Category Archives: architecture

Bamboo forest

The drive to the bamboo forest in China’s Sichuan Province was another long one. Our bus convoy took one break — dropping us off at a highway rest area — so that they could go refill their gas tanks. It seemed a bit odd that they hadn’t gassed up before picking us all up, but it was a good chance to stretch my legs and get a few photos like the one of the river above and this one of one of our omnipresent traffic police:

I often wondered just how many of these guys were posted for us — or were there maybe just a few that kept scooting ahead of us to be waiting at the next stop?

Eventually we arrived at the bamboo forest (famous as one of the locations used in the film “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”) but the tour was once again very rushed due to the long drive times. We moved through this first set of trails very quickly. I would have loved to have spent more time and explored further, but this glimpse would have to do for now.

It was beginning to rain a bit harder when we made our second stop, but the bamboo forest just seemed to get more beautiful the wetter it became.

Back on the buses, we made the long drive back to Yibin. I’ll leave you with one more shot from my hotel room window, showing the variety of architecture that filled the skyline:

Lizhuang, China

After the crazy distillery tour I wrote about in my last post, we seemingly went back in time by visiting the historic village of Lizhuang, China. The riverfront has apparently had quite a bit of recent investment put into it and the buildings have either been restored or rebuilt in an old style to house a variety of shops and restaurants. Here and there along the streets are bronze, life-sized statues depicting daily life.

There was an interesting WWII museum in Lizhuang as well. In 1937, when the Japanese invaded China, many academic institutions relocated to towns like Lizhuang to be a safe distance away from the frontline. The museum tells that story through dioramas, artifacts and artwork:

After the museum, we made our way back to the buses through the less-restored sections of the old town which were, in my opinion, more interesting than the more touristic sites along the river:

The sun just barely broke through the clouds as we neared Yibin, where two rivers join to create the Yangtze River:

Time to check in to the hotel for the night. As it turned out, a group of us would be among the first guests to ever stay in the Crowne Plaza Yibin, which was having a soft opening (possibly just for this tourism event). I would be quite comfortable, if not spoiled, during my stay:

Best. Factory tour. Ever.

Sorry! Long post ahead. Day Two of my adventure in China’s Sichuan province started with checking out of my Chengdu hotel and finding my bus assignment for the core of the 2015 Sichuan International Cultural Tourism Festival. Bus 23 would be my home for the next few days.

Literally hundreds of tour operators and travel journalists had been invited to the festival and would all descend on the city of Yibin to learn what the region has to offer to travelers. The scope of the event became apparent as my bus joined a motorcade of buses that never stopped as they made their way toward Yibin. (I eventually saw vehicles numbered as high as 99 but I’m guessing that the total number of vehicles in our motorcade was well over 100 at times. In some places, people were lining the streets to watch it roll by.) Whenever we went through a town, every intersection was controlled by traffic control police so that we could make our way unimpeded. It was surreal to see the manpower that had been brought out and to see the efficiency of the workforce. Quite amazing.

So these first two shots were literally taken through the bus window as we hurtled through the countryside. The landscape was amazing and I saw many areas that I would have loved to have lingered but we were obviously on our way somewhere, and the schedule was out of my hands. The itinerary had been changing frequently and every morning we were verbally given the most recent updates. Today, apparently, we would be stopping for lunch at a distillery.

You’d think I’d have learned by now, but — when in China — always expect something bigger than you would first imagine. Though I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes yet, this is the distillery that we would be visiting: the Wuliangye alcoholic beverage company.

The complex is enormous and — yes — one of the buildings is shaped like a large bottle of alcohol. My head was swimming a bit but I believe I recall them saying that there were over 65,000 employees.

My first sight of the “campus” was actually in what I would assume is the visitor center area as well as the corporate offices. Our parade of buses rolled to a stop and we got out here:

I love the architecture.

The buildings, the landscaping, the sculptures…

I’ve been to a lot of distilleries in my life (don’t judge) but I honestly wasn’t prepared for anything like this. I loved the grandeur and the spectacle of the place.

We had a quick buffet lunch and were then given a tour of several galleries showcasing the products and accomplishments of Wuliangye. There was a “3D” film in an IMAX-style theater that assaulted you with flyovers of the Chinese countryside. There was a presentation on the history of Wuliangye, how it was developed and how it became the incredibly popular and successful product that it is today.

That’s right. A history presentation. Anywhere else in the world, this probably would have been done via a quirky, stiff industrial video. But not here. Not in China. We experienced a live-action history presentation in a giant, domed structure with a cast of colorfully costumed performers.

I’m tempted to stop here and let you all catch your breath. Maybe save the rest for a “part 2” post but, no, I’ll just keep going so that you can enjoy the full ride just like I did. Enjoy the show:

After the show, we boarded our buses again, but we weren’t finished at Wuliangye. We made two or three more stops — one with a marching band at a pagoda, one with the big overlook of the entire factory complex I showed before, one with a showroom of many specialty bottles of Wuliangye sporting price tags that were difficult to comprehend.

