Category: Decisive Moment

Fleeting moments frozen in time

Cleaning Up At Xitang (西塘)

Cleaning Up At Xitang
I am back from a vacation trip to China. In a short span of 10 days, we travelled from Nanjing to places like Yiwu (义乌), Mount Huangshan (黄山), Qiandaohu (千岛湖), Hangzhou (杭州) and finally to
Shanghai, where we visited the World Expo. On our way back to Nanjing from Shanghai, we dropped by Xitang (西塘), the ancient scenic town in Zhejiang Province (浙江省) made popular by the Mission Impossible III movie. We have just about wrapped up our trip there when I managed to catch this cleaner at work from a vantage point along one of the numerous stone bridges crossing the canals in the little town.

Want Ice Cream?

Want Ice Cream?
Prior to Nyepi day in Bali, the Ngrupuk parade is held during which papier-mâché statues known as ogoh-ogoh are paraded on a convoy around the town. They are then traditionally burnt to ashes in a cemetery as a symbol of self-purification (although I’ve read that these are usually recycled in recent times). We attended the parade in Denpasar on our trip and it was really crowded and humid-hot!. In between taking pictures of the parade, I managed to catch this ice-cream seller in great light. With the hot weather, he certainly was enjoying good business that day!