shanghai while Vincent is in France working at LeMans. 

Zhuhai

We made it to Zhuhai safe and sound.  We're staying at Pete's apartment here and the internet rarely connects ... so we'll give you all a nice healthy update when we get home!

While you all are enjoying you're last bit of snow fall - we're soaking up some amazing weather ... just thought you all wanted to hear that :D

Quick edit since the internet seems to be working well at "The Junk", a bar that is letting us use their wireless...

The day we got to Zhuhai we went to the circuit to see the other office and got some photos takin of the racing.

The Bund View

For my birthday Vincent and I went back to the city for a day out, only we toured the other side of the water to see the sites they had there.  We stopped at the water front to have some lunch - this is the view we had.

(click on it and it'll get a bit larger)

Learning

So there hasn't been much action going on, which means there isn't much to write about.  The weather is getting nicer which means more trips to starbucks (YAY)... Other then that I've been spending my time learning more about photography and photoshop... so why not share one of my latest creations!

Shanghai noon and night

Friday night we tried to get organized for our big trip to the city.  We sat down for at least an hour going through our travel book finding places that we wanted to see, and walking tours that would fill out our day.  We scheduled when we'd be leaving and worked it all out to make it to a concert later that night.

We were woken up a lot earlier then planned - even though it was supposed to be Vincent's weekend off - they were still buzzing at the door for him to go in, but they said he could have the day off, what a relief.  After some Golden (french) toast for breakfast, we packed up our bags and set off.  We went to what we thought was the bus terminal - and the language barrier was an instant struggle. So we left the building hoping to find the real terminal.  We did, just around the corner and paid the 9 RMB and went off to find the correct gate.  Finding it difficult yet again to ask for help to direct us to the right bus in a line of about 30 buses a man, who spoke very poor english finally directed us to the correct one.  Hoping that was the hardest part, we settled in our seats and waited to depart.  

As the bus rolled into the city, we weren't exactly sure where to get off so we waited for the majority of the people to vacate and we would simply follow along, and thats what we did.  This didn't seem to help much, since we didn't know which part of the giant city we were in.  We found a Starbucks and thought it would be best to regroup with our map there.  Being across from the Four Season's Hotel helped, we found where we were on the map, and decided it would be a good time to call our friend's uncle to meet with him.  It turns out the mall he was at was only a short taxi ride away.  The 12 story mall was larger then anything I had seen before.  But we made our way to the very top floor to the restaurant and met David and his family for a meal.  They were great people with a lot of energy, which was somewhat unexpected for him being 84.  After our meal they walked us to the main floor and pointed us in the direction to the "pedestrian walk way".  He said it would take us directly to the "bund", our first designated "walking tour".  As we were walking we noticed a lot of people surrounding a building looking up.  As we got closer we realized the police had roped off the base of the building because there was a man sitting on the ledge throwing paper over the top.  This building was close to 25 stories high.

Its a little hard to see both his feet and the papers on the ledge because the photo is so small (click on it to enlarge)

Bystanders watching the man on top of the roof. We are still uncertain what his motives were.

The amount of people on the walk way was crazy, yet a good indicator of how many people actually live in this city.  At times I would have to hold on to Vincent's backpack so we wouldn't get separated.

Fire and rescue heading towards the man on the building.

Sometimes I'm uncertain of what I was taking photos of.  I was a little trigger happy, and excited to be out of JiaDing - so I photographed everything I could.

The architecture here is amazing.  None of the buildings looked similar.

This would be beautiful at night with all the lights flashing.

There were lots of people selling silly toys on the sidewalks, trying to get us to buy them.

The Oriental Pearl Tower, one of Shanghai's many tourist attractions.

Us being tourists.  While we were admiring the view, some strangers asked if they could have their pictures taken with us.  Odd, yet entertaining.

More interesting architecture.. I think the one that (Vincent thought looked like a giant bottle opener) is the World tower, but I'm not 100% sure.

All of these attractions were on "the Bund", and probably have a lot of historical significance.  However, we didn't really stop to read about any of it.  

Again with just being excited to take photos.  Planting trees along the ledge at the bund

Kind of looks like some sort of city hall.

Yet another wedding, I couldn't help myself.

This little guy is everywhere.  He is the mascot for the 2010 Shanghai exposition. 

As we left the bund on our way to old town, the path we took had many shops, but they were all closed.

I enjoy taking photographs of random elderly people - their faces seem to have a lot of character and tell a story.

I'm not sure what they roast on these - but they smell very delicious. 

The sun was setting while we were still lost in old town, it brought out a lot more life to the buildings already historical shapes.

After finding our way back to a park, we sat down to regroup our game plan and eat some food.  We hadn't seen half as much as we had intended for a variety of reasons.  Mostly being the fact that road signs are hard to find, and the language barrier when asking for directions.  So we decided we would make our way to the other end of town close to the concert hall and get some food.  We made it safely to the proper subway stop, but blindly led each other around town looking for a restaurant to eat some dinner.  We finally located a Mcdonald's and relaxed for a short time.  It was getting close to 9pm and the venue doors would be opening soon, so we made our way back in attempts to have some live entertainment.  Vincent wrote all the information down, which should have made it easy to find right? Not so much, the address that the website gave brought us to a gate, which was closed.  Not what you would expect when going to a concert.  So we walked around the street a little bit more hoping to find someone who looked like they could help us, but it was not successful.  Finally we found a cab and headed home after a very, very long day on our feet.