I hope you enjoyed last week’s April Fools on the details of D-SLR images :)
This week I am going back to January, on a trip with Paddy and his wife, Maggie, to the Eastern Shandong region in China.
We flew from Hong Kong directly to Qingdao, a major city in eastern Shandong province. From above the city is packed with construction, high-rise residential units, and industrial complexes.
We took a shuttle bus from the airport to the city centre where we lined up for train tickets. There was a long line-up at the ticket booth and it took us a while to realize that people were preparing for their annual Chinese New Year trip back to their home towns. But inside the newly built train station it was not busy at all.
Vendors that offers everything outside of the train station.
We took the ‘Harmony’ (express) trains to Jinan, a major interchange of 2 major rail-lines and also a city heavily developed in the high-tech industries.
We followed the guidebooks and stayed at a hotel near a local quiet park, in the morning people gather for morning exercise and stretches.
On the express way on the outskirts of the city where construction cranes fill the skyline, a common theme in Chinese Cities.
At the Thousand Buddha Mountain, rows of lanterns have been strung up for the Chinese New Year Celebrations.
Inside the Myriad Buddha Cave (Wanfo Dong), a 500m long cave with around 28 000 Buddhist images in various forms.
The 28m long lying Buddha, the largest statue in the cave.
Climbing towards the peak are temples for different Buddha.
View from the top of the mountain overlooking Jinan. See the scale of the buildings to the Giant Buddha!
Walking along the streets, vegetable vendors keep their goods under blankets to prevent them freezing.
Doing good deeds in the New Year – in this case setting fish free. I think they just go catch them again downstream though…
