May 2013

We spent part of our day in the city last week. Getting to the city center by cab is always an experience. This cabby tried to charge us double the normal rate. I just laughed at him. And then I took a picture of his Chanel covered carseats.

Of course we made the obligatory stop at MacDonald's.

Because the weather is finally getting nice, it was really crowded. You know it's crowded when even the Chinese people are taking pictures of the crowds.

We headed for the river walk and passed by a few street calligraphers. There were about 5 or 6 older men and women with these huge brushes writing on the sidewalks. I have no idea what they were writing. After a bit of googling, I learned that these are just hobbyists. It's a fairly common pastime in the cities to practice (or showcase) calligraphy like this. As you can see this lady's is so-so.

But this guy's is really beautiful.

Next time we're in the city, I'll look for more examples. I love the idea of it being so temporal.

The river was also crowded with people just watching the boats go by.

And the boats here are definitely worth watching.

Maybe a boat ride is in our future. But for this trip, we continued down to watch the kites. I remember from past summers seeing hundreds of kites for sale near the river. We walked down to the area where everyone was flying them.

Most of these are purchased from small sales stands like this one.

And one more picture to share today - these workers on top of what was probably a ten-story building. No safety nets or anything.

BTW, it's currently 73 degrees and headed higher. Good bye spring. We barely knew ye.