Back on bus #23, we were told our next stop would be at a historical village. It was clear that we would be continuing our tour of the incredible land of contrasts that is China. More on that, next time…

Day One in Chengdu, Continued…

Continuing the report on my first afternoon in Chengdu, China: after visiting the Jinli Ancient Street, it was time to see the modern side of the city. Chunxi Road offers an entirely different shopping experience with high-end brands and the most giant of all giant pandas, scaling one of the buildings:

Step into the shopping mall and ride a few escalators up to… maybe the fourth floor (?)… and you find yourself face-to-face with the panda:

Obviously a popular photo opp. Heading back down through the shopping center, I couldn’t help but check out the grocery store. Always one of my favorite things to see in any country, this one was extremely posh — but not so posh as to be too good to put everyone’s favorite stinky fruit, durian, on display front and center:

Hungry now, we were off for a “snack” at a local tea house. The “snack” was eventually deemed enough to suffice as dinner and it was time to head back to the hotel to prepare for the actual tourism festival events, which would start with a long bus ride first thing in the morning.

China’s Sichuan Province

Last month I was invited to attend the 2015 Sichuan International Cultural Tourism Festival held in Yibin, China. It was my second time in China, but my first in the province of Sichuan. With just enough time to send my passport off for a new 10-year visa, the next thing I knew I was packing up and heading off to explore a region I knew mostly the by the Americanized version of its cuisine.

I arrived on August 22nd after what I believe must have been very nearly 24 hours in the air, separated into three flights: KC to LA, LA to Beijing, and Beijing to Chengdu. It was about noon when I arrived at my hotel and, after a quick 20 minutes to shower and break out a little camera gear, I was back on the streets of Chengdu to do a little exploring.

The first stop was Wuhou Temple, the Memorial Temple of Marquis Wu (220 – 280).

In addition to cultural relics and historical artifacts, the temple complex includes beautiful gardens and a winding avenue through tall stands of bamboo.

Adjacent to the temple is Jinli Ancient Street, lined with shops, tea houses, restaurants and street food vendors:

Like a Chinese version of a State Fair, every food imaginable that could be put on a stick was being sold to lines of smiling visitors. Shops sold all kinds of local crafts and souvenirs including one stand specializing in shadow puppets:

This boy was demonstrating plastic toys that mimicked the famous mask-changing characters of Sichuan opera:

An eye-opening introduction to Chengdu and Sichuan Province, my first afternoon was just getting started. Next I’d check out some of the more modern architecture and high-end shopping options. Then an afternoon “snack” that turned out to be enough to count as dinner at a local tea house. All that, and more, in the posts to follow…

Old Cowtown Museum, Wichita, KS

Last week I attended a meeting of the Central States Chapter of the Society of American Travel Writers. That’s not unusual for me — I attend a fair amount of SATW functions — but this time things were a bit different because we were meeting in my home state of Kansas. It was a lot of fun hanging out in places I have known since I was a kid with a bunch of people that I’m normally with in much more exotic locations like Fiji, Thailand, Iceland, Egypt, etc.

One stop during the tours that were a part of this gathering was the Old Cowtown Museum in Wichita. I’ve tread the wooden sidewalks here many, many times but it was different this time, seeing the familiar with others who had not seen it before.

I’ll follow this post up with more featuring other stops that our group made in Wichita and up through the Kansas Flint Hills to Manhattan, ending with a stunning final night at the Symphony in the Flint Hills near Strong City.

Stock photography report: Germany

I do my best to keep on top of all of my stock photography sales, but every agency reports a little differently. I recently received a quarterly report from one agency covering the period of November 2014 through January 2015. As I entered the images into my tracking report, I noticed a larger number than usual were shot in Germany. That same day, I spotted two sales of Germany images on my Alamy account — which I can check online daily.

You never know how much to read into these reports, but I do like to look for trends of which country’s images seem to be most in demand at any given time. These past few months have been the best for my Germany images by far. I look forward to seeing if the trend continues.

The images I’m featuring here are not necessarily the ones that were on this report, but it seemed like a good excuse to dig back into my files from Germany and share a few favorites. Above are two from Leipzig, and here are some teacups on display in the Grassi Museum — also in Leipzig:

And a couple from beautiful Dresden:

Northeast Kansas

I took advantage of a warm(ish) day yesterday to scout around northeastern Kansas and make some photos with Doug Stremel. The “breeze” picked up as the day wore on and our 55-degree day ended up closer to freezing with a wind that could knock you down in an instant. At least we got some images — and were finally able to revisit a remote church we stumbled across on an earlier trip back in April of 2011.

California State Capitol

I’m just getting settled back in from a trip to Sacramento, California, where I attended a board meeting of the Society of American Travel Writers (SATW). In between rain showers and meetings, I did manage to get out and shoot a little. This shot came from a short afternoon outing where I just walked the few blocks around my hotel, limiting myself to just my 85mm Rokinon lens. It was threatening rain, I wanted to travel light, and I sometimes enjoy that limitation of one focal length to force myself to see a bit differently.

But for this shot, I really needed a wide angle. The capitol grounds are filled with trees so there was no “zooming with my feet” for this one. If I stepped back further, my view became obstructed. Instead, I shot a grid of about eight or nine images and stitched them all together later in Photoshop. A nice side benefit is that it resulted in a really large file, should anyone ever want to order a reeeeeeeally large print.

On this day in 2011

Every now and again I get curious about where I’ve been on this day one, two, ten years ago. Thanks to Lightroom and digital metadata it’s now easy to figure out where I was — at least it is if I managed to take a photo on that day. Four years ago today, I was in San Diego and made this image at sunset. Wouldn’t mind being back there right now.

Michael C. Snell photography blog

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