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.

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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.

Tanjiang River Houseboats Reflected

These are houseboats anchored on Tanjiang River as it runs through Kaiping. What makes these houseboats different is that they are made of concrete, not wood or steel.

I am back in Kaiping now; however the photo was taken just before Chinese New Year when auspicious red couplets were posted on entryways to homes everywhere (more on that topic a few days ago).

Kaiping, 2012

I'm linking with reflection seekers at Weekend Reflections.

The bridge behind them is the same one I showed at night all lit up here.

Binondo Bridge

The Binondo Bridge spans the Pasig River close to where it flows into the port in Manila Bay.

 Manila, 2011

Linking with bridges from around the world at Sunday Bridges.

A Cantilever Bridge Between Two States

This is the Lewis and Clark Bridge seen from the Oregon side going over the Columbia River to Washington. When it was built in 1930, it was the longest (nearly 1.6 mi/2.5 km) and the highest cantilever bridge in the USA. Until 1947 it was a privately owned toll bridge.

 Oregon, 2010

There is a soft view of Mount St Helens in the back, better seen when my photo is enlarged.

This bridge is posted for Louis' Sunday Bridges. Louis and others may be interested to know that this bridge was designed by Joseph Strauss, engineer of the Golden Gate Bridge.

On a personal note, I took this photo last January on our drive to Astoria from Portland where I had landed earlier in the day and my friend tapirgal/Sheryl had fetched me.  Mutual blogging friends may wish to know that she is currently with a close friend who recently suffered a heart attack and he is now on the mend. She will be back blogging with us as soon as she can.

[SkyWatch] Provincial backwater?

Or tropical paradise?

Last weekend, driving along a pretty country road in Oriental Mindoro (introduced here), it appeared as if pure fluffy clouds were reaching down to greet us warmly.

Mindoro, 2010

We reached a small bridge and I asked our driver to stop so we could momentarily relish the river scene.

It was a perfect weekend day for a riverside family picnic.

Pity we didn't have time to join them. It looked pretty idyllic to me.

Skywatch Friday and Sunday Bridges are the memes for this post.

The Finest Scenery under Heaven

Generations of Chinese poets and painters have called Guilin “the finest scenery under heaven.”

Traditional Chinese brush painting

During his visit to the area in 1979, Henry Kissinger, US Secretary of State at the time, commented: "Before l came here l thought the Chinese landscape paintings were but the romantic creation of painters, but now having seen the landscape… l realize they are realistic genuine portrayals." 

There isn't much that can surpass the serenity of softly floating down the Yulong (Meeting the Dragon) River on a simple bamboo raft (which you can see here) surrounded by magnificent limestone pinnacles veiled in a gentle mist… “merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream.”

Guangxi, 2007

This bridge with a lone bicyclist is posted for Louis la Vache's Sunday Bridges and Aisha's Scenic Sunday. The link will take you to links to other bloggers posting amazing bridges and scenes around the globe.

Drawbridges in Abcoude

Today a mere 20-minute train ride from the center of Amsterdam, and even less time by car from the international airport, is the small village of Abcoude. In times long gone by - think 9th to 15th C - it was a place where rich families from the big city had their second home, one with a small plot of land to grow their own flowers and vegetables. For me its importance lies in it being the home of a much-loved cousin and her two darling daughters.

This charming old Dutch village boasts three drawbridges: the Dorpsbrug over the Gein, and the Hulksbrug and Heinkuitenbrug over the Angstel. Here I post the two on the Angstel, but don't ask me which one is which... I didn't know when I took these photos that I would one day post for Louis la Vache's Sunday Bridges.

Abcoude, The Netherlands, 2008

View with the drawbridge going up:

This canoe can calmly be paddled under the lowered bridge:

A pleasant walk on that footpath along the Angstel gets us to the second, smaller drawbridge:

For more links to bridges, just click on the link. Click the photo for enlarged version.