Looks like an oil-painting, right?

This artwork must have taken someone painstaking amounts of time to complete. Sure it looks like a painting (size was about 10-feet wide by 4-feet tall), at least that's what I thought at first when I spotted this piece in the lobby of a restaurant we stopped at for dinner. 

(Below) However, on closer inspection it is revealed not to be brush strokes, but stitches. Yep, the entire thing is embroidered! What a massive undertaking...and blades of grass and flowers....it's like doing a 100,000-piece jigsaw puzzle without the box-cover to look at. Awesome, just awesome.

(Below) Detail on another embroidery located in the same restaurant lobby. Magnificent work, exquisite craftsmanship. 

(Below) This picture was also of the 10x4-foot variety. Extraordinary stuff.

Victorian Architecture?

Gathered for a Brew - Nanjing Road, Shanghai

Several of us stopped for conversation and a frosty beverage at a local cafe/bar while visiting Nanjing Road. Of course street performers and peddlers of all sorts casually strolled by doing their thing. Spencer (on right) and my other buddy Mike each purchased a set of wheels that clip onto your regular shoes, transforming them into rollerskates. Rail-slides and skate-trickz abound..drinks, and a show!

The Crystal Entity

Couldn't even tell you what the name of this crazy sculpture is. Just out of the reach of Nanjing Road, this enormous park with walkways and a giant sculpture resembling the 'Crystal Entity' (any Star Trek fans in the house?). Anyhow, nifty...to say the least.

Electric bike parking, en masse.

Hello Kitty, Elaborate Trees, and Me.

My friend Scott ahead of me almost disappears into the crowd on Shanghai's shopping mecca Nanjing Road ( Wikipedia - Nanjing Road (Shanghai) ). Hilarious tales to be told of getting caught off-guard as westerners when children just squat down and urinate as required right in the middle of a very busy walk/roadway. Anyhow, the shopping experience was interesting and despite the facade of small doorways, many buildings held gigantic shopping mazes within. Some places were a labyrinthine mix off thin corridors and steep stairs with boutique-style shops crammed this way and that in seemingly haphazard fashion.

There was however an order to this chaos that the local people understand all too well and it is well known that following the wrong rabbit can get you stuck in a hole you can't pull yourself out of. Side-street merchants are always calling for you to follow them down some alley or another with promises of 'the best wares in all of China', for the cheapest. Buyer beware though, 

(Below) Yeah, I rocked the Hello Kitty prop, and still completely confident in my manhood. ;)

(Below) Are you kidding me?! Even the trees!?! Yes, even the trees have been grown together in  patterns to improve aesthetics . The trees shown below however marked the end of our   trip down Nanjing Road.  We couldn't decide whether to turn around here or proceed forward into unknown territory.

(Below) Nanjing Road gets a hearty thumbs-up from me and several of my companions as many of them acquire interesting trinkets and saw many interesting things in such  tightly-packed area. I mean some of these shopping mall areas behind little doors and entranceways were 10+ floors, criss-crossing escalators and store after store after store. Very good deals in a few places was the general consensus, but overall there was hardly room to bargain. My Sifu had previously recommended that the group reserve any shopping for further in the trip. Primarily because of expense in the area, but secondly we had an inside-flight to catch and needn't be paying extra for overweight baggage this early in the trip.