All About China Month on stanleyliew.blogspot.com!!!

The Beijing Olympics is just around the corner which is the 8th of August 2008. It will definitely be the easiest to remember because of the date 08/08/08. Hence, I have decided to do a month long write up on China. I realized that I had loads of photos from my holiday in China last year and have been waiting for the right time to share them with you people.

Thing that I would cover will most likely be stuff that you do not usually hear about so don't hog me for pictures of the Great Wall of China! (TO be truthful, lighting was BAD that day so I did not get any extraordinary pictures).

You can expect things like scenic places where I as a tourist have visited. During my visit to China last year I grew to love that place despite the language barrier. Shamefully, I do not speak fluent Mandarin. It was also my first "photography outing", having purchased my DSLR only weeks before.

So, do join me on this month long discovery of China from my very humble view. Don't worry about those boring Geography lessons. This month long series would feature articles or what I like to call "photo essays" where I would talk about my experiences at those places, and hopefully capture those essence through photography.

To start things off and to give you a small glimpse of things to come, here is a photo of the road in front of my hotel. Its called the Jade Palace and located at the not-so-busy part of Beijing. Temperature at that time was well below -20ºC. I was standing at this spot taking this long exposure shot freezing in the cold!

It was my very first night in Beijing and I was yet to adjust to the cold weather. Wearing three layers of clothes did not felt as warm as I hoped it would be, I had higher expectations due to the praises given by the winter cloth store manager. Ironically, the thermal clothing I purchased later in China worked wonders! AND it was very much cheaper, Rm 15 if I'm not mistaken for a set. I wore those for the rest of the trip =)

This is just a tiny glimpse of what happened there. I learned a LOT about my camera during those two weeks. I had only one 2gb memory card so I had to choose my shots very carefully. This resulted in some pretty good photos. Do navigate to this page every few days and experience China the "Stanley" way! *Oh the nerd-iness*