Burwash

Hi Everybody!

Remember this place?  I know, nothing at all in 2013... not a spectacular display of the blogger's art I'm afraid.  I recently got back from a weekend photography trip and I thought that I'd resurrect this old blog as a way of sharing a few of my photos.  I've been in the (bad) habit of only occasionally throwing a few photos up on Facebook and calling it a day, but I know that not everyone books faces, so this is probably a better way to reach more of you.  Also I think if you post a photo on Facebook they own every creative thought you have from that point forward.  I really should read those user agreements...

Anyway!  Like I said, I just got back from a trip that focused entirely on photography.  Those of you who know my good buddy Richard will know that his dad is quite the photographer, and he regularly puts together photography expeditions.  Brian was kind enough to invite my dad and I out to their 2nd annual trip to Burwash, a now-extinct town outside of Sudbury.  It was home to Camp Bison, a minimum security prison that shut down in the 70s.  There's no trace of the town, but the shell of the old prison still remains and makes for a very interesting subject.

I've just picked up a new camera, a Pentax K-5 II, and this trip was an amazing opportunity to start getting used to it.  I took quite a few shots, but I'll share a handful of my favourite ones with you here.  These are all shrunk down so that they don't take all night to upload, but I'm more than happy to provide full sized images if anyone happens to take a fancy to one.

The landscape is undeniably Northern Ontario.

Approach to the prison...

...which has seen better days.

The mattresses could use a bit of patching up.

Nothing even remotely creepy about this hallway.

Something to keep in mind if you're planning to visit this place - there are holes in the floor.  At this time of year everything in the (completely dark) basement was frozen over, though I'm not sure how deep these holes are, or how thick the ice is.  I almost went through one that was partially covered in plywood.

I didn't stop for a haircut.

As Richard so ably demonstrates, the floors of the lower levels were under varying amounts of water.  What you can't really tell is that there was a layer of ice under the water.  Our rubber boots kept us comfortable, but you always had to watch your step.

Some commie at the bar.

I liked the reflection I got with this shot.

I thought the moss reclaiming this table was cool.  Euphy informed me that I was wrong and that it is, in fact, gross.

We got a few breaks in the clouds, which was awesome.  Just the fact that we didn't get rained on was a fantastic stroke of luck for this time of year.

Not sure how many more winters this poor old building has left before the outer layer of bricks is completely stripped away.

I love the colour in this shot.

Richard, Dad, and I climbed up to a high point of land to get this great perspective of the prison.

Up on the second floor there was an old theater.  You can actually get up into what used to be the projection room and look down into this room.  There's still a bit of the old parquet flooring left.

Despite a 5km hike from a point that was already in the middle of nowhere the place was covered in graffiti.  Most of it poorly done.  I'm not sure what kind of person carries paint all that way just to spray a crude rendition of a penis onto a crumbling wall, but I have a number of disparaging opinions about their mental state.

I love the tenacity of these little trees.  Sadly, what we're likely looking at here is the death of this building.  I strongly suspect that these guys will eventually grow large enough to bring the roof down, and I don't image the rest of the building will last very long after that.

I appear to have forgotten about the building I was standing on.  That Northern landscape is too much to resist.  I very much want to return in the Fall to get the leaves when they're changing colour.

A couple of bricks appear to have fallen on this roof.  A testament to how well it was built.

It was pitch-black in the basement, but Richard held a flashlight for me so that I could attempt a few long-exposure shots.  I love this kind of thing.

So there you have it folks.  I hope you enjoyed my little show.  If anyone would like to see the whole collection I'd be happy to give a presentation.  I had a great time out there and would happily go up that way again.  I was fortunate enough to be travelling with a great group of guys who were more than willing to share their photos and their experience with me and it made for an amazing trip.  Also, my new camera rocks.

I won't pretend that I'm going to get back to the prolific writing that marked the peak of this blog's life, but I'll try to get a few more things up in the future.  Euphy has asked me to get some of our wedding photos up, so you can expect at least one more post in the near future.  For now, be well, and I hope to see you all again soon.

