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Just now I saw a BBC documentary called My penis and I. It\’d5s about a guy in Britain with a small tool searching for answers to the big question; Does size matter?. I found the documentary to be very interesting and the guy to be extremely brave. Recommended For all boys equipped with whatever size. \
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Ohh btw, the other day I finished season one of LOST Argh.. why is there no EEEENNNND!\
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Archive for July, 2005
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When I came to china I noticed one particular thing, they all pronounced Usually wrong. More like Urually, with no s tone at all. Later I discovered that not only usually was a problem but also zoo, measure, and pleasure. \
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Am I wrong? :)\
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\MPEG4 “nniL dna lraC - We the art” (Chinese server)- 320×200 - 54,2MB - 3:17 \MPEG4 “nniL dna lraC - We the art” (European server)- 320×200 - 41MB - 3:16\This is the movie I talked about last night. Please download the european version if you live outside China. Download will be VERY slow otherwise.\
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8:27 - Today, in a couple of hours I will make a movie with 30 kunming artists. Fun and Scary.\
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11.11 - eight artists done.. I can tell you one thing.. Children are MUCH easier! On top of that I’m not fully satisfied with my light.. I changed so that everybody could stand and with a bigger background and I never tried it before. But I cannot change in the middle of recording so I have to apply some magic in FCP.. It’s going to be very educating.\
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11.45 - Drank to much coffee.. aargh.. a little shaky now. Bagger. Just had a really good artist here, maybe one of the most successful ones and he was great fun. Saved my day.. :)\
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14:50 - 17 artists done. Hmm.. light is better due to a fault.. maybe I will have a problem later on.. Drinking a beer now to make the speedy coffee effect to calm a little.\
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15:41 - 19. wanted his motorbike in the studio.. :) (a 250cc harley wannabe) I had to find a ramp and all. He was very happy when he could sit on it in the studio. hehe.. Another girl took a big white flower, another wanted a big mirror. Gave her that. one fellow, or no, two stripped bare.. I only filmed from waist and up. :) I think I have material for a fun movie. Just hope nothing strange will happen with time code and stuff.\
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18:19 - 23 people done including me. (I think) 6 more artists will come tonight. It will be a lot later than I first thought. I had to change aperture from F2.8 to F2.2 because a paper I had put in front of the light moved during my takes without me noticing. Remember my setups are ALWAYS VERY cheap and alive. :D I just hope this will not make a big difference in picture quality. Going from light to dark in a couple of frames.\
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21:07 - 29 people done! Wow.. .We called 30 and 29 turned up. Some still unreachable because of travel but I’m amazed by this number anyhow. The most famous guys where all here! ha! And I don’t mean guys known to some local chinese, I mean guys who are famous everywhere where we talk art from China. \
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23:53 HOME! 33 persons all together. Linn wanted to make a funny movie directly (she helped me to fill in time, names and a simple drawing + that she translated everything I said) So we did. We laughed our guts out, she ate a paper and we played it backwards + some stupid moves with me also played backwards.. Will remake it now at home because I added a to harsh level in FCP. So Tomorrow it should be uploaded and ready! I hope. :D\
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Good night!\
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MPEG4 “Chinese Kids” 240×180 (Chinese server). - 44MB \
MPEG4 “Chinese Kids” 320×200 (European server). - 48,9MB \\
There is a team from Sweden in Kunming right now making a book about kids in China and Sweden. The book will cover countryside an city and somehow maybe give a glimpse of whatever differences there might be in longings and thinking. It’s going to be in Swedish and Chinese. Maybe a english version in PDF. All kids have done one painting each and the book will have all the artwork and a small interview per kid. I’m going to make the books layout.\
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This movie was made during one interview session that they had at TC/G Nordica in Kunming with “city” kids. Right now they’re out there doing the same thing with countryside kids but no video this time. \
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The video was one of those.. Ohh.. they are all so cute, let’s make a small movie! :)\
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A while ago I had friends from Sweden over and after a while this statement came: A lot of homosexual in China huh? They’re everywhere! \
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In Sweden we have a natural distance. A quite big one. A distance that make a Swedish boy think that lesbians are more natural and easier to understand. Girls are close since birth. Boys fight each other for fun rather then touch. A girl can hold hand, hug, and even kiss another girl without being thought about. A boy doing the same thing is naturally looked upon as a homosexual. \
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In China the Swedish girl-to-girl behavior is the same for boys. They walk hand in hand, they go arm in arm, very close and they sit in each others lap. No kisses but a very close relation far from the Swedish version. I still find holding hand a bit too much but I do touch a lot more and it all feels friendly and natural. \
