Festival of lights in Hongkou at LuXun Park - Sept. 2012. A post long overdue!

The Shanghai Exposed Photography group got together for another fun night shoot at LuXun Park.  The park is about 25 minute cab ride ($5.00 USD) northeast from my apartment.



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The park was decorated with many lights/lanterns for the Autumn festival( Sept. 2012) which runs for three weeks.  Interestingly the highlight of the show was the porcelain plate dragon.  Which of course makes no sense as it's a light festival, but hey, need I remind you......this is China, a strange and unfathomable land at times. 

I bought my ticket, 50 RMB = $7.00 USD, and surged with the crowds into the park. 

What did I see as I was peaking over the heads of my Chinese companions?  The porcelain plate fiery dragon, who at times blew a little smoke out of his mouth.   How was I ever going to get close enough for a picture?  Sadly I never could.  But never fear there was more to see in the park!

I took the road less traveled to give my body a break from the jostling.  Not many light exhibits on this path but a nice quiet calm and no people!!!

This was a wonderful exhibit of.............. I am not sure.  Some place in France? Greece? Berlin?

A pretty peacock and the famous St. Basil's Cathedral in Russia to the right.  I did a little research about this as I have always wanted to go to see the Red Square and as I gazed on this colorful exhibit I wondered why was the church built with many towers that don't really match, what is the significance?

I reflected on the fact that in Venice when you go to Piazza St. Marco you will notice that St. Mark's Church is highly decorated with many different styles of columns and statuary which were all taken without permission from other countries as booty from one sort of occupation/massacre or another - ---ever hear of the holy Roman wars??  And so nary a Italian vessel returned from pillaging another country without bringing back a bring a column, capital or friezes, which had been taken from some ancient building, to add to the fabric of the basilica.   With this in mind I wondered about this fancy Russian Church, St. Basil's.

It seems that in the central market place of Moscow, now called the Red Square, a wooden church was built in the mid 1300's called the Trinity Church. (although some historians disagree, no church had been there before Ivan IV built one)

 In 1556 Ivan IV (a.k.a. Ivan the terrible)rebuilt the wooden church into the nice stone church it is today.  Subsequently additional churches were built alongside the main church as Tsar Ivan IV marked every victory of the Russo-Kazan War by erecting a wooden memorial church next to the walls of Trinity Church; by the end of his Astrakhan campaign, it was shrouded within a cluster of seven wooden churches.  How about that!    
 

I continued walking around and snapping pictures, practicing my night shooting skills.  What do you think of the soft yet vibrant colors not "blasted" out by a white flash of light.   I am really staring to get the hang of shooting at night.   I do have to say it is a lot of work if you do it manually,  although sometimes you can get the automatic part of the camera to do it too. 

Some more light exhibits.

I don't know what this is, but it sure is pretty.

Now if you look closely at the back of this picture you can see the snake like body of the dragon. No lights but lots of plates!

The 'plate snake' wound it's way through the park  and was really a clever design.

The beautiful red lanterns with the tiny blue fairy lights were my favorite.

A nice giant Buddha and the Eiffel Tower, perfect together.

Wandering through the park I saw these archways and decided to see where it would lead me.... a lovely lake with 'lotus lights'!

I wandered around for a couple of hours and enjoyed the cool evening air and colorful lights.

This was a funny exhibit a tree trunk face with parasol hair and people coming out of his ear!

And the exit gate, such pretty blue vases!