That's a Wrap

Hey there everyone!  Sorry about the brief post yesterday, but as I mentioned, I was feeling pretty under the weather.  A handful of over-the-counter medications and a good night's sleep later and I'm feeling much more like myself again.  We're at the airport now, chilling out in the Priority Pass Lounge, which feels very appropriate as this is the site of the very first photo I took on this vacation.  First though, I think I should recap yesterday to make up for my lack discussion on the subject last night.

We kicked things off early yesterday, not so much out of any precise schedule but more out of the knowledge that we were going to be cramming a lot of sightseeing into our last full day in China.  After breakfast we grabbed a ferry to Macao.  I showed you a photo earlier of the crossing at Gongbei Port, which is done on foot and is entirely land-based.  However, I was informed that the line-ups there are horrific, and that it's actually much quicker to head to the river and take a ferry across.  I can't speak to any line-ups at Gongbei, but there were very few people taking the ferry, and they run every half an hour, so it really was a very speedy process.

Macao is a former Portuguese colony that was returned to China in the 90s, and much like Hong Kong it's considered a Special Administrative Region that still maintains its own passport, customs, immigration, currency, etc.  There's still a fair bit of Portuguese on the signs, but Cantonese is the de facto language.  As we left the ferry terminal I snapped this shot:

At the time I was just grabbing a shot of huge volume of parked scooters along that wall, but I didn't realize how typical a shot that would turn out to be.  The buildings were very typical of that side of the river, and the cluster of scooters, I would soon find, was a small one.  I think there's a scooter for every man, woman and child in the city of Macao.  Wasn't long before I figured out why either.  Euphy called up a friend of her mom who maintains a residence in Macao, and she sent her driver over to pick us up.  Oh la la.  It's nice to have wealthy friends isn't it?  We headed out and I snapped a quick shot of the road:

I know that a picture taken from the back seat looking through the front windshield is hardly ideal, but you can see here the narrowness of the street we were on.  The car barely fit down there.  Also you can see that they drive on the left side of the road like a bunch of savages!

I was amazed at just how many roads there are just like the one shown above.  Two lanes are by far the rarity here, and as the driver deftly navigated the twisting alleyways with only a few inches to spare on either side of the vehicle I decided that a scooter would probably be a substantially more comfortable way to travel in Macao.  In our time there we rarely saw any roads that would allow travel in excess on 50 km/h, not because of the posted limit, but rather just narrowness of the roads, and the traffic.  Unless you had kids to shuttle around a large vehicle would be largely pointless.

Our first stop was St. Paul's Ruin, which is a really fascinating sight.  It's the front of a really old church.

Yup, I said "the front" on purpose, that's all that's left.  The plaque inside informed us that there was once a mighty cathedral here, but after it burned down for the third time they just didn't bother putting it back up, and left the façade, which was the only thing still standing.  I guess God really loved that church.  The image of this church has become something of a symbol of Macao; I'm not really sure I'd want something my vengeful deity had thrice smote being symbolic of where I live, but I guess that's why I'm not from Macao.

We stopped outside the ruins for a brief snack of egg tarts.  I've had egg tarts dozens of times back in Toronto as they're available at virtually every Chinese restaurant or food stalls in the Pacific Mall.  I've never been that thrilled with them honestly, although I attribute that partially to the fact that the bright yellow filling always makes me think that I'm about to have a lemon tart, and all food is a bit disappointing to me when compared to a lemon tart.  I mention all of this because after visiting China I will, without question, never be able to enjoy one of those little egg tarts in Toronto again; they're SO MUCH BETTER here!  The best by far, was the one we had outside St. Paul's Ruins.  The primary difference between the Chinese versions and the ones I always get in Toronto is that here they either bake them for longer, or actively torch the tops, because they're heavily caramelized on top, and that makes them taste fantastic.  The Macao versions (where, interestingly, they refer to them as Portuguese Egg Tarts) rose above the rest based on the fantastic quality of the pastry that contained it.  No stodgy frozen tart crusts here, just light, crispy pastry cradling caramelized egg filling.  Damn, now I want an egg tart.

