1. Giant chicken and waffles (BK). 2. Crazy faced cupcake? 3. Jimmy’s Dinner 4. View from Kips Bay

1. Dumpling Man (East Village). 2. Snow Day #1 3. Snow Day #2 4. Sonya in the subway

I finally got a chance to test out my 5D Mark II last weekend and so far so good.  The quality and speed of the camera is a huge improvement from my old 10D.  I took this photo of a homeless man outside of an abandon building that I’ve seen plenty of times around Lower East Side.  I always thought it was just an abandoned building covered in graffiti but come to find out this building is pretty popular and has quite a history and is better known as 190 Bowery. Click here to read more about the building and also see photos of the interior which are amazing. Also I have a larger photo of the image above on my Flickr that’s not cropped. 

1. Red Hook Station. 2. Dessert at Apairy 3. Canal & Baxter 4. Train to Ikea

1. Columbus Park. 2. Bayard Street 3. 6th Ave 4. Conveyor Belt Sushi (Big East) 5. Columbus Park

1. Downtown Brooklyn Station 2.Snow Day NYC 3. Walker Street 4. Snacky, BK 5. Kimchi Hotdog

1. Wall Street 2 & 3. Canal Street Station 4. Poconos, PA 5. Wall Street 6. L.E.S

First off thanks to my good friend Ryan for re-coding my blog for me.  Each time I tried to fix it up or change the CSS on the old one it was making it more and more sloppy.  I redesigned the blog similarly to the old one but this one is more organized and easier on the eyes as far as reading the posts and content. 

I wanted to start posting on certain titles or subjects on a weekly basis, so to start that off I think I’m going to start a new weekly theme called Quick Pics.  These are just photos taken from my phone without any manipulation to them (besides scaling them together as seen in the bottom photo).  You may wonder why these have a panoramic or Holga effect to them if they are not post processed. To answer that, the effect is just from the apps that I use on the iPhone which are pretty cool.

First of all I apologize for not updating as much as normal these past couple of weeks.  I know since my last post I said I was going to updating more but obviously that has not happened.  I’ve been pulling in long hours at work this whole week and I think next week will be more of the same.  However, I have been able to go out and explore other parts of the city a little more on the weekends.

Like New York, Shanghai has a huge pallet of cuisine and food that is quite cheap and really good.  The local places may look dingy and dirty but don’t let that fool you from tasting what they have.  The night life so far has reminded me more of Meat Packing District spread across China. Every place seems to be very clubbish with hip hop / techno (house, drum&bass, whatever) dominating the music scene even at so called dive bars. Some places are more laid back than others and the crowd is different as well but you can always be sure that the music is pretty much the same, in a scary way you almost start to get use to it.

Shark tanks are apparently pretty popular here as well, I saw 2 giant ones at 2 different clubs and one in the subway.  Unfortunately, there was one dead baby shark lying upside down on the bottom and I overheard someone say it was taking a nap and I don’t think they were kidding around either.  This upcoming week should be quite interesting as Thanksgiving is approaching and this will be my first time celebrating it outside the U.S (I’m sure the Roast Duck will be replacing the Turkey this year).  I have more photos uploaded as well, either click the ones above or view them on my Flickr here. 

Jing’an Temple

Escalator in the middle of nowhere, part of my walk to work

Drop coins down this for good luck?

Well, where to begin.... My first week of work here in Shanghai has wrapped up and it’s been a very interesting experience thus far to say the least.  Adapting to the whole culture and trying to learn as much about it in a short period of time with a limited amount of Mandarin vocabulary is really something.  I am very surprised at how many Foreigners I have seen so far, they are really all over the place.  For the most part the first few days have been pretty routine, not that it has to be but mainly because of my lack of transition into the new time zone. So far my days have looked a bit like this.

6:50 - 7:30 am : Wake up pretty much on my own which is surprising considering how much I sleep in, in NY.
8:45 - 9:30 am : Grab a coffee at the local cafe (Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf) and people watch a little bit before taking the short 10 - 15 stroll to work.
10:00 - 12:00 pm: The usual work stuff.
1:00 - 2:00 pm: Go out and eat with a group of people from the office, they normally tend to hit up the very local places which has no English on the menu.  The food is always good but since I can’t read I normally just get whatever somebody else gets, but again the food is great.
3:00 - 7:30 pm: Return to and finish up work.
9:00 pm: At this time my body tends to crash on me and that is when I go to bed haha.

I haven’t had too much time to explore yet except for today and just a little bit last night, but so far so good.  I’m looking forward to seeing more around this place and I will try to post more often than once a week.  Check out my Flickr for more photos of Shanghai. 

This past weekend I finally had some time to take a trip upstate and out of New York to the Poconos in Pennsylvania.  I’ve been wanting to do some outdoorish activities for a while now just to get out of the city for a little bit so I was glad I got to make the trip.  For those who live nearby I would definitely recommend this place if you like the outdoors. It’s a pretty small town but there is quiet a bit of stuff to do such as hiking, fishing, white water rafting, shooting guns, archery, canoeing, go karts (I know, doesn’t match the other activities but still fun) and more.  The photos above were taken at the hiking trail we took at Bushkill Falls, the hike was about 2.5 hours and the scenery was amazing.  More photos on my flickr. 

I came across this interesting set of photos of an abandoned theme park that looked really fascinating.  I always enjoyed taking photos or looking at photos of run down places so this definitely caught my attention.  All the writing however is in Chinese so I have no idea where these are taken at and by whom.  There is quite a bit of photos however just scroll to the bottom and click on the left and right button to go back and forth.

Over the weekend I finally got a chance to go check out the High Line.  I didn’t get too walk the whole thing or spend too much time there but I plan on returning soon to take more photos of the actual park itself.  The day I went I guess there was a festival going on and so there were tons of people and a huge line just to walk up the stairs into the park, which on a normal day would probably have no line.  Anyways since people flooded the the paths and gardens I decided to take photos of the surrounding buildings and scenery.  Some more photos can be seen on my flickr. 

Here are a couple quick shots from the Cherry Blossom Festival that is currently being held in Washington D.C. until April 12th.  It was a good change of scenery being in a smaller city with warm weather, if anyone gets a chance to go there I would recommend it, I took the Bolt Bus which was fairly cheap I think around $30 round trip with free Wi-Fi which helped the four hour drive go by a little faster. 

I came across this article by Eric Demay which he has made 50 posts of his trip to China, each post on a different day accompanied by some interesting photos and some brief words. Worth a look.

For anyone that lives in New York there is an amazing gallery showing coming in spring titled ‘Earth From Above’.  This exhibit is based off the works of photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand and from the couple of sample photos I have seen, this gallery is a must see for anyone into art, photography, nature or just wanting to see something awesome.