As Seen by TV

Seems only fitting that my final images from Saigon, are of the vespertine variety…..

Right after this shoot, had some amazing dinner at “3T”, on a rooftop restaurant… DIY BBQ!  Then took a final hour-long motorbike tour around the city… managed to get it close to 100km/h (with someone on the back!) before chickening out.  I need to get me one of them!

Bye bye Saigon, you will be missed.

The vespertine photography adventures continue… Saigon-style.

Notre-Dame Basilica > Motorbikes! > Rex Hotel

Saigon AKA Ho Chi Minh City (locals still refer to the city center as ‘Saigon’, while using ‘HCMC’ for the larger metropolitan area… I just use Saigon because it sounds cooler), boasts a population around 10 million and served as the capital of South Vietnam leading up until the end of the war… so, lot’s of history. Although I wasn’t alive at the time, I have the images of the helicopter evacuations from the roof of the US Embassy branded into my brain… as well as the VPA tank crashing through the gates of the Freedom Palace, which pretty much marked the end of the American occupation of southern Vietnam.

At first glance the traffic is BONKERS. Saigon has 6 million registered vehicles… of which 5 million are motorbikes. Thank god they pay attention to traffic lights… mayhem [somewhat] averted. I’ve traveled my fair share and had prepared for the worst (from everything I’ve heard/read), but the Vietnamese people definitely have some common sense and general understanding of efficiency when it comes to dealing with traffic situations (very much unlike the people I’m currently surrounded by, who are utterly clueless in these regards). The relentless convoy of bikers does offer a challenge to those new to the game, but I found that as long as you went with the flow (which there certainly was, and everyone followed), it wasn’t as bad as I’ve heard others complain about. That being said, I rented my very own motorbike to cruise them mean streets of Saigon! (more on that later)

Day 1 saw the first excursion to get a grasp of the city, walking from my hotel located a good 30min from the city center, getting my first proper Vietnamese meal (a mean bowl of pho… oddly enough at the very same restaurant Bill Clinton visited some 10 years earlier), then visiting the Ben Thanh market and eventually finding myself at the Saigon Notre Dame next to the amazing Central Post Office designed by Gustave Eiffel, where I sent a postcard to Mom.

I was strolling around the city this past weekend doing some shopping and happened to stumble upon a parade in preparation…

Sweating in the rain is a new sensation for me… mix that with some hardcore air-conditioning and, well, you can do the math.  So now, I’ve been sick (again) for a while, and not happy about it.  Got caught in a downpour on Guangyuan Road on my way back from the bank this weekend.  Luckily I had my cam with me, but yeah that’s about it really, sorry no excitement to report!

Wow, has it really been a couple months?? That’s no good, I’ll be working on that.
Been busy, been sick… let’s just say it’s been hectic.

Here are some quick shots I went out to capture last week when I saw the sky was going to be a good one… all these were taken no more than a 5min walk from my new apartment.  The pictured movie theater was opened several months ago, it’s a nice faux-art-deco structure actually.

Anyway, that’s all I have to say about that.

Well, I’m somewhat of a New Yorker myself… born in Morningside and matured (somewhat, actually maybe not) in Brooklyn.  So I know me a block party.  Close… Converse set this one up on Moganshan Road with head-lining musical act Jeru the Damaja, a legendary 90′s underground MC.  I’d seen him before in NYC, but never this close and this out-of-step with his listeners… but that’s not his fault, that’s almost solely the fault of the Chinese.

The police department shut this party down early citing “noise complaints”, which is utterly hilarious in it’s own right, never mind the 24/7 construction (even at 6am on Sunday’s), or the constant car horns, or the firecrackers outside every wedding or business openinig, etc. It’s just sad that the police/government has to clamp down on any form of creative expression, especially in concern with things they don’t understand (like music and art; or just life in general). Jeru said it himself when someone shouted out “f*ck the police, f*ck the government” to which he replied “yeah, you can say that, but I surely can’t say that sh*t cuz I still gotta get outta here.”  True.

Anyway, about the pics… some stuff with graffiti, some “typical” NY food, a dope MC, and some dude getting his hair cut (which for some really strange reason was a massive success with the photographer/videographers in the crowd).

Peace & Love.

During the Chinese New Year holiday we hit up Gao Qiao, located on the northern tip of Pudong, just over an hour north via subway from downtown Shanghai.   Our mission was “Holland Village,” a residential complex built by Dutch architects to reflect living in Holland which is part of the “1 City – 9 Towns” initiative.  On the 20min walk from the metro station to this new town, we were fortunate to follow along a picturesque, and relatively traditional Chinese street.