Okay, moving on before I get hungry.

Our next stop was Macao Tower.

As I'm sure you can tell from the photo, it's a tall sightseeing tower.  Virtually a necessity in any large city.  We went up and took in the views, which really were spectacular.

I don't know if it was the day, the time of day, or some other factor that I'm not considering, but it was empty up there.  No line for the elevator.  Hardly any humans scurrying around the observation deck.  It was awesome!

What makes Macao Tower particularly interesting is that they've got a bungee jumping platform on the top which is the tallest commercial bungee in the world.  Pretty exciting stuff, and it looked like they were running a pretty solid operation there, so it would have been an interesting opportunity for me to finally try a bungee jump, but I opted out.  Bungee jumping, as interesting as it would be, always ends up seeming like poor value for money when I actually stop and consider it.  Well over one hundred dollars to throw myself off a building.  Nah.  Also, my stomach was bothering me, which is probably less than ideal for that kind of activity.

We headed from there across one of the many huge bridges that connects the sections of Macao and into the casino district.   Macao is (quite rightly) called the Asian Las Vegas, and just like their American namesake they've got a cluster of some casinos that are towering monuments to wealthy excess.

Our first stop was the Galaxy, and then we checked out, interestingly, The Venetian.  Sound familiar to Las Vegas fans?  It should, because it's modelled after the Sin City edition in exquisite detail.

The photo above should be shockingly familiar to anyone who has ever visited the Las Vegas edition of this hotel.

After a bit of gawking at the ludicrously large hotel/casino combos we grabbed lunch at Portuguese restaurant, which was an exciting change of pace.  After lunch we made our way over to the ferry terminal and booked passage to Hong Kong.

My first impression of Hong Kong was a grim one.  For the sake of common decency I won't go into details but suffice it to say that the facilities in Hong Kong's ferry terminal could use some attention... and this is coming from someone who just spent three weeks in mainland China.  Somebody invite the British back, this place still has some hospitality lessons to learn.

Practicality dictated that our first stop in Hong Kong should be our hotel, so we grabbed a cab and headed there.  After the stunning room in Zhuhai it was a bit of a shock to check in to our Hong Kong broom closet.

Yup, that's the whole thing right there.

It was a bummer because we were originally slated to stay with a friend of Euphy's Dad in what would have been an incredibly interesting accommodation since the friend in question is a two-star General (equivalent to Canadian rank, I'm told) in the Chinese army stationed in Hong Kong.  He'd invited us to stay at his house on the base, which would have been incredibly cool.  Unfortunately we had to grab a hotel at the last minute when there was some resistance to him bringing a white guy into a Chinese military base.  Understandable, certainly, but a bummer all the same.

After we dropped off our bags we headed to Hong Kong's Times Square.  There were some tall buildings, tv screens, and about eleventy billion people.  That's what I remember anyway.

We went into the main shopping centre that supports the square, and wandered around for a bit.  It's a giant bastion of American consumerism, a tower monument to designer brands.  We weren't in there long before I had a rather comical conversation with Euphy where I reminded her that not only am I not really into expensive boutique shopping, but also she's REALLY not into expensive boutique shopping.  It was sort of a silly place for either of us to be, so beat a hasty retreat to the subway and headed to some place with more our style of shopping.

The huge throngs of people in a typical Chinese street market always make me uneasy, but I'm usually able to get over it and lose myself amongst the vibrant lighting, a stalls selling odd, quirky goods that are far more interesting to me than any designer sunglasses.  We went wild for quite awhile in there until the oppressive humidity started to wear me down.  We stopped for dinner, but it was a downhill slide for me at that point, and I ended up feeling pretty poor for the rest of the evening.

We made a brief stop along the shore of Kowloon, looking back at the island so I could get some pictures, and then headed back to the hotel.

