China Town

NEX-5 (21mm, f/6.3, 1/125 sec, ISO200)

I always love to visit Chinatowns. I have been to Chinatown in Vancouver or the more attractive version in Victoria on Vancouver Island. I like to go there for two reasons.

First: I love these exotic places. They are a completely different world just a few blocks away right inside an ordinary town. Sorry San Francisco, Vancouver or Victoria! These are and especially the first two are far away from being ordinary. Great places to visit and I think also great places to live. But to take the bus or just walk a couple of blocks and enter  a different world is awesome. I would love to have that in Vienna. A big Chinatown and the sea please, Sir. This would make Vienna the greatest city on earth. Global warming could make the sea close by the city a reality but I’m not very optimistic that there will be a Chinatown in Vienna soon.

NEX-5 (18mm, f/4, 1/30 sec, ISO200)

Second: Chinatowns are great places for shopping and dining. We love the shops with all the stuff and sometimes they sell magical things. Such a shop has enough on offer to keep you busy for one to two hours. You really have to take care not to spend a substantial part of your precious vacation time there. This time we got a wonderful tissue box cover made from very fancy looking fabric. We got a second one as a gift for our friends too. The perfect gift: Light, flat and small enough to fit in overloaded travel bags easily.

We also got some very small cats made of fine bone the size of a finger nail. To avoid that the got lost we put them in a small wishing boxes we bought somewhere on the road. They say you should write your wish on a small piece of paper and place it in the box. Then simply put the box on your bedside locker and wait. We did not do that but simply forgot about the small cats in the box. Six months later of neighbors cat visited us on our patio the first time and decided that we are his new family.

Inspired by that impressive result I put some money in the box but it seems that it’s not made for such profane goods.

NEX-5 (18mm, f/7.1, 1/400 sec, ISO200)

NEX-5 (16mm, f/6.3, 1/500 sec, ISO200)

NEX-5 (16mm, f/3.2, 1/30 sec, ISO200)

NEX-5 (16mm, f/8, 1/320 sec, ISO200)

NEX-5 (16mm, f/8, 1/80 sec, ISO400)

And there is the food of course. If you travel in the Western parts of the USA especially on the country side good food is hard to get. I’m talking about both: restaurants and food in supermarkets. It’s not a problem in urban areas but on the country side you are out of luck. After two weeks of fast food we were delighted to discover Panda Express. I know that is fast food too but it is Chinese ( well somehow ) and it comes with rice and you get fresh vegetables too. What a discovery. Don’t get me wrong: I love burger and in the US you can can very good ones but after 2 weeks you can’t stand it anymore.

So every time we are in a big city that has a Chinatown we go there for food. So this is todays travel top tip: Eat fast food when traveling in the US or Canada to safe time and money but go to Asian restaurants when you are in a bigger city.

No I did not eat the bird in the last image though I was tempted. By the way: All images of San Francisco were shot with the 16mm lens ( 24mm equ. ) on the NEX 5. This lens is better than all the reviews make you believe or I got a good copy but I don’t believe in big variations if something is assembled by machines. Maybe I’m less critical but I always stopped the lens down to get the corners sharp.