24 February, 2009

Xi'an, Shaanxi Provence, China

We had a great time in Xi'an. Well, I did. My husband still thinks it is all a scam. I still think it is amazing that these soldiers were found after being buried for so long. Just imagine what else is out there.

The first photo shows some of the soldiers in Pit 1. There are 3 different pits.

We also walked the city wall. We thought it wouldn't be too bad, but after walking for 3 hours from one exit to the next and only covering 1/4 of it, we decided it was time to get off!

The trip was amazing and made me appreciate very much what I have at home. Everything is so backward, just getting around can be difficult. We were trying to find a taxi at one time & it took us 2 hours! We finally walked into a Hyatt hotel & pretended we were staying there to get them to get us a taxi. Taxis would stop but they wouldn't necessarily take you where you wanted to go!

I have more pictures on my Facebook account if you want to see some. I took 592 photos! If you don't have facebook, e-mail me and I will send you a link to my google photos.

14 February, 2009

Newspapers

I do not have a lot of my fiber related supplies here in Hong Kong. I have some but more importantly, I don't have the space I have in Chicago where I can lay everything out & not have to move it until I'm done! So I decided to take a different approach to what I'm doing for the few weeks that I'm here. HK newspapers have the most wonderful colourful pictures! I have been collecting all the pictures I can find & yesterday I started cutting them out. Some pictures and stories I am just pasting into a sketchbook. These are my inspiration pictures, things to look at to remind me of the colours of HK & China. Others I am cutting out to use in collage work when I return to Chicago. I will post pictures of my sketchbook later. After I have pasted the photos into the sketchbook, I'm planning on going through with my coloured pencils and adding drawings, etc. I love looking at the sketchbook, the colours that pop off the page and so vivid.

07 February, 2009

Hong Kong

Well I finally finished one sock but didn't get a picture of it yet so I thought I would post a couple of pictures of Hong Kong instead. One thing you will notice, though. The pictures look a little hazy. That is not because of a bad camera shot, that is Hong Kong! It is always full of pollution, unfortunately. Days with nice clear blue sky are very rare. And if we happen to get one, I will be heading out all day to take photos. Checking the 7-day weather forecast on the Hong Kong weather page, is actually tells us that next Monday will be fine but hazy. Actually I just noticed that they changed it, thank goodness. It was a little picture of HK that was yellow - now would that be considered haze or pollution! :)

This is the star ferry from Kowloon side with HK in the background. This shows very nicely the "haze" I'm talking about.
This is one of the old time junks. Unfortunately she didn't have her sails up. When she does she is even more beautiful. We were walking along the water front on Kowloon side and were just about to head to the MTR (train) when she came along. Next time hopefully I will see her with sails.

Taken on the balcony of friends house. They have the most fantastic view of the other side of the Island, as it is know. The view behind us is Deepwater Bay with the yacht club. They were having some sort of race.

A view of Repluse bay.
Another view of Deepwater Bay. There is a golf club to the right and we have friends who have a membership. When I lived in Hong Kong from 1982-1992 with the kids, we used to have many birthday parties there.

02 February, 2009

Socks

Being in Hong Kong is a little frustrating artistic wise as I have only brought my knitting with me. It is the easiest thing to travel with. But I am keeping a sketch book & have all these wonderful ideas of things to work on when I get back to Chicago. I will have lots of things to get caught up on when I get back but the kids will still be in school and my husband still in Hong Kong so I will have the time.I have, though, been knitting away. I have not yet finished this sock but this is the bamboo yarn that I hand dyed. I am loving the look and the feel. I'm hoping that it will also feel good when worn.

I have also started on a knee high sock. So far I'm also loving this too.
I still have a ways to go but without having to worry too much about shaping, it is the perfect thing to be working on when riding the escalator home. Hong Kong has this fantastic way to get from Central to Mid-Levels. It is this really long escalator system. There are lots of fun things along the way to see. We live about 1/2 block from the top of the escalator. The biggest problem is that it can only go one way. Until 10am in the morning it heads down. The whole thing is then manually turned around to go up the hill. I have seen them do it. It takes about 20-30 mins for them to go to each escalator & turn it around. It really is an amazing form of transport.