The General who we were going to stay with stopped by for a visit, but I wasn't able to chat with him much since everything had to be translated through Euphy, which is a laborious process, and I was beginning to feel genuinely awful at that point, so putting on a smile and engaging in some chit chat was becoming difficult. It was a real shame too because he seemed like a really interesting guy.  Something tells me that you don't get to be a General in the Chinese army without accumulating a couple stories.  I'm holding out hope that someday I will get another opportunity to sit down and have a talk with him... maybe I can even learn a bit of Mandarin before then.

Well, as I said before, I was able to get myself a good night's sleep and I'm feeling on the mend now.  Good thing too since I'm less than two hours now from getting on a plane.  We had breakfast this morning with Euphy's Dad and then said our goodbyes.  We had to check out of the hotel at 11:30, and our flight's at 5:05, which means being at the airport around 2:00.  With that little time, and needing to leave a fair amount of time just to get to the airport (or anywhere in this city if it involves even a short cab ride) we decided that there was no point in seeking out adventure.  We grabbed a cab and headed for the airport express train station.

The airport train in Hong Kong is a fantastic service.  They've got a train that runs from the island out to the airport, but they've put check-in counters for the major airlines in the station.  It was lovely being able to check our baggage and get our boarding passes before we even got on the train to go to the airport, really made that journey a lot more convenient.  We arrived at the airport much earlier than necessary, but it wasn't so bad given that we'd already checked our bags and knew that we had a ludicrous amount of time to get through security.  So we wandered around, had a drink, shopped for a little bit, and then casually meandered over to the security check.  The lines were short and it didn't take long before we were in the gate area.  We stopped in at the Priority Pass Lounge and got some food, and now we're just relaxing here and enjoying their WiFi.

So I guess that's it.  After so long on the road it's going to be incredibly difficult going back to a normal work week, but I'll be happy to see everyone back home.  It's been an amazing journey, and one that I'll remember for a lifetime.  It's hard to forget anything that you've taken over 2000 pictures of...

Quick Check-in From Hong Kong

Hey everyone, just doing a quick update right now.  We're in our hotel after a very long day of touring around Macao and Hong Kong.  I'd sit down for a proper blog but everyone here is anxious to call lights out, myself especially.  Either something I ate has finally disagreed with me after weeks of eating all manner of peculiar things, or I'm coming down with something, but either way I'm feeling very unwell today.  I tried not to let it slow me down too much today, but I really wasn't myself.  I've still got a ton of pictures though, and since tomorrow is an airport day you know I'll have tons of time to fill you all in.  Take it easy and I'll talk to you then.

Final Day in Zhuhai

Hi everyone!  How are you all doing today?

This wraps up our last day here in Zhuhai.  Tomorrow we're heading through the border into Macao, at which point I'll no longer be allowed back into China until I go home and get a new visa.  The plan is to spend a few hours sightseeing in Macao and then we'll catch a ferry to Hong Kong.  Euphy's Dad is going to join us for this final leg of the journey as he's got a friend in Hong Kong who we'll be staying with.  As usual, I'm not sure what the internet situation will be in Hong Kong, so a blog tomorrow is not a certainty.  Either way I'll be able to write on Monday since that's when we head to the airport and make our way home, so you won't go too long without an update.

We spent today with three of Euphy's friends from her time in school here.  We had a nice long brunch and then headed to the underground shopping mall at Gongbei Port.  I actually picked up, oddly enough, a pair of Beats headphones.  For the uninitiated, this is a high-end brand of headphones endorsed by rapper Dr. Dre that sells for a ridiculous amount of money.  I just looked up the simple bud-style earphones that I bought on Futureshop's website and they're going for $180.  Some of the studio headphones approach price tags of $400.  They're a bit of a fashion statement really, and I'm not usually the kind of guy who likes to make the statement "I spend $400 on headphones and then plug them into an iPod."  I'm sure you've all guessed by now that I didn't spend $180 on headphones.  I've wanted a new pair of bud-style earphones for awhile now, and the very obviously knock-off Beats headphones are EVERYWHERE in China right now.  There were random dudes sitting on the sidewalks of Shanghai selling only headphones.  Having walked past about a dozen stores selling these headphones I finally stopped to ask how much they were going for, just out of pure curiosity.  70RMB.  That's about $11 CAD.  What surprised me the most though was that the girl freely admitted that they weren't the genuine article.  She did say however that they were a 1-to-1 reproduction.  I wouldn't be at all surprised if the real ones are made in China and that these are just factory seconds.  Don't know, but I appreciated the honesty.  Also, she let me try them out and they actually sound really good, so hey, why not.  They could be any old regular headphones for that money, but I like to think that I'm walking around with Beats quality for $11.