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What is a little bit odd in all this is the relation between girls and boys. Witch is a lot more sensitive here. A boy doesn’t hug a girl just like that. In Sweden it\’d5s the opposite. A boy can without a problem hug his girl “friend” if they haven’t meet in a while without any strange feelings or connections being thought of. \
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If you’re together, hugging and kissing is for the private arena. Nothing you make a show of in public. That’s maybe also why my friends find it odd that they see more boys and boys and no boys and girls. This is slowly changing too. Adapting to the western way or maybe just leaving old rules and regulations from older generations. \
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Anyways.. Back to work..\
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http://www.camcorderinfo.com/content/Panasonic-Announces-AG-HVX200-HD-Flash-Media-Camcorder-with.htm\
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PC and Mac. Mpeg4. Gamma 2.0 1 and 3 is total remakes from Mac only version.\
1. Mpeg4 Linn “new version” 320×200 - 8.7MB \
2. Mpeg4 Thomas and Carl 320×200 - 8.7MB \
3. Mpeg4 Waterfall (New long version including a bonus track) 320×200 - 36.3MB\
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Mac only: (H.264 Gamma 1.8)\
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Quick and dirty, but we had a lot of fun. The first movie is with my girlfriend Liu Dong Yun alias Linn. The second with my Swedish friend Thomas Edenholm and me. The best way to learn is to have fun, so that’s why these two movies exist.\
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The last one is from a place not far from here that not many people know about. Come here and I will show you!! I will probably make a second version from that place. Very beautiful.\
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How about eating the Placenta / after birth? \
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According to Chinese traditional way the mother should eat her own after birth after giving birth. The cake is said to be very nutritious and is often eaten as a soup. This delicacy is sometimes (often, always or rarely?!) shared among people attending the family in this happy day. Yesterday I was talking about this with a close friend and she told me that her cousins\’d5 friend sometimes buys an after birth for eating. The price? 5 RMB. \
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Me myself have never, to my knowledge, eaten anything like it. But I don’t really know. :) What I do know that I’ve tried is dog, toad, snail, insects (different types) duck feet and stomach (intestine). And of course different animal skin.. well.. There sure is some more strange things but this is what I can think of right now.. :) \
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Thanks to one of my readers I now know that what I called “womb cake” is Placenta in the real world. :) In Swedish it’s called “Moder kaka” Now you know.\
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From today. Picture to the right shows the setup. It’s actually two lights but being at the same spot I think it’s ok to call it one light. \
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Pictures taken with my trusty Sigma SD9 and Nikon 50mm 1.4. All pictures taken at F2 in low resolution. Picture directly from Sigma Photopro to Photoshops’ “Contact sheet II” automation. The whole image can be seen at Dpreview Sigma forum\
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Does not make any 1000RMB / month
Copyright Carl Rytterfalk.
Was just talking to my chinese room mate that just came back from sweden. We talked beer and how good it tasted compared to chinese versions. He also said it was soo expensive.. wohwooo I said, that is if your salary is Chinese. If you have swedish salary it’s the opposite. Then Chinese beer in china is VERY expensive. \
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This is why:\
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- In Sweden a normal guy earns about 10000RMB after tax.\
- In China a normal guy earns about 1000RMB (no tax)\
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So a swed earns 10 times what a chinese does. So for a swed to understand the chinese situation he needs to multiply all prices in china with 10 to know what the price is to a chinese person. \
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Beer in China cost about 10RMB (in a bar) \
Beer in Sweden cost 40RMB (in a bar)\
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If the swedish beer had a chinese price it would cost 100RMB. More then double the price today. But to buy a beer in china with a swedish price would be very cheap. 4RMB. \
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Some small examples:\
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China:\
BigMac o Co = 17RMB\
package of noodles = 2RMB\
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Sweden:\
BigMac o Co = 39RMB\
Package of noodles = 2RMB\
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Get the picture? Think about buying a nice car here. A Volvo S40 for 250 000RMB. Ridiculous for a normal chinese. That would be 2.5 million RMB. Or a new Digital camera, a Sigma SD10: 10000RMB that would be 100 000RMB compared. \
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China is expensive. But if your salery is swedish AND you live in China THEN you’re lucky! Consider yourself rich!\
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Arto, chef at Nordica
Copyright Carl Rytterfalk.
Maria All\’8en, visitor at Nordica
Copyright Carl Rytterfalk.
Thomas Edenholm, friend from Sweden.
Copyright Carl Rytterfalk.
