Arty Dafen

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Hello!

We went to an area in Shenzhen called Dafen today - it's a really cool art district with a gazillion (I counted them) galleries for oil painters. It's awesome, basically an art factory - which sounds less romantic than it should - but some of the stuff is really really good. There was enough there to keep us going through the whole afternoon - lots and lots of walking but it was a really nice area. All the streets look the way you imagine they should, crowded and narrow, and even though it's in a grid there are little alleyways that stray off the main roads. There was one alleyway that we walked down that opened up into a bit of a bigger square where some guys had laid out a massive painting - it would have been at least 5 metres long and 2 metres high. I'm not quite sure how it works, I think it's a bit dodgy because it looks like it was printed out from a printer and they were just painting over the top of it, but whatever it was it looked impressive. The highlight of course was when Liam wasn't watching where he was walking and just walked right over the top of it...They either didn't mind or we ran so quick they couldn't catch us, but the good news is we didn't have to buy some half-competed epic painting.

We also saw these two guys with a bag full of massive hornets each. Kate asked them what they were but couldn't quite work out the answer, best we can work out they use them to make some sort of alcoholic drink. I tried googling it (Binging it actually, no Google in China, I hope Binging never becomes a verb), if it's the same thing they add the wasps to alcohol and the toxins from the wasps leech into the alcohol over a few months and then it tastes...awful...but it's really good for you apparently. The wasps are toxic enough to kill you though so it's not super awesome that they were just sitting on the street with a bag of them!

An then pizza for dinner 'cos we're not yet sufficiently immersed :-)

And then off to Macau tomorrow for a few days, then Hong Kong, hopefully the wi-fi is ok there.

So that's today!

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Photos

Tiny Gallery
There were a few galleries like this along one strip, under each set of stairs to the upstairs gallery they'd opened up these tiny galleries the guys paint in and give you dirty looks if you take photos without permission...

Old building
One of the few very old buildings. You had to pay to go into this gallery.
So we did not.

Dafen Street #2
Obligatory shot of the wiring

Big paintbrush
I mean, really big.