Sheila Bocchine, Photographer

When I signed up for this trip I had no idea what we were doing, so every bit was a total surprise for me.  No one spoke English and we all know how fabulous my Chinese is. Our last stop was a park and at first I was thinking , “Oh man, another park, more mountains…blah…” BUT this park was full of monkeys!!! Some were sweet and would eat out of my hand, but others if I got to close, they pulled my hair, and ripped out chunks. Another monkey grabbed my hand and scratched me, luckily I was wearing gloves. So, yup. I got attacked by wild monkeys in China. The people babysitters (the tour guy was terrified of me, so he assigned babysitters every place we went) on my tour kept telling me stay away from the monkeys, but how I was suppose to know which monkey was nice and which monkey was vicious if I didn’t get close? Silly tourists!

*If you’re looking for rad pinhole photographs for you home, office, baby room, kitchen…. then look here first!

During my Chinese New Year holiday I went to Zhangjiajie in Hunan Province, a truly magnificent view. It was also the inspiration for Pandora, the city in the clouds, in the movie Avatar. The mountain side glass elevator was pretty nifty as well as the ‘old man gathering herbs’ rock formation (last photo).

Looking to buy pinhole photography prints? Check out that link for affordable, unique photographs!

During my Chinese New Year holiday I went to Hunan Province and visited the gorgeous Yellow Dragon Cave. I think what made the cave so special for me, were the neon lights. I’m a total sucker for neon lights, especially in condensed neighborhoods, which is one of the reasons I love South Korea and Mong Kok (Hong Kong) so much.

Looking to buy pinhole photography prints? Click here!

My love affair with cupping started in South Korea.  I’m still searching for a place in my neighborhood, but while I was in Hunan province we went to see my friends uncle who is a Chinese Medicine Doctor and has been for 40 years.

In his office he checked my tongue to make sure there was nothing wrong with my insides followed by checking my pulse for about 5 minutes. I was given a clean bill of heath, but couldn’t pass up the opportunity for cupping .  Lucky for you I had my friend take some photographs of the process.

They believe that cupping moves the blood around your body, in turn healing your body. If you’re interested you can read more about cupping here  and here. 

It hurts a little at first, but after a while it’s soothing and sleep inducing. I find that I can breathe so much better after a session. Most of the bruises will fade by the next day, but the deeper colored ones will take longer, and those are the ones where toxins are located in your body. If you ever get the opportunity, try it!

During my holiday in February I went to visit some old friends up north in Changde, Hunan Province, China. I experienced a whole different kind of China and it was wonderful. We went to the riverfront, took a boat across the river to an island, went to a lake, a temple, some markets and to the hot springs! I visited with a Chinese medicine doctor and learned how to play Mahjong. I’m so grateful for the kindness and hospitality of my friends and their family.

My Hunan adventure started with a 14 hour sleeper train ride. The only seat available was a top bunk so I took it, definitely not knowing how crazy it would be up there. Once I found my bed, the task of getting up there was daunting. Someone tried to help me, but I still couldn’t do it. I eventually closed my eyes and had to jump, thank goodness I made it. It was at this point, I realized I could not leave my bed until absolutely necessary… which was in the morning, when I had to conquer my fear of squatter potties… on a moving train…

In Changde, our first stop was the famous riverfront.

Another destination was the lake.

We also visited a beautiful temple.

If you’re in the market for some beautiful photographs for your home, check here first! 

Whoo hooo!  I’m back online!  Internet in China can be crazy sporadic… so now  I have to play catch up.

There’s a street in Hong Kong, swimming with goldfish (and other zany animals). The security is tight and more than once, big, buff  men stood in front of my camera and said “No photographs.” So my sneaking attempts were often out-smarted. I did manage to stealthily take a few photographs and totally felt 007!!

This would be the perfect street for contact lens cameras… or pinhole fingertip cameras… or… invisible cameras! Ha!  Wouldn’t it be so rad, to walk into the shops and pretend to take a photo.  I’m totally going to get a group of friends together to ‘invisible photograph’ this street! We’ll have to be all serious too, adjusting our tripod legs, cleaning our lenses, changing our film!  I’m either super tired OR a genius! What do you think?

In the market for a beautiful photograph to decorate your home? Try here first! 

The Hong Kong Flower market is a beautiful, bustling few blocks of colorful goodness. I caught myself closing my eyes and inhaling deep perfumed breaths. The smells were deliciously fresh and fragrant, transporting me to a peaceful country garden. There were hoards of people touching, smelling and carefully picking the best specimens while the merchants were wrapping flowers as quickly as they could… and one man, must of been transported to that peaceful country garden, for he was sleeping. Yes, sleeping in the flowers with  people shopping all around him!  I loved it!

If you’re looking to buy photography, check out my pinhole photography boutique!!  Thanks for looking!

A little piece of heaven on Earth, Yuen Po Street Bird Garden, is a delightful refuge in a bustling city. It’s a garden, with vendors that sell birds and bird accessories. If you are smitten with talking parrots, love birds, and other exotic beauties, this is a must see in Hong Kong.

