Beijing: Wukesong Camera Market

In fact, this is more about my trip to the market itself because I did not take any pictures withing the actual market. It was a really bright day when we went there. In fact, I did not know how to get there, so Zhang Yan was the navigator. We got off the bus one stop too far and had to circle back, so we crossed over the highway. I took several pictures crossing the bridge, so I am glad we missed it the first time. We went in for a short time and I selected a Nikon F80 film camera from among the used camera stores. I planned to use it the next day to shoot some film at the Ming Palace. After we left the Wukesong Camera Market,  we had dinner at a Chinese fast food place. I had the beef entire and it was amazing! It was a very good day and amazing to see all those cameras in one place. I was tempted to buy a Leica M6 classic instead, but I did not wish to spend that kind of money on a camera so far from home. It would have been cool to be able to say I bought it in on a trip to Beijing, though!

Beijing: meet the new room

The apartment company apparently rented out the old room to a company, so it required a move down the hall to a new room. I was a little nervous as to what it would be like, but in fact it was much nicer than the previous one. For one thing the internet router worked properly and the bed was fairly soft (the old one was like a board wrapped in concrete) and it had better furnishings. It had a leaky windows so it was initially cold, but I figured out that I could close a dish towel in it and it was instantly much better.

I was much happier in the new room than the old room even though the fridge smelled like a smoker exhaled in there, because I had better internet and I awoke each day without a sore back!

It was a pleasant change.

Beijing: 798 Art District

On the first snow day of the year,  ZhangYan and I went to the 798 Art District. I had never heard of it, but she said it was "world famous" so I decided that it must bee similar to the World's Series in baseball where only one or two countries participate.

It turns out that I was wrong in that I heard lots of people speaking in German and we ate lunch at a New Zealand themed restaurant.

The only regret I had on the day was that we went to the bookstore which had lots of books on photography, but I did not find a book that I liked that had contrasty black and white photography or punchy color photography from chinese artists in the 20th century. I think that either  it is not a popular topic for their students, or they already know them all, or possibly that China's history made individually famous photographers more rare.