Sorry to go on and on about headphones, but that was about the extent of my excitement for the day... we kept it pretty low key for the rest of the time.  We've pretty much wrapped up our packing, and we're getting ready to spend our final night in the Grand Inn Zhuhai.

Leaving Zhuhai tomorrow will be bitter-sweet.  After three weeks on the road I'm starting to get excited about getting home to see friends and family.  Also, as I mentioned to Euphy today, I'd kill for a cheeseburger.  Still, this last leg of our trip has been really awesome.  I've got to meet Euphy's family, our hotel room is great, and we've had a nice balance of tourism and chilling out.  Neither Euphy or I are exactly itching to get back to the daily grind, but it's tougher for her because there were a lot of goodbyes to family and friends today.  I suspect that it won't be too long before we find ourselves back in Zhuhai.

What This Vacation Needs Now Is A Tropical Island

Good evening loyal minions!  How are you all today?

Today we got up early to catch a ferry out to Dongao Island.  There are over a hundred islands in the waters off the coast of Zhuhai, and ferries run out to several of them for easy day trips.  The ferry we took stopped at Guishan Island, which is the largest of them and unloaded a few people before heading out to Dongao.  From my brief glimpse of Guishan it looked fairly well populated, and there were cranes everywhere suggesting that it's under fairly heavy development.  As it's only about a 50 minute ferry ride from Zhuhai I can see it being a reasonable place to live even if you worked in Zhuhai.  Possibly a spot for a vacation home for the well-to-do as well, though I don't know if that's a common practice here or not.

The waters around Guishan were pretty calm this morning, and not a lot of spray was hitting the window, but this just meant that previous day's water had dried into a heavy salt film on the window.  Unfortunately we weren't allowed to go outside, so I wasn't able to get any pictures on the way there.  It was a shame too because there were what appeared to be very large eagles fishing in the harbour at Guishan and I would have loved to try getting a picture of them.

A few people on the ferry were packing fishing equipment, so that must be a popular option at Dongao, but we were there just to enjoy the natural beauty, which was in abundance.  There's a very long path that goes around the outside of the island.

It also detours into the jungle a little bit too.

Oh, and there was some lovely sand under this rock, so I just lifted it up for a moment.

The humidity hasn't really abated since we've been here, and today was no exception to that rule, so it was a pretty sweaty walk.  Still, there was a terrific cool breeze coming in off the ocean which helped a lot, and Euphy had the foresight to bring a few bottles of water, so we had a pretty comfortable walk.  It's a great place to just wander around, and despite a brief encounter with a tour group that was acting like a gaggle of noisy idiots you'd really think we had the place to ourselves.  It wasn't all sweeping coastline and lush forest either.  After the British occupied Kowloon in the 1800s the Chinese moved their customs station to Dongao, and the ruins of the old customs house and the forts that protected it are still evident.

Okay, one more stunning vista then I'll move on.

It was a fair hike from where we started, but we came to a pretty nice beach.

I'd brought my swimsuit with me, but by the time I got to the beach I wasn't really feeling like a swim.  I didn't bring a towel, and since this wasn't a commercialized beach there weren't the sort of amenities you find at beach resorts such as a shower to wash the salt off.  As much as it was nice to NOT see those things spoiling the natural beauty, it did keep me out of the water.  Apparently someone is way ahead of me on that line of thought though, because just behind that beach (mostly out of camera) is a major construction project.  It wasn't long before we came to a road that connects that building site to the main port.  Turns out that they're building a huge beach resort on that site, and another one at a nearby beach is already well under way and slated for completion next year.

