Went walking today. Maybe some would say hiking, but it wasn’t particularly rigorous, despite the terrain. It’s an old trail that I used to do years ago and I’ve quite forgotten some of the turns, so we ended sooner than I had expected. Still, was nice to get out. And the dog seemed to enjoy it.
Day two in Hangzhou, we caught an evening show of Impression West Lake. It is, in fact, a very well documented experience according to Google… so I won’t go into too much detail about what it is and just stick to my impressions.
I was more or less enthralled for the entire performance. The director, who (i guess) was also responsible for the Beijing Olympics Opening Ceremony celebration, made use of natural backdrops, color, sound, light and dance all to very good effect. It wasn’t perfect, but I must admit that the novelty value of people stepping and dancing “on water” almost never wore off and probably prevented me from noticing many potential flaws.
The drum piece was my favorite, and the storm one just after that. (They might have been part of the same movement.) I loved the innovation in using water, sound and light in synchronization with the music and dancing. (there are videos of both… just couldn’t help myself)
The dancing was toned down, but it was “good enough”, both in complexity and execution. There is only so much you can do when people are so small to the audience’s eye: really elaborate motions lose their effect at such a distance, really difficult acrobatics might be too risky on such an unconventional stage. The costume direction was thoughtfully done to make the dancers as visible as possible: big sleeves, primarily single-color robing.
If I had to complain about one thing, it would probably be the lack of focus on story. I don’t watch enough live theater to really judge, but I get the feeling that the unique staging provided a large enough distraction that the story and resulting choreography suffered. The performance was based on a very famous Chinese legend, Lady White Snake, which owes its origins to Hangzhou… so it’s an appropriate choice. And while there are many variations to the story, you would think they’d keep at least some of the details intact. Not so… they basically reduced the entire thing to four overly simplistic acts: boy meets girl, girl and boy fall in love (and get married), boy and girl are separated (for totally inexplicable reasons…), boy recalls their time together and mourns.
Mmmyup, that was it. Or at least as much as I could glean from it. And this is already knowing how the myth went before watching the performance. I do recognize that the lack of speaking capability might have been an intimidating factor in making the plot too complicated, but I think they were too interested in the stage setup to really explore all their options for bringing across the story, as a result.
Still, generally speaking, just about everything was too pretty to look at to complain. Even if I would have preferred a variation with a happ(ier) ending. Or at least some kind of resolution. >_>
Very lovely. Judicious use of technology to enhance the performance, rather than overpower it, and they didn’t forget to use traditional “low-tech” theater techniques to dazzle the audience. Hope to see more work like this in the future… it’s definitely one way in which simple video could never hope to compare.
Off to Fujian tomorrow, for my last two days in China. :x
I don’t want to jinx myself, but I’m pretty sure this is my prize photo for this entire trip. ;x
This is Wuzhen, which is this old “canal town” that’s existed for the last 1200 years or some such. The photo above was taken in the west portion, which was actually almost completely redone and retrofitted for tourism purposes. The buildings consist of some restaurants and shops, but mostly guest houses for overnighting.
We went to the east side, which actually still has residents living there still and is way more … well, run down. I’ll admit to enjoying the west side more, despite its non-authenticity. It’s absolutely enchanting at night.
Way more photos where this came from… I really went to town this time. But the internet is kind of slow here, so I’m probably going to wait until later to upload the rest. Just wanted to get this one out immediately. ^_^;
This could have been a REALLY AWESOME PHOTO … if I had taken it with my own camera. Unfortunately, my camera’s battery ran out halfway through Italy, since I have absolutely no sense of time currently and for some reason thought I had only taken two days worth of photos when I have actually been uploading pictures for nearly a week. Whoops.
So there’s a whole set in today’s photos done with my mom’s camera, which is a basic point and click with an unbearably slow shutter speed, bleh.
In the meantime, thanks SY… we went to Italy and it really was pretty awesome. They didn’t have anything unusual, but I really did love their unique perspectives. I’m not sure it was worth the 1.5 hour wait time, as very few things are worth that amount of time for me these days… but at least it was much less than the estimated 2.5 hours. :P
Annnnd this was the last day for visiting the World Expo, which suits me fine. Probably didn’t even cover 1/10th of the grounds, but I’m not heartbroken about it. It’s just too exhausting. x_X
Took a break from Expo-ing today. While my dad went to play badminton (ha), my cousin took my mother and me on a minor sightseeing trip… specifically, to Taikang Lu.
