This Week in Photos

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Rickshaw drivers watch taxis pass by. With so many green-and-yellow cabs on the roads of Chengdu, the slower, pricier rickshaws seem to be dying a slow death.

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Hens going to market.

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Pigeons at market.

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An advertisement for a popular Chinese ice cream bar. The face on the specimen I bought was frowning at me.

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A woman sculpts glass figures along the market strip in the village of Luo Dai.

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In China, all public toilets — or “Water Closets” — are given a star rating, from **** — which ranks up there with the worst of the first world — to * — which is so frightening that even cockroaches wouldn’t dare enter. Although you wouldn’t think so from its exterior facade, this particular water closet scores **.

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My fluke flight to Singapore was the only plane departing from the international terminal of the Chengdu airport. It was eerie, seeing schedule boards with only one entry, corridors and concourses vacant and unlit. I wish I’d had more time to explore.

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Silhouettes dancing around the one open departure gate…

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…and the only plane on the apron.

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In all likelihood the last photo I will ever take of Chengdu.

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Laundry hanging out of apartment windows in Singapore. I had only twelve hours to enjoy the pleasures of the first world before we left by ferry for Indonesia. Arriving at 1:30am, I spent those hours wandering the airport, catching up with Will, and watching the long-awaited 300 in cinemas (our first film since Moscow).

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Cable cars leave Singapore for nearby Sentosa Island.

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Freighters in the waters near Singapore. ‘Scuse the dirty skies, my camera body needs a good cleaning…

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The view out our front window in Batam, Indonesia.

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Will reading “Everyday Indonesian” en route to Nagoya, the business centre of Batam.

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Workers at an Indonesian water bottling facility.

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Builders at the construction site of our hosts’ new home.

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Author

Austin Andrews is a Vancouver-based photojournalist and occasional filmmaker with a penchant for finding the fantastic in the everyday. Contact him at austin [at] disposablewords [dot] net

2 comments

  • There are no birds on Batam! All the rainforests have been cleared away for development! Angeline tells us there are kingfishers on the island but hasn’t seen one herself, at least not recently.

    I shall keep looking.

    (But I have a nice sunset stored up for next week…?)

    Reply

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