It'll be an amazing vacation spot when it's done, and a lovely way to enjoy the beautiful island in comfort, but I still couldn't help but feel really lucky that I was able to see the island before the resorts are complete and there are a lot more visitors there.

We actually went down to the beach that has a nearly complete resort on it.  It was kind of cool to see a resort beach as a work-in-progress like that.  Of course, it's not really a resort beach until there's a white guy acting like a tool on it.

There you go guys, NOW you've got a beach resort.  You're welcome.

There's already a shuttle service operating along the road from the port to the beaches that are spawning hotels, and we were pretty tired after walking there, so we hopped on one to get back to the port area.  We grabbed lunch at a restaurant by the water and just chilled out for a couple hours in the area until the ferry home arrived.

The seas were noticeably rougher on the way home, and the window by my seat was catching a lot of spray, which kept it free of salt build-up, but also kept a constant stream of water blurring the view outside.  Still, after our return stop at Guishan the rivulets of water settled down just long enough for me to snap this shot:

It's really interesting being on the water around the Zhuhai/Macao/Hong Kong area.  Everywhere you look there are ships!  Everything from huge cargo ships to tiny one-man fishing vessels.  That shot above is representative of what was out the window for the entire ferry ride.  It's pretty amazing really.  I'd heard that Hong Kong is the busiest port in the world, but it's hard to really grasp that concept until you're out there seeing for yourself just how much traffic there really is on the seas in that area.

Dusk was settling in by the time we got back to Zhuhai, and we headed out for dinner right from the ferry port.  The trip to Dongao made for a full day, and it was a great excursion for a less urban taste of the Zhuhai area.  It's been a great day, and I hope you're all doing well back home as well.  Talk to you again tomorrow!

This Vacationing Is Hard Work, Time To Unwind

Howdy everyone!  Hope you're all doing well today.  We started the day off with a trip to the cemetery to pay our respects to Euphy's Uncle and Grandfather whose ashes are interred together there.   It's customary to visit in order to keep the site clean as a sign of respect.  We then had lunch and headed back to the hotel. Apparently everyone was feeling a bit worn out so we decided that a siesta was in order.

After everyone had a good nap we headed back out again.  Apparently Euphy's Dad had decided that all this tourism was just entirely too much work for Euphy and I and that we needed to relax, so he took us to the spa.  I'd read about this spa previously on Wikitravel and it's quite the facility.  It's done up in the style of a Japanese Onsen with hot springs being the primary focus, but with various other relaxation methods such as massages available.  The first thing I saw when I got in there was a guy with parallel lines of angry red ovals running up his back; it took me a moment to realize that this was probably a result of a type of "therapy" where they put scalding hot rocks on your back.  I skipped that one.

The place was quite neat.  There were tons of little pools that you could soak in, and I didn't realize at first that they were all different in some way.  We started by dipping into a pool that was an unappealing brown colour, and I commented that it smelled quite a lot like coffee.  That's when Euphy looked up at the sign and informed that it was, indeed the coffee pool.  Turns out that they mix various things into each of the pools that are supposed to be good for you in various ways.  Not sure what the coffee is supposed to do aside from the possibility of giving you a wicked caffeine buzz.  I've read somewhere that you actually can absorb caffeine through your skin.  At one point we were soaking in a pool that was especially hot and filled with celery and I became convinced that we were being cooked.

There was a pool with milk mixed into the water, and it was a two-stage set up with the water flowing from one pool in a lovely cascade into another identical one.  This gave me the idea that they should set the coffee pool up next to it and have them both cascade into another pool to make the cafe au lait pool.  I'm a genius with this sort of thing.  I think I'll open a spa when I get home.  I'll be famous for the cafe au lait spa, and then the rest can just be filled with various vegetables that didn't get used in the previous night's dinner.