Playing with ONE light
With inspiration from the One Campaign I bought a very light, light setup. I’ve been thinking about this light for many years but never had a light that worked. (too wide, too big or too strong.. most of the time too clumsy) \
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I use two small 500w halogen lights put together, nothing else except a stand that is hung from another stand so that I can take pictures without getting anything unwanted (stand, cables etc) in the picture. This also works great for filming, thread above shows what it looks like. \
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One problem using halogen this way (500W x 2 = 1000W) is heat. I don’t use any makeup for my subjects but I think I should. It’s too much sweat after just a short while. And people have a problem to look at me because of the strong light just above the camera.\
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Camera used: Sigma SD10\
Lens used: Sigma 24-60 2.8 EX\
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As always. Please look at these with a monitor showing gamma 1.8. If you’re using a PC they are way too dark. Get a mac!\
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White skin!\
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With my brother around (now gone again) questions that I stopped thinking about appear once more. For example why do people walk around with umbrellas in bright sunlight? \
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It\’d5s a rather strange phenomenon if you consider that people in the country where I come from do pretty much the opposite. In China everything is about getting as white skin as possible. Lotions and other skincare products often said to whiten your skin and people use them as crazy\
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Origin to the Chinese way is about wealth. The richer you where the more you could stay indoors and your skin of course didn\’d5t get as much sun as people on the field. This was true in Europe too, in the old days. \
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When asking an everyday Chinese she says it look cleaner. \
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But still, aint it quite fun that the grass is always greener somewhere else?! I can tell you one thing and that is that my own hysteria about my skin color is pretty cool now. Why look browner when nobody cares?\
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New portrait setup\
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Now off and by a D70s to a passing by friend. My brother is gone also. And a new light setup for portraiture is done. Will show you soon what the result looks like.\
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To go out there far-far-too-far out on the outside of Kunming, that would take away five hours from me and my brother. I decided to sign up again next week. My brother and his girlfriend can’t communicate in town, and they’re only staying for a week. Why should I let a driving license take away so much precious time? After all life is short and I better take good care of them.. them.. right?! :D\
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I’m so good! I’m SO good. Truth is that I didn’t check my exam paper carefully enough. We (me and Linn) remembered it was around 14-15:00 in the afternoon. Where we got that I have no idea, maybe somebody from the place out-in-the-bush said something tricky. Anyways I woke up yesterday feeling good about doing the test. At about 9:30 I decided to take a look at the paper they given me. Test time: 8:30. Sometimes stupid* is my middle name.\
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I felt not a little *. After talking about it I felt pretty sure it was for the best. Instead of going there my brother bought a DV camera (that he decided on earlier) a Panasonic NV GS400. Something I should ad in all this is the price of that beast. In Sweden we’d pay about $1600 and here $850 USD. Isn’t that SICK? \
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Now I have to waken them up. BREAKFAST!\
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He’s here! My brother has finally arrived with his beautiful girlfriend! We’re soon going to watch a movie so I have no time to write much. But atleast I can give you two photos from the airport! We’ve had a great time so far.\
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Me and my dear brother.
Copyright Carl Rytterfalk.
Btw, the movie we wanted to see was Alone in the dark with Christian Slater. Before starting we wanted to know what IMDb had to say about it. It was rated 2.2 which is probably the lowest grade I ever seen. \
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So we skipped it and moved on to the next movie. Back to Gaya. An computer animated, none hollywood movie that I heard was very well made. We started to look at it only to find that it was dubbed to french. We could of course listen to the chinese version but neither was an alternative. \
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Next up was Madagascar. Shrek was a really nice movie with a lot of good humor. So why not try this one?! But.. As often with new movies bought in chinese movie stores it was yet again a bad version. After three seconds we trashed it and..\
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So we moved on to the next movie. War of the worlds. This was a theater filmed version of not too bad quality so be decided to give it a try. We all agreed that the movie was very good until the end was near. Then.. well. Take a look. What do you think?\
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Now it’s time for bed and such things. My electric racket lies beside me ready to kill some evil insects. Good night.\
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Today it’s raining. As it did yesterday and the day before that.\
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To take photos in times like these, a fast lens is a big advantage. Sigma is about to release a new, to me fantastic lens named “Sigma 30mm F1.4 EX DC HSM” and initial Canon owners have taken their pictures with very good result. (the Canon mount was released first. Nikon mount scheduled for Tuesday (12th of July) Sigma mount a little later. \
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\’a5 Thanks to Date Junichi: Sigma 30mm F1.4 initial tests on Japanese site. Link brought by Staffan Berggren.
\’a5 Sigma 30mm f1.4 vs Canon 35mm f2 @ www.whichlens.com
\’a5 Photozine magazine test | NEW!
Sigma 30mm F1.4 EX DC HSM
Copyright Sigma.
