Postcards from China

Here are some pictures that missed the cut after our first visit to the Anping Bridge earlier this year.

The first one looks back at the Anhai side entrance to the bridge.

The second is another bridge deck shot.

The third and fourth are taken at the mid-span temple area.

The last one shows one of the entrances to the large temple area in Anhai before you head to the bridge itself.

Or after you return from the bridge, as the case may be.

Here are some sidestreet & backalley views taken around Anhai.

These are all on the way from my Wife’s family’s home to Longshan Temple. Obviously, this is through a part of town where material progress hasn’t made as many inroads yet as in other parts of Anhai.

That’s the back of the Anhai Hospital in the background of the second photo, and a small (very small) temple sort of building in the fourth. “Burn N’ Go’s” (as in incense) I’m tempted to call them.

It’s pretty easy to miss the roofllines on these little mini-temples when walking through the streets. That’s because you’re more focused on watching your step than anything else (cows and goats are herded through these streets a few times a day).

Normally the main streets of Anhai look like one of those movie scenes where nuclear attack has been announced and everyone is trying to flee the city by car, motorcycle, scooter, bicycle, or ox cart.

Nuclear attack?

Wait, we’re talking about China. Make that, “Normally the main streets of Anhai look like one of those movie scenes where the approach of advancing Communist or Nationalist troops–depending on who made the movie–has been announced and everyone is trying to flee the city by car, motorcycle, scooter, bicycle, or ox cart.”

The scenes in the video below, though, were shot on Chinese New Year’s Eve, when it’s relatively calm–mostly people on foot, bicycles, motorscooters, and those Anhai ‘Mad Max’ Taxis that have since been outlawed and replaced with the Universal Studios tourmobiles.

This also helps illustrate the “ugly public areas” of Anhai, as opposed to the relative luxury the locals live in behind their gated courtyards, as described in Explaining Anhai.

And here is the video: