Category: Urumqi

Getting Ready for Business

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Young Chinese, or maybe she is Uyghur – highly unlikely as she is wearing pants, girl is getting ready for business in Urumqi China. I believe those are apples or some type of other fruit, covered in some kind of glazing, probably sold for about 30-40 cents (2-3 Chinese Yuan) per stick. We just visited Hong Shan Park (Red Mountain) and were walking back to our hotel when I saw her standing along near this decaying apartment building, patiently getting ready for another round of selling cycle, hoping to make a bit of living on whatever tiny profit margin she will get from it.

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International Grand Bazaar

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During our short visit to Urumqi we visited International Grand Bazaar, this where I took the photo of all those cool knifes. In the middle of this place is one of the main architectural attractions, this huge tower. I was taking photos of it with wide angle lens and had to get really down to the ground to take the whole thing into the frame. Locals were looking at me like I was crazy. Also, on a couple shots I was including my wife and daughter with the entire tower, bending down, I guess I did look a little crazy. But, hey, you do what you got to do. Otherwise we have no memories.

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Smelly Sticks

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Following up on my last night post with one of the smelly sticks photos. They burn very slow, with some smoke coming off them and have one of those mysterious smells. There are also burning candles around (not pictured), so maybe the smell from candles mixes up with this smell and produce this interesting flavor.

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Magic Dragon

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On our last day in China we went to see Red Mountain park in downtown Urumqi. I took a few pictures around there, here is one of them. They have a working Buddhist church there, wait, not sure if it should be called a church, it was not a monastery, so there is probably name for it, I just can’t come up with it right now. So the place is full with smoke and smells from burning candles and some type of long smelly burning sticks. I might show one of those in the next few days.

This dragon is very simple, I think it is made by heavy press out of sheet metal, it just looks kind of cool with all that background and little spider webs. Enjoy.

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Urumqi Street Police

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After last year summer unrest in Chinese XinJiang province, the capital is still full with Chinese Military police. They usually walk in groups of 5+ people. At one place we saw about 30 of them cooling off in the shade. 
I was seating on the curb and waiting for Katia and Wiff, I had my camera on my lap, ready to shoot. These guys suddenly appear marching towards me. I took a few shots from my lap, for some reason I didn’t want to bring camera to my face and look at them through the viewfinder, and I didn’t shoot when they were walking past me just a few feet apart. I guess, when you face with military policy, who has automatic guns and other weaponry, you try to make safe choices and not aggravate them by taking photos with large camera. Who knows what type of orders they have.

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