This mini-maze of alleyways had shop after shop belonging to individual artists selling their wares in shops that were often just a bit bigger a compact car. And basically all I could think the entire time was how much the Pokechat girls would be tripping over themselves here, cause it’s a paradise for totally random and cute knick knacks… fantastic for souvenir shopping. :P Like the picture above was for some kind of store… which just sold merchandise with, uh, … well, pill art. >_>;
I was also terribly impressed by how international it was, with its variety of restaurants. I’m always surprised to see a non-Chinese restaurant, McDonalds aside. There are a disturbing number of KFCs running about, but I was also taken aback at seeing Subways and Starbucks and Coffee Beans. (The Chinese also have their own version of “fast food” Chinese — NOT Panda Express, but some chain called Kung Fu that has Bruce Lee as a logo. >_> )
But there is even the (very occasional) Italian or French place, and Taikang was absolutely stuffed to the brim with tiny hole-in-the-wall cafes/bistros/restaurants that all looked terribly cute and high quality. All very international. I guess this is partially due to how big of a tourist attraction it is (definitely boasts the highest quantity of non-Asians I have seen my whole entire trip thus far), but still.
Reorganized my Flickr sets a little, so now there are separate ones for the city of Shanghai and surrounding areas and the Expo itself. Both are part of the collection, China 2010… we’re going to be traveling to a couple more cities, so will make separate sets for each of them when it’s necessary. :x
So this camping trip we went on… we basically complained a lot about how Brandon wasn’t there to eat all the excess food and how Alex wasn’t there to take better pictures. ;x
Some stuff that was awesome: campsite location was quiet, private, pretty, and shady! Bathrooms were mercifully clean, bugs were only vaguely irritating. Setup was relatively painless and mildly hilarious. The weather was absolutely PERFECT, from the time we arrived until we went to bed. (In my opinion, anyway. ;x )
The Munchkin game that we started after finishing setup lasted way too long to the point where we were playing by flashlight, but it contained epic perfectly-ordinary-bunny-rabbit vengeance.
Some stuff that was sucky: the “full shade” of the site was awesome until night fell and I realized that our potentially amazing view of the moonlit lake was just about completely obstructed. I went… kind of batty over this, but I got over it once I put my camera away. A point-and-click is pretty worthless in full dark. I tried manual mode and there are some okay photos of the moon and water, but they’re all way too noisy, qq.
The crickets… must have been like, genetically engineered to trigger headaches. They seriously buzzed/sang at such a constant rate and resonance that I’m pretty sure my mild headache late at night was caused by the sound they were producing, which made going to sleep somewhat difficult. Still, I managed to get at least six or seven hours, and again, the temperature was really fantastic… neither too warm nor too cold for a sleeping bag.
The drive was pretty horrible approaching the lake and leaving was only slightly better. I basically felt like I was playing Initial D, since it was just a two lane road and super windy. (That’s… wind-y… as in, winding. Not… right, you know.) And that was … an adventure, especially since I’m not a terribly confident driver.
And … well, we had a pretty wtf-epic experience with moving Tansen’s tent that is not documented in any way… and nor do I feel like explaining the details. >_>; … (I hope my car antenna is okay…)
Overall, though!, definitely net positive experience. (And this should be obvious because I don’t usually go to this much trouble weblogging an experience these days. >_> ) Glad I went and TYVM to Dev for being persistent and organizing the whole thing. ^.^;
Visited The Getty Center with my dad on Saturday. I’m not much for art exhibits, but the architecture of the building was just stunning.
Couldn’t do it justice, I’m sure, but I had fun. :P
Not so great photos… wasn’t really able to puzzle out any really interesting shots, with the way the room was laid out. Probably the “official” IMD photogs had better luck.
I’m quite pooped… approaching (or maybe nearly passed) the 36 hour mark, though up until just an hour ago, I was overfull on adrenaline and not really sleepy.
But my feet are seriously killing me from standing and talking to people for three hours. qq.
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