Shops

I took a one week trip to Beijing in early January. It was mostly to see my grandfather, but to be honest, most of my time was spent wandering various arts districts with a cousin, my sister, and my dad. I kind of have a thing about not taking pictures of pictures because I think it's tacky, so I spent most of my time creating pictures of my own...which usually means stalking unaware strangers and searching for colorful things in the dark.

Happy Chinese New Year. Not really relevant, but these pictures are from China, and both lunar and solar new years have passed.

Fire (San Diego, CA; 11/2010)

Chicago @ Night (Chicago, IL; 06/2010)

Fun with light from the Adler Planetarium:

Doors & Shops (Barcelona, Spain - 2/2009)

I never went into any of them.

Tumen 3 - Nothing for Kids (Tumen, China; 10/2008)

There isn't much in Tumen for young people. You can walk around the entire town in under three hours and the local economy is fueled by the outside world--a mix of tourism and foreign currency sent home by overseas workers (this included many of my students' parents) in South Korea, Singapore, and sometimes the US.

There were a few businesses that catered to more affluent local youth however. The kids whose parents sent money home oftentimes spent it playing Starcraft at 24-hour internet pubs or drinking at the bars against school rules. The kids with no money worked for their tuition by cleaning the squatters in the dorms and mopping the floors.

Shop at night. (Barcelona, Spain; 2/2009)

I was on a side street in Las Ramblas in the middle of the night. Stores were still open, their colors deeper and more saturated than what's permitted by daylight.

Not sure if I thought anything more about this moment other than that it was really beautiful.

I like to travel alone. (Barcelona, Spain; 2/2009)

I like vacationing with friends, but there's a special freedom that's unique to being completely alone in a foreign place.

You decide when or whether or not you eat; when you wake; where you go; what you do...and when to finally stop standing in the freezing rain just to get a decent shot of Barcelona at night, with one of the only real light sources being a giant cross beaming in the far distance.