Aces High Bulletin Board

General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: eagl on October 15, 2006, 06:24:44 PM

Title: China trip photo
Post by: eagl on October 15, 2006, 06:24:44 PM: Pic from my recent trip to China. I have 2.2 gig worth of shots including 1.6 gig from my Nikon D50. This is the first one I retouched, a standard great wall shot you get when you hand your $700 camera to a random stranger and ask them to take a photo that you hope comes out even remotely interesting. It isn't too bad really, just not particularly well composed that's all.

(http://static.flickr.com/117/270270326_15fd62b33b_b.jpg)

I'll have this and any other shots I like hosted here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/seanlong/

There's only one photo there right now, but I'll get to it :)
Title: China trip photo
Post by: DiabloTX on October 15, 2006, 06:49:43 PM: How was the Chinese food? Hehehe

Nice pic. When I get a change I'll check the rest out.

Speaking of pics, did you get a change to check out my "My New Ride pt II The Pics" thread? I may have posted it when you were in China.

Tell us more about the trip.
Title: China trip photo
Post by: Gunthr on October 15, 2006, 06:53:13 PM: sheesh, don't be so hard on it, the subject matter is outstanding. To me, the photo is outstanding too. I'm looking forward to seeing the rest...
Title: China trip photo
Post by: eagl on October 15, 2006, 07:04:15 PM: Diablo,

I went back and looked it up. Nice ride. Nice car too ;)
Title: China trip photo
Post by: Regular on October 15, 2006, 08:46:12 PM: One Night in Chyna.
Title: China trip photo
Post by: RAIDER14 on October 15, 2006, 11:57:44 PM: is there a gift shop?:D
Title: China trip photo
Post by: Debonair on October 16, 2006, 12:01:03 AM: W0W!!!:O :O that wall OWNS!!!11:O :O
Title: China trip photo
Post by: RAIDER14 on October 16, 2006, 12:06:20 AM: The Great Wall (http://youtube.com/watch?v=6ER7ljTjqTk&mode=related&search=)
Title: China trip photo
Post by: nirvana on October 16, 2006, 12:16:39 AM: What are the badges for?
Title: China trip photo
Post by: Rolex on October 16, 2006, 12:34:32 AM: Must have been part of an organized tour.

Did you notice your shadow buddies they arranged for you when your visa application indicated you're in the US military? In the old days, there were usually two of them, and one was always within eyesight or the hotel lobby when you left each day.
Title: China trip photo
Post by: Nilsen on October 16, 2006, 09:47:08 AM: Nice picture eagl. Looking forward to the rest of them.
Title: China trip photo
Post by: Urchin on October 16, 2006, 10:24:34 AM: Yea, how did that work Eagl?

Did it matter that you are USAF? Or were you just another tourist to them?

I think it would be fascinating to visit China someday... I have a tough time wrapping my mind around the fact that they've been around in a "civilization" for more than 6000 years. That is just amazing to me.
Title: China trip photo
Post by: eagl on October 16, 2006, 10:30:17 PM: I had no problems with "supervision", although I assume my room was searched daily and monitored. We were on a group visa with a bunch of other military members and the tour guide was trained/licensed by the Chinese govt, so again I assume we were monitored. The thing is, even though both as a group and as individuals we were potentially interesting from a surveilance point of view, China has opened up so much that there are probably far too many interesting visitors to really spend as much time on each one as they used to.

That said, our photographer insisted on not being able to speak much english and he somehow managed to find a seat on the bus near 2 majors, and he "slept" most of the time, but in general we hate talking shop during our free time even when in the states so it certainly wasn't too hard avoiding sensitive topics. If he was taking notes, the most he got was some griping about how we hate the fact that they're firing all the finance officers so now I have to be an expert on thousands of rules regarding finance even though throughout history, military finance in every single armed force the world has ever seen has required carefully trained administrative staffs to keep the average military member from screwing it up. If they're interested in that sort of crap, all they need to do to satisfy their curiosity is visit the air force personnel center website and take a peek at the force shaping news, and request a copy of the budget from the US govt publishing office. Or subscribe to the AF times and aviation week...

Anyhow, once you get over the fact that you're going to be monitored potentially 24/7 and the only way to avoid it is to simply not go on the trip, it's easy to just accept it and enjoy the vacation. The only concession I made the entire trip was I took zero electronic devices with me on the trip except for my cameras, and both my cameras and all recordable media were in my posession for the entire trip without exception. I even carried my camera battery charger with me. Saved me a trip to the cop shop to get my stuff x-rayed for bugs after returning home.
Title: China trip photo
Post by: xrtoronto on October 16, 2006, 10:46:49 PM: very nice Eagl.

must have been a great trip!

look forward to viewing the rest of them, thx.

ps: was that wall built to keep people in or keep people out? *shrugs*
Title: China trip photo
Post by: xrtoronto on October 16, 2006, 10:47:53 PM: Trivia:

Great Wall is the only man made object veiwable from orbit!:cool:
Title: China trip photo
Post by: ByeBye on October 16, 2006, 10:55:27 PM: Quote
Originally posted by xrtoronto
Trivia:

Great Wall is the only man made object veiwable from orbit!:cool:

not true.
Title: China trip photo
Post by: Regular on October 16, 2006, 11:55:51 PM: Quote
Originally posted by ByeBye
not true.
Title: China trip photo
Post by: Debonair on October 17, 2006, 12:33:18 AM: dolly parton's boobs also
Title: China trip photo
Post by: eagl on October 17, 2006, 07:07:01 AM: The wall was designed to keep people OUT. Expensive but effective, nobody seems to be speaking Mexican in China...