We had dinner at the spa, and then headed out to pay a quick visit to one of Euphy's aunts.  Now we're back at the hotel getting ready for bed.  My poor camera didn't even make it out of its bag today (didn't think snapping photos at the spa would go over well) so I've got no photos for you this time around.  I should make up for that tomorrow though since we're heading to one of the islands off the coast of Zhuhai which is supposed to be quite lovely.  We'll have to get up early for the ferry, so it's time for this thoroughly marinated traveller to call it a night.  Relax and be well my friends!

The Empire Rebuilt

Good evening my friends.  I hope you're all doing well today.

The day started off slowly, as evidenced by my having time for an early blog post on random thoughts, but we put a lot into the afternoon.  Actually, things started getting really interesting right at lunch.  We were at a restaurant when Euphy asked me if there was anything I wanted and handed me the menu.  I usually leave it to Euphy and her family to choose what we're eating because I consider them more qualified, but I thought I'd browse through the menu anyway.  I've had good luck in China with menus; there seems to be a trend towards huge menus with detailed pictures of every item, so you don't have to read Chinese to be able to get something out of them.  I flipped through and discovered this:

Those are bamboo worms.  They look like little caterpillars, but Euphy thinks that they are just an insect that feeds on bamboo and that's what their adult stage looks like.  We haven't had a chance to research these yet to get more details on their life cycle, but I can report some scientific findings on their taste.  These little babies are delicious!  I was expecting something slightly bitter, or maybe very earthy like the roasted ants I've tried before, but these actually possess a very mild, subtle flavour.  They were lightly seasoned to help that stand out, and the end effect was more like a french fry with a bit of seasoning.  Fish and Worms, it's the next big dish.

Following my unexpected culinary adventure we went to... the Summer Palace actually.  No, we didn't hop on a flight back to Beijing.  You see, during the Opium Wars the original Summer Palace was burned to the ground by French troops.  The palace that we toured in Beijing was a reconstruction which was completed much later in the life of the Empire, and hence was slightly altered to fit modern styles and needs.  Someone however (I'm not sure who, and I'm not sure when) decided that some of those iconic buildings needed to be remembered, and so they reconstructed them, as close to the original design as possible, in a park in Zhuhai. There are also reconstructions of important buildings from the Forbidden City and a small replica of a section of The Great Wall.  It's like a little Chinese cultural insurance policy.

In the spirit of the Summer Palace they've made land that houses these buildings as serene and park-like as possible.

They've done a great job in beautifying the park, to the point that I actually found sections of it far more beautiful than any of the landscaping in the actual Summer Palace.

There's a small mountain along one edge of the park, and they've put in a cable car up to the top.  There's a path as well, so climbing is an option, and one-way tickets on the cable car are available, and it looked like a beautiful, natural walk up.  However, it's still about a billion degrees with the humidity here, and the cable car is insanely cheap, so we opted to take it both directions.  Here's a panorama I stitched together from the top:

It's a sprawling park, and we spent most of the afternoon there wandering around.  There's even a hedge maze!  It was very entertaining, especially for the entry fee of zero dollars.  We're not sure why, but apparently starting today there's no entry fee.  Maybe this is the beginning of the tourism off-season?  Either way, we picked the right day to visit.

After our afternoon stroll we headed over to visit Euphy's Aunt.  I'd attempted a couple photos from their balcony a couple days ago in the evening, but the view is much better during the day.  Here's a shot of Lover's Road, which winds along the coast.

After dinner with family we headed down to Lover's Road to enjoy the night scenery.  While I'm still at the point where a huge percentage of my photos are taken in "Auto" mode, this is where I love having a full-featured camera that I can throw into full manual.  The automatic settings weren't getting me anywhere in the very low light, but throwing into manual, opening the aperture up as wide as it would go and setting the shutter to five seconds yielded some much more impressive results.  Fortunately I had a little mini tripod with me as well.  I couldn't get it quite level, but I'm still happy with the photos.

Well, that's all from me for today.  Tomorrow... I'm not sure, as usual.  One thing I am sure of though is that it'll be fun!