Last year I wanted to start the popular Flickr “365″ project which is essentially taking a photo of yourself every day for an entire year. There have been some absolutely fantastic photos taken by friends in their own 365 projects which I found very inspiring. Some of my favorites includes:

My motivation was to push me to take more photos and to encourage my creative juices to flow. However, after being so busy with work and other non-photography related things, there is no way I’d be able to do this for an entire year and still get the quality photographs I’d want to capture.

Instead, I’m starting the alternate project, called 52 weeks which is essentially the same thing except you post a photo once a week. I officially started 52 Weeks last week, with a photo I took while in Beijing.

Here is Week 1 of 52 weeks:

You’ll be able to track all my photos for this 52 weeks project with the 52weeks tag on Flickr.

P.S. - I fully reserve the right to ditch 52 weeks in favor of 365 at any point this year

I took yesterday off to do some sight-seeing as I wind my trip down. I made a trip to the Great Wall to the Badaling section followed by a trip to the famous Summer Palace.

I initally wanted to go to the Simatai section since it’s supposed to be less touristy and a better hike, but this time of year I was strongly advised to avoid it since I would be iced over and I’d need spikes to ensure I didn’t fall.  I think not.  So I opted for the more touristy Badaling and hired a tour guide to take me to the wall.  We first walked up the south section of the wall to the highest point, Hero Tower, and then turned around. She expected that I was done, but I wanted to also walk up the south end, and I had to leave her behind part way down the walk of the south side since she was “too exhausted to walk any more”.  So my 300 RMB guide was left sitting at one section while I continued up the south side myself.  At least she took my picture a few times before we got back to the car to justify her price. Otherwise I would have paid $40 US for a walking paperweight.

I headed to the Summer Palace afterwards to try to get the sightseeing done and ready for sunset, since I’ve heard such great things about that area.  When I arrived I was disappointed to see 2 things that destroyed my picture taking dream.  First, the infamous Beijing pollution haze set in during my drive from Badaling which completely destroys any landscape/scenic photos for me.  Second, the famous Summer Palace lake was complete frozen over. Visions of the sunset reflecting in the water were replaced by locals trying to ice fish by poking the ice with long wooden sticks.  Genius.

That night, I headed over to Sachin and Bei-jing’s house for dinner (yes, her name is Bei-jing so it’s a bit confusing).  They have condo on the east-end of Beijing in a fabulous complex. They’re renting their condo from a local artist, and the layout was utterly amazing and no words can do it justice.  Let’s just say it was a dream come true for me — open floorplan, exposed brick and lots of wall space for art.  Drooool….

We had a great dinner and caught up on old times since Sachin and I used to work together quite a few years ago on the Passport team.  It was great to spend an evening not struggling with English to Mandarin translations and to enjoy a good home-cooked meal.  I was truly thankful to them for a wonderful evening; nothing beats a great meal with great friends.