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All Photographs Posted- Finally!

All photographs are now uploaded into the photo galleries: Beijing, Xian, Dunhuang, Turpan, Kashgar, Urumqi, and Shanghai. See the galleries by clicking on the Sam’s Journal a & Photos tab at the top of the page. Or, you can see a list of all photo galleries by selecting “Photography” in the Categories options. And, you can further select specific locales the same way.

There were 1,612 images to go through. Hope that you enjoy the 389 that made it to the web site.

I suggest reading the journal for the city first and then viewing the photographs for a better understanding of the context. Each photography is titled and captioned. (Apologies for typos. I may or may not go back to the Lightoom editor and spend more time to correct them. As one of my friends advised me, “Don’t let perfection get in the way of doing good.” Or, I think that it is better to have the photos up for viewing with some typos than not.

Adobe Lightroom is photo gallery application that is being used. It is a Flash application and you may have to install Adobe’s Flash Player.

-Sam

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Music from China

While looking for other information on China on the National Geographic Society’s website, I noted a section on world music. Here is the url for traditional Chinese music:

National Geographic China Music.

If you really want to set the mood, you can launch this url in another window and play the music while viewing the web site.

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Back in the USA

We’ve completed our Silk Road journey and will be posting the information, photographs, and observations gathered. Our days were filled with tight schedules and challenged in some places by inconvenient internet access, so while we were not able to post in real time, we did take a lot of pictures and a few of us made copious notes in our journals to share.

All in all a great experience.

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Sam’s Journal- Day 19 Shanghai

Jul 28.
Geoff makes the most of the last day in Shanghai by staying out all night with friends that he had made in a prior visit. He makes it back, barely in time, for he and I head to the airport this morning. Margaret and Tricia stay for a week longer. Geoff and I have an uneventful trip back to San Francisco. He transfers to a flight for LAX and I am lucky to have great neighbors (thanks Tom and Susan) that drive out from Sacramento to pick me up.

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Sam’s Journal- Day 18 Shanghai

Jul 27.
Breakfast at the hotel and a relaxed morning. We head over to the Urban Planning Exhibit building with the intention of making it a brief visit and then to head over to the Shanghai Museum. We got the first part of the plan right but spend most of the afternoon at stop one. There is a full scale model of the city that cycles though a simulated 24 hour period with darkness and fully illuminated buildings. But, more interesting is a series of photographs of the city taken from the past. For each photograph from the past, there is a comparative contemporary picture shot at exactly the same spot and with the same orientation. The amazing thing is not the dramatic change- a street that looks like it could have been a shot after a war 60 years ago and the same street today with nothing but high rise buildings in the shot. The amazing thing is that the “historic” picture is only 14 years old.

We pull oursleves away from the urban exhibit and walk over to the Shanghai Museum only to find that it has just stopped allowing entry to the exhibits even though there is still an hour until the building closes. They are worried that visitors will not have enough time and that the exhibit may be too crowded. So much for the free market economy being applied to the running of this museum. But wait, the museum store is still open and available for the crowd to browse and purchase merchandise. Perhaps the free market economic model is too well understood. After leaving a respectable amount of tribute to the new economic system at the cash register, our group breaks up to go their separate ways for shopping and site seeing.

We gather ourselves together to attend the performance of the Shanghai Acrobats. I saw them four years ago and wasn’t expecting to see much of a difference in their performance. I had given myself the challenge to make some photographs that captured motion. I have to say that for me the performance was just as amazing as the first time. And, I believe that I was able toget a few shots that were satisfying.

After the performance, we head out for a late dinner, return to the hotel to pack, and then over for tea in the hotel lobby to recount the adventure that we have just experienced together.

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Sam's Journal- Day 17 Shanghai

Jul 26.
The Kildays are the first to head out in the early a.m. We had said our good-byes last night. Next the Hughes and we (Okis) depart the hoel but not after sitting down one more time for a group think on the trip evaluation forms. We board the bus, say farewell to Jason, the bus drops us off at Margaret’s brother’s home (we are staying a bit longer), and then the bus heads to the airport with the Hughes.

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Sam’s Journal- Day 16 Shanghai

Jul 25.
We are on our last flight in China, headed for Shanghai, and back from the hinterlands of China. Margaret’s brother (Monty) and sister-in-law (Wendy) reside there. After checking in to the Portman Ritz Hotel, our first venture out is to meet Wendy for a dumpling lunch at Nan Xian Steamed Bun Restaurant. The restuarant was founded in 1900 and as you go move up to the upper floors, the prices go up, the dining gets better, and the lines are shorter.

After lunch, we realize we are in the Old City and decide to bargin hunt, as a group and sometimes individually. Eventually we all make it back to the hotel. For dinner (like we really need to eat more), we head to Monty and Wendy’s to have “snacks” and to look at the Huangpu River at night. Another first, we see a boat that is a floating hi-tech billboard. The billboard is a massive, and I mean like two or three stories high massive, LCD that is displaying full motion video.

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Sam’s Journal- Day 15 Urumqi

Jul 24. Our group is back on the bus to visit Heavenly Lake. I have to admit that we in California are spoiled when it comes to mountain scenery. Here in western China, Heaven Lake must appear to be just that- heavenly, when one considers the arid gobi and desert that lay adjacent. We take a brief boat ride on the lake, partake in lunch, and then head back. We make a stop over at a Kazakh Yurt Camp that is set up for us tourist.

In 1983, a then younger me (Sam Oki) was working in the family agricultural business. Another young man, Ansheng Huang, from China (PRC) had made his way to the United States by way of a Chinese agricultural exchange program. This newly formed organization had initiated ties with a similar, but long-standing Japanese program. My family’s company had hosted many students through the Japanese program. Ansheng found his way via this connection to Sacramento and worked at the family nursery for six months. He and I had kept in touch over the years with letters and then e-mail; Urumqi is his home town.

After Ansheng left the U.S., I hadn’t seen him until 2003 when I made my first visit to China. He and his wife flew out from Urumqi and briefly met in Xian. On this trip, arrangements were made to meet up with he, his wife, and our group for coffee on our first night in Urumqi and dinner on the second night. Over dinner, we shared the story of how we became friends with the rest of the group. I must truely say that I didn’t realize how much of an influence six months in the U.S. had on Ansheng’s life. And, for me it is a gift that those six months created a lasting connection over the last twenty-four years.