Kalinga - Part I - Scenery

It was only for two days, but it felt timeless. 

From Tuguegarao, a town in the far northeast of Luzon, a group of nine of us left at the crack of dawn for the six-hour drive southwest across the Cordillera Mountains into the landlocked province of Kalinga. 

Our destination was a small mountain village called Buscalan. To get there we passed through some stunning scenery.

 Chico River

The final 1.5 hours of the trip were traversed on foot, down and up mountain sides, often at a 45 degree incline. Where the road ended we were met by "porters" - five women of the village, mothers of three to six children each! They nimbly carried our heavy bags and boxes of gifts for the villagers; while many of us, the visitors, unaccustomed to hiking at these heights, huffed and puffed our way up.

There were a number of spots along the way where I struggled with my vertigo, especially crossing this narrow bridge with no railings. Pity the photo does not fully show the long drop! 

[More bridges can be found at Sunday Bridges.]

 Kalinga, 2012

I link this post with Scenic Sunday. Stay tuned for Part II.

Ponte and Castel Sant'Angelo

This is a section of the beautiful Ponte Sant'Angelo in Rome spanning the Tiber River.

Rome, 2007

Emperor Hadrian had this bridge built in 134 AD to give access from the city center to his grand mausoleum. The ten Bernini-designed angels lining the bridge were added much later, in the 17th century (unfortunately I did not cross over to get close ups of them, but images can easily be found online).

About Hadrian's tomb, from Wikipedia:

The tomb of the Roman emperor Hadrian, also called Hadrian's mole, was erected on the right bank of the Tiber, between 135 AD and 139 AD. Originally the mausoleum was a decorated cylinder, with a garden top and golden quadriga. Hadrian's ashes were placed here a year after his death in Baiae in 138 AD, together with those of his wife Sabina, and his first adopted son, Lucius Aelius, who also died in 138 AD. Following this, the remains of succeeding emperors were also placed here, the last recorded deposition being Caracalla in 217 AD. The urns containing these ashes were probably placed in what is now known as the Treasury room deep within the building.

More about Castel Sant'Angelo from Wikipedia:

Legend holds that the Archangel Michael appeared atop the mausoleum, sheathing his sword as a sign of the end of the plague of 590, thus lending the castle its present name.

Today the building is a museum.

My images today are offered to the blog-hop communities of Weekend Reflections, Sunday Bridges and Taphophile Tragics.

Countryside Scenes and a Bridge in Taishan

On a balmy early evening about a month ago we drove some kilometers south from Kaiping and crossed a little ways into the county of Taishan (see map at end of post). Our mission was to have dinner in an unassuming countryside restaurant (read: converted private home; no name, no address, no license) that had become popular merely by word-of-mouth.

While the others ordered our meal - all from live and fresh farm ingredients - I grabbed my camera and walked down a path off the paved country road. Want to come along? You may like the images better enlarged.

I crossed the bridge to find farmers working in a rice paddy and vegetable field, although it was quite late in the day.

Turning back, I see both sky and river showing off soft pale pastels.

Not long after, the sun painted the sky this rare (for Guangdong) brilliant orange for me.

Taishan, 2012

Taishan, which I've always called the Cantonese Toisan, is a county-level city. You can see most of its borders in pink on this map below, and we didn't drive far into it this evening. The tip of the arrow marks the dinner spot.

Taishan is the place of origin for many of the Chinese who migrated to California to work as contract laborers during the Gold Rush, then later to work on the Pacific Raiway. The Taishanese were among the many migrants from four counties (Kaiping, Enping, Taishan and Xinhui) who established the Chinatowns in North America. Until as late as the 1980s, when more Mandarin-speaking Taiwanese and Cantonese-speaking Hong Kong people started to emigrate to North America, the languages I most heard spoken in Chinatowns were the dialects from this region.

I am linking this post with the blogging communities at Skywatch Friday, Weekend Reflections, Sunday Bridges and Scenic Sunday.