I’ve been there twice and it’s a miracle I haven’t left with a new best friend. Sometimes I think I have’t an ounce of willpower, but surely I do, or I’d be feeding grasshoppers to a sweet pink and grey parrot right now. I definitely have one picked out. She’s grey and hot pink. She likes to cuddle and look into your eyes. If she were a he, he’d be perfect! Maybe she is a he, what do I know. I just assume it’s a she because of her glorious hot pink feathers.

I also met the most adorable older woman, she’s the keeper of the birds and too sweet for words!  She kept telling me how beautiful I was! So naturally we bonded over her kind words! That was all she knew how to say in English, but one of the guys in our group spoke Cantonese and translated for me.  She said I was so nice and friendly!

Looking for a pinhole photograph to hang in your home? I think you’ll find what you’re looking for here!

There’s a little village, with houses built on stilts, on Lantau Island, called Tai O Fishing Village. The textures. The peeling paint. The rust. The odd materials used for building. I wanted to photograph every little nook and cranny. Every wall. Every corner. Every doorway.

Every where you looked, mixed media masterpieces. Poetry made with bare hands. A paradise of abstract graphics. Layer built upon layer of stories, waiting to be discovered. Simply beautiful.

If you’re looking for a pinhole photograph to brighten your home, you can find them here! Thanks for looking!

I love Chinese New Year and what a treat it was to finally experience it in China. I have celebrated in Chicago, NYC, Phoenix, South Korea and the Philippines, but I have to say China was the most spectacular. I feel so lucky to be living in China during the year of the dragon!

Unfortunately I missed the parade, fireworks and horse race in Hong Kong due to rain but enjoyed plenty of fireworks from my balcony. It was unlike anything I had ever experienced. I live on the 10th floor, surrounded by hi-rises in a city of 20 million and watched countless rooftop firework displays. It was totally surreal. Roman candles blasting off balconies, so close, like fiery ping pong balls racing towards me. Glittery explosions illuminating the neighborhood, reflections of prosperity and good fortune on slick facades. The sound of an entire city launching fireworks ricocheting and echoing through the deep canyons of the city. The sound. The sound was so robust, teetering between celebration and battlefront.

At one point I was skyping with my sister. I wanted her to hear the absolute insanity that started 6 hours earlier. I counted 8 different shows going on at the same time. She kept saying ‘take a video, take a video.’ If only I had started my video a few minutes earlier… in all of the excitement I couldn’t find my camera and was fumbling when I did. So enjoy the tail end of 8 rooftop firework shows, going on at the same time in my neighborhood:

Chinese New Year is largest human migratory movement in the world. Families leave the city and go back to the villages where they are from. This collection of photographs from The Big Picture is amazing.

Fireworks. Dragons. Lions. Flower markets. Red lanterns. Red envelops filled with money! Kumquat trees. Paper cut window decorations. Banners hung over and next to the door. Whole fish and dumplings. It’s such a beautiful holiday.

I’ve been learning about Buddhism for quite some time and the more I learn, the more I want to learn. The philosophies and teachings resonate with me, making me a better person. Part of what I love about living in Asia is the easy access to knowledge, temples and Buddhas.

The Buddha at Tian Tan is the world’s largest, seated, outdoor, bronze Big Buddha statue. I took the cable car to the top, opting for the crystal cabin (glass bottom). I felt like I was in a floating glass balloon, hovering atop turquoise water, dangling above treetops, and disappearing into grey clouds. The first glimpse of Buddha nestled peacefully among the trees and rolling mountain tops was an incredible sight. He’s one of the few Buddha’s that face North.

I ducked into a gift shop to buy some winter gloves, as I wasn’t expecting it to be freezing up there. If I wanted to take any photos I needed warm fingers! I meandered in and out of over priced gift shops, taking the chance to warm up where I could. I reached the gorgeous Big Buddha and climbed the 240 steps to the top, stopping along the way to photograph and pinhole.

At the top people were doing sun salutations, and sitting posed like Buddha himself. Tourist destinations bring people from all over the world and I love listening to their conversations, their beautiful words, their sexy accents. I’m always asked to take photographs of happy couples, and delight in the fact that my photographs are in numerous vacation albums worldwide.

It started to sprinkle and that was my cue to head back down (I melt in the rain). The cable car back was intense. I could only see clouds. I was sitting in a glass box, completely surrounded by clouds. It was truly spectacular.

To view the complete album, click here.

Windows of the World is a fabulous little theme park in Shenzhen, where you can travel (walk) around the world.  Unfortunately you don’t get to collect the coveted stamps in your passport, but hey, you don’t have to sit next to a screaming baby for 16 hours either!

Overall I thought it was a great way to spend the day.  Some of the attractions were more cared for than others (NYC definitely needed a hug and a good cleaning). They could have put a little more effort into the details, and put a western toilet in America.  We don’t know how to use squatter potties! I’d go again if my visiting guests were dying to check it out (of if they’d let me do a pinhole series of the miniatures… I’m still working on that, but you know, language difficulties).

Angkor Wat.

