Yet another weekend in Shanghai

Some more cool pics from last weekend in Shanghai. I went to MoCa (Museum of Contemporary Art) ; a place I like to go. I've been there 3 times already, and every time I am impressed by the exhibitions there. There (already) was an exhibition of photographs of the earthquake in Sichuan. Pretty graphic stuff. Some young kids from art school were making drawings, based on the photos. It was very impressive.

There was also an exhibition of Thonik, a Dutch advertisement bureau. They exhibited ads for SP party and other things. Very strange seeing Dutch posters, newspapers and other items there.

Chen Yi with SP advertisement

Museum Thonik exhibition hall

Our dinner that night. Oh my god it was good! This is a typical Chinese meal; we ate this with 4 or 5 people, It is potatoes, fish, duck and cabbage. I don't think I want to have it any other way anymore now....

The Dutch queen over the years. This thing was on display in that museum. *(don't ask me why)

Oh Amsterdam

Our dinner on Saturday. It has been a long time since I ate any Western food. This was a cool and cheap restaurant, and hao chi (delicious) in a way. It was good for a change.

This young girl was drawing a sketch of a photograph of the Sichuan earthquake disaster.

I don't know what Jan Marijnnissen is doing here in Shanghai, but it was cool.

A drawing a child made of the Sichuan disaster; seen on TV.

Oriental Pearl Tower; Pudong, Shanghai

The tallest building in the world; now almost finished. The first time I saw this thing (2 years ago) it was only some scaffolding from a muddy pit.

May 12, the day of the disaster. All the Chinese people I know feel so sympathetic with the ones who have died in Sichuan. It is on TV all the time, and like this painting, little children paint paintings like these. This one was seen on TV a lot; it was a wake in Beijing with many candles to commemorate the dead of the earthquake in Sichuan. More than 60.000 people have died and everyone here is donating money and I even know some people who have gone there to help as volunteers; so this pic is a real image from TV.

Lovely little monster I encountered on the way in Shanghai

Exhibition on the Dutch Socialist Party (SP)

"Famous faces"

"Buuuuhuuubuuuuhuuu"

'Bassie 'is back in town

A little bird shop we encountered along the way

"nu" = now. Dutch socialist party's slogan.

Puppies for sale

Romantic weekend in Xi Tang old water town

Just came back from a weekend in Xi Tang, an old romantic water town about 2 hours from Suzhou.

See below for the pics.

Old woman's hand in door

Xi Tang local

Tourist kid

Blue sky over temple

Tea pots at the bus station

Rice bowl

Shifu not invited for the picnick

Xi Tang old town

Xi Tang old woman

M 50, Shanghai and the Suzhou traffic

"Heavy load"

Not uncommon to see motorbikes with 5 cases of beer on the back, or huge bags with plastic, paper or any other recyclable waste. It can be sold for a few cents per kilo.

"Dancing LEDs"

"Dancing LEDs 2"

I went to an area in Shanghai called M50. There used to be textile mills, but they are now converted into exhibition halls and artists live and work there. All around are sky scrapers, and the place is quite unusual. Above are some installations of moving LEDs on canvas.

"White cat"

"Graffiti in M50, Shanghai"

"M50"

"Taxi in M50"

"Chen Yi"

"2008 Olympic torch relay in Suzhou"

Last weekend the Olympic torch relay hit Shanghai and Suzhou. There were crowds of people everywhere, and the streets, that have been cleaned and repainted for weeks, were packed with cheering people. There was going to be a large ceremony, but because of the Sichuan earthquake, this was canceled. There was one minute of silence before the even started. Some famous people took part in the relay: the vice president of AMD Asia, a retired sportswoman (87) and some other famous government officials and sports people. With all the craziness (the traffic was jammed all morning), the actual event only took two hours...

"Do not please shoot"

Chinglish. "Qing wu pai she [please do not take a picture of this]. I only translated the characters when I got home, after having taken the picture! Haha.

"Mass barbecue in Suzhou"

BBQ skewers by the truck load. This place is just outside the university campus. In the back are boxes full of meat and vegetables, and people order by the dozen. It's a nice place to hang out in the hot summer nights here.

"Olympics"

"Leaves on the ground"

"Old man with child in park"

Parks are hard to find in the big cities in China. Fortunately Suzhou has many. This poor old man was left in charge of his grand son, while the parents were out flying a kite (I think :)

"Afternoon in Suzhou New District"

Suzhou has three districts: Down town, SIP (Suzhou Industrial Park), where I live; a large business park that is built 12 years ago in cooperation with Singapore, and SND (Suzhou New District), where I work as English teacher. This place is 20 years old and has factories and large business service centers. It takes more than one hour to go from one district to the other. A new metro is being built now, from East to West, but it won't be finished until next year. because of this, the traffic is always jammed.

"Running man in Suzhou traffic"

"Jia Le Fou"

Recently, many Chinese people have begun to boycott Carrefour, because they support the Dalai Lama (they say). Many Chinese believe that the D L was behind the protests in Tibet of recently.
Brand names are usually translated by pronunciation. Jia Le Fou literally means happy house. Coca Cola (Ke kou ke le) means: makes your mouth happy. And so on.