Hopsan (Iron) Bridge in Kaiping

Hopsan (Iron) Bridge, located at the border between Bahop and Hinkong townships in Kaiping, was built in 1934.

Kaiping, 2011

Several years earlier, Wong Le Yung, a Kaiping student studying in Japan, started a fund raising campaign to build this bridge. By 1934, he raised 16,200 silver dollars. With a local design, they bought steel from Germany to build this iron truss bridge without pillar supports, a great architectural achievement here at the time.

The length of the bridge is 67 meters and the width 9.5 meters.

Stories were told that the Japanese tried to bomb the bridge to stop the movements of the anti-Japanese guerillas during the Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945), but their planes failed to find the bridge.

I am not clear whether the locks were built at the same tme, but my guess would be that they were a more recent addition.

A plaque on this tower says that the local government declared the Hopsan Bridge a heritage site in 1983. This is my contribution to Sunday Bridges.

The view from the bridge overlooks some run-down factory buildings I'd guess to be from the 1960s, except for that brand new blue roof. With the soft light of the setting sun, it gave me my shot for Weekend Reflections.

Meet the Dragon Bridge

Gently floating down the pristine Yulong River on bamboo rafts, surrounded by the romantic karst hills of Guangxi (also shown here and here) and shrouded in a soft mist, we passed under the charming 600-year-old Yulong "Meet the Dragon" Bridge.

 Guangxi, 2007

Local legend has it that a dragon from the East Sea came by and was so enthralled by the stunning scenery that he decided to stay. Not content to move around only at night, he was spotted by the villagers, who thereafter called the river Yulong, meaning meet the dragon.

This ancient single arch stone bridge is linked with the blogging communities at Weekend Reflections and Sunday Bridges.

::::::

UPDATE: I am raising funds to get TWO children OUT of the charcoal factories in the Manila squatter community of Ulingan and INTO school.

I am thrilled that with the contributions of my fellow bloggers and friends I reached my first goal of sponsoring one child to school. I've raised the goal to TWO scholarships.

If you care to help too, chip in $5, $10, $20 or whatever you can in the secure CHIP IN form on the top of my right sidebar. 

I posted a longer introduction a few days ago.

Project PEARLS: Peace, Education, Aspiration, Respect, Love, Smile

Kaiping Bridge

For Sunday Bridges I want to give you a better view of the bridge in yesterday's reflection shot.

Kaiping, 2012

Unfortunately, other than its name, I know nothing about Kaiping Bridge except that it spans the Tanjiang River, which you can see here is rather wide.

Oh, I also know that at night the bridge puts on an amazing light show. When we walked past it last night, I could swear they've added even more lights than when I posted it earlier.

I took these three photographs yesterday. It's hard to tell when the sky is still foggy, but it was a balmy, sunny spring day. 

Again, what is interesting about these boats is that they are made of molded concrete.

Two Bridges in Dumaguete

The sky was already dimming by the time we reached the Banica River flowing through Dumaguete just over a week ago, December 28, so the light was not ideal for photography. Nonetheless, I thought these images of two of the four bridges spanning the river were an interesting entry for Sunday Bridges.

Perhaps you've read or heard about the devastating floods caused by tropical Sendong’s (Washi) fury in the southern parts of the Philippines earlier in December. Dumaguete was one of the towns affected. The mayor has applied for funding for the construction of four new bridges across this river to replace the spillways that had overflowed and were partly damaged when the typhoon caused the river to overflow.

It amazes me how calm the scene looks now, just a couple of weeks after the storm.

Dumaguete, 2011

Strolling Along the Sea in Negros Oriental

Last week my honey and I joined a group of good friends for a few days of fun and laughter at a resort on the tip of Negros Oriental, about an hour's drive from the university town of Dumaguete.

Join me here for a little stroll along the beautiful sea. The boardwalk is concrete and has seen better days, but the camera did not mind that.

Negros Oriental, 2011

I am linking this post with the blogging communities at Sunday Bridges, Scenic Sunday, Macro Monday and Mosaic Monday.

HaPpY hApPy NeW yEaR!!