The same little people used through the park.

Japan.

Hungry Koi.

Taj Mahal, India.

Obligatory self-portrait in Venice. I looked everywhere for the gondolas…

Pisa, Italy (I’ve actually climbed to the top when I was a kid).

The Eiffel Tower and the view from the top.

Egypt.

Mt. Rushmore, South Dakota.

Brazil.

To view the complete album of photos, click here.

Now that I live in China, I’m trying to learn more about Chinese artists and contemporary Chinese art. So I will occasionally post my findings for you to learn as well.

*In Shanghai you can see a break-dancing Confucius by Zhang Huan. Although the exhibit sounds really interesting,  I don’t understand most of it, probably due to my lack of knowledge in Chinese history.

*A small city in China, Lianzhou, about 5 hours from where I live, has been holding it’s Foto Festival every fall for the last 7 years. I love what they’re doing. They wanted their city to be known for something and chose photography! The curator and assorted yearly co-curators are quite distinguished in their fields, so the festival is quickly becoming a must-see.

This is one of my favorite lines from the article:

For 2011, Phillips and Duan Yuting fixed on the theme of “Toward the Social Landscape,” focusing on documentary photography. This may seem a little worn to a Western audience used to the work of U.S. photographers like Lee Friedlander and Diane Arbus, but in the context of a rapidly evolving China where society’s borders are ever fluid, documenting the social landscape still possesses a real and vital urgency.

This is such a wonderfully exciting time for China. I love documentary photography and wish to do my part using my pinhole camera. Read the article. Do a little research on the photographers that strike your fancy.

*Accidental Chinese Hipsters – is a blog I check weekly! For those who care less about fashion and more about wearing what makes you feel good, then you’ll probably love this spunky collection of photographs.

(Part 2)

Ronja, Manu and myself inquired at every hotel we passed by for a room.  No such luck. We happened to run into a jogger who walked us to Kowloon Park.  We thanked him and found the perfect sleeping spot behind some trees.  We slept peacefully with the sounds of birds singing in the background. A security guard spotted us and told us we had to leave.  It turns out that we were in a bird sanctuary! We slept next to flamingos! Beautiful flamingos dancing in the early morning light of the new year, sunlight bouncing off their smooth, pale pink feathers.

We went to Starbucks, ordered coffee, plugged in our iPhones and camera batteries and drifted off to sleep for the next two hours. Once awake, we piled into a taxi and headed into Central Hong Kong to watch the Record Breaking Dragon and Lion Dance Extravaganza! Guinness Book of World Records was there. 88 dragons. 15 lions. A new world record! It was brilliant!

Finally we headed up to The Peak to catch a glimpse of Hong Kong from above. We watched the sun set and the transformation from day to evening as the lights below twinkled on.

Too cold and tired to do anything else, we found ourselves with the most knowledgeable taxi driver in all of Hong Kong. Instead of having to take the metro back to Shenzhen, he drove us the bus station and informed us about a bus that goes directly to Shenzhen. He was a life-saver with a few jokes up his sleeve as well.

Hong Kong is amazing, dare I say, my new favorite city?!?!!

To see the complete album, click here.

Fireworks! Glamour! Champagne! All night parties! Confetti! Midnight kisses! New Year’s Eve is my favorite holiday and has been since my parents gave me nose-tickling Spumante and shiny noise-makers as a child. I’ve celebrated in numerous cities around the world, in the most wonderfully memorable locations!

This year was celebrated in Hong Kong! Ronja, Amber, Michelle, Kevin and myself crossed the border from Shenzhen through No Where and into Hong Kong, hopped on a train and exited into a world of glittery holiday lights and police barricades. With magic on our side we found a darling restaurant with a table for 5, followed by a most brilliant spot to OOoh and AAahhhh at every colorful burst of pyrotechnic wizardry.

While drinking a bottle of bubbly we asked a friendly face to snap a group photo. This German man soon joined our group and together we roamed the streets of Hong Kong looking for adventure. The first bar we wandered into said there no tables, we said we’d wait, but tables were immediately available for natives. We kept walking. The second bar, which saw an explosion of confetti on their sidewalk looked promising. We sat down and were given a menu with beers costing 80-90RMB! That’s absolute robbery. We knew their tricks and asked for a Chinese menu but when they refused, we left.

The night was young and with beer in our hands we continued our quest… and from a distance we saw a jumble of neon lights. Dodging double decker buses we hurried across, being delightfully swallowed into a street oozing with happiness and drunken banter. A table appeared in front of Pattaya BBQ. Laughter, drinks, grilled squid, mushrooms and eggplant were in abundance.

Sunrise drawing near we bid farewell to our cozy drinking spot and looked for a place to sleep. Paying for a KTV room for a few hours seems like the most logical except, it was closed. Next we inquired at nearby sauna’s, but unlike sauna’s in Korea, these are for men only. So half of the group took the subway home, but myself, Ronja and Manu stayed behind.

To be continued!

*Also, I get to cross off one part of #7 on my 32 before 33 list. Go to Hong Kong – check!

To see the complete album, click here.