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On my camera, A sigma SD10/SD9 with a crop factor of x1.7 this lens would become a 50mm f1.4 lens. (30mm has to be multiplied with 1.7. The result is 51mm). Shooting people as I am most of the time this is almost a dream coming true. a 50mm lens is a perfect combination of reach and stability. \
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Article about Focal Length Multiplier on Dpreview\
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To have longer focal length would mean that you have to be steadier. I might have big feet but I quite often find myself to be a little to shaky for rainy days. And for studio use it’s just perfect! My room is small meaning I don’t have to find my self squeezed to the wall to get the shot I want. (of course I can use one of my wide zoom, but I like primes.. (prime = fix focal lens = not a zoom) And there is something very pleasing almost magical over a prime image.\
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One thing that a lot of people overlook is bokeh. If you look at images from a very cheap lens and then look at images from a very expensive lens chances are that you by looking at the bokeh can see witch one is witch. The out of focus blur, the part of the image that is not in focus, what does it look like? Is it still sharp and blurry? is it smooth as silk, is it strange artifacts showing up around light etc? \
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Luminous-landscape article about bokeh\
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So what about bokeh on this new lens? Well, to my eyes, it’s VERY nice. The problem for a lens maker is that getting perfect sharpness/perfect lens isn’t the same as getting pleasing bokeh. The hard part is to find an artistic balance between sharpness and blur. Initial images shows that they done a great not to say fantastic in this regard.\
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I’ll be back when I know more about this wet dream of mine. Now I need some breakfast. I have to run thru water and rain to get to my little restaurant that serves my morning rice noodles.
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Sigma 30mm F1.4 EX DC HSM
Copyright Date Junichi.
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Sigma SD9 - Nikon 50 1.4
Underprivileged..
Originally uploaded by rytterfalk.
Outside places where people with enough money strives you often find unfortunate children like these two. They often have a written note beside them telling their story, often a heartbreaking story about deceased parents and nowhere to go. Their only hope is to find some support from people passing by. It\’d5s a true tragedy and it\’d5s really hard to walk by. They’re not many, some organizations are working hard to get kids off the streets, often with local volunteers or from other countries.\
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Feel free to comment, maybe you have ideas about what to do, how to help?\
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I have no organization behind me but maybe I can do something more then just talk. (My Chinese is still not good enough I sometimes use a translator.) I want so much to give them some hope. Whatever reason, this IS no life for anybody.\
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There are organizations that gives shelter to kids, if they at the same time becomes beggars for their protectors, owner. There is many stories about this, about parents that brakes their kids bones and the more terrible they look the more income they bring. I know very little about the truth about all this. I just see them and I know some of them and their stories are often reliable and about a born handicap. Rarely mind related.\
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If you’re Chinese and read about this, please feel free to comment. Maybe you have a story to share?\
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Shangri-la in northern Yunnan is originated from a novel, Lost Horizon written by the British writer James Hilton in 1933. It\’d5s described as a mystical, harmonious valley somewhere near the Himalaya. Often referred to as a paradise, and a place of peace, happiness and rest. An Utopia. \
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Some ISO1600 shots from that
evening.
Sigma SD10 50MM EX
Copyright Carl Rytterfalk.
This utopia is about 12h with buss from Kunming. It isn\’d5t that far in reality but roads aren\’d5t super nice if I put it that way. Shangri-la is a beautiful place, mystical, harmonious plateau with a lot of drunken citizen every night. It\’d5s so bad that driving nighttime or late evening is seen as something you just don\’d5t do as a visitor. You let local people do that. They drink a lot! And I mean a lot. \
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I have some friends, some local friends that I by mistake meet in Kunming. Those friends of course wanted to eat dinner to enhance and deeper our friendship. They brought some friends too and soon we ate great food and drank nice local rice wine. \
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If a local guy wants to drink a cup with you you\’d5re supposed to drink with him. Not a zip, but the whole glass. Glasses aren\’d5t very big but when something has about 52% of alcohol inside then size really doesn\’d5t matter. If you don\’d5t they are all VERY confused about your friendship and you really do act like something the cat dragged in. \
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Everybody wants to be your friend. Everybody wants YOU to be his friend. So drinking never ends. It\’d5s tough. Very tough.\
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This is the first part of my Shangri-la story. I was there for 10 days, traveling around to many different places and bit by piece I\’d5ll make you understand more and more about this mystical place.\
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Sigma 50mm EX
Tattooed Minority women
Copyright Carl Rytterfalk.
Cleaning my room to some Ono Lisa songs.. I don’t think my brother would bother, but he have this girl.. hmm.. How much should I do? And 20:00 tonight I am attending a English Corner that I just have to attend. So much to learn. (culture and such things)\
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The Image to the right is from a trip I did some time ago to another place also called “shangri-la” they want it to be the real one. Mountains, ravines, majestic views and mountains with glacier tops. Most people in this part are Christians and belongs Lizu minority group.
To find this lady I had to walk far up in the mountains, and I had to pay her 50RMB to get the picture. She was not a Lizu and on the question why she had a tattoo she said, - I did it when I was young for fun. So much for walking all that way. Anyways. I’ll post some more from her later. She had some extraordinary hands. Working hard as she was/is.\
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Back to cleaning.. I chose this picture, hey look at her face! She needs some cleaning too!\
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