I was in Montreal last Monday visiting my friend and very talented musician Shen Qi. I had the opportunity to take a few pictures which I will share with you. Please visit my picture albums.

Qi plays the erhu (Chinise violin) at the Montreal Botanical Garden's Chinese garden. You can catch her playing every day from 5 pm.

At this time of year you can enjoy the The Magic of Lanterns which celebrates a long during Chinese tradition of using decorative silk lanterns to brighten and illuminate festivities.

The Chinese garden is open until 9pm from September 7 to October 31 for the occasion.

Enjoy

John

This is the Shen Qi Banner and associated code. This is a temporary thing as the banner will be setup under Shen Qi's account in late fall.

copy the code from the text box into your profile and it will appear on your site.

:)

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I rarely write about the music I listen to, as I can't always explain in words why I like a piece of music, its more of an emotional thing for me, but here is my attempt to write a review I posted on cdbaby.com for Wei Xiao Dong's CD Erhu Solo:

5 Stars

Masterfully played erhu
Reviewer: John J<
I first discovered Wei Xiao Dong on myspace by chance.I listened to the sample songs available on her site. I was so taken by her playing, I ordered the Erhu Solo CD. I am new to Chinese traditional music, but if you listen to classical music you will appreciate this CD. The selection of songs is very good, giving us the opportunity to listen to Ms. Wei skilfully play beautiful melodies in very expressive, sensitive and at times playful ways and with great agility. The accompanying musicians and orchestra give a very good performance supporting Ms. Wei. I highly recommend this CD.

Hi everyone,

I just posted pictures from the Shen Qi concert.

The performance was just great. If you haven't yet listened to her music, you must stop by her myspace page and give her a listen, her playing is simply sublime.

Enjoy the pics and the music !

Have a great day!

J<

This is pretty fun... give it a try.
You are presented a series of 12 pictures, pick the photo that you would pick given the headline at the top. Keep going to find out what your visual DNA profile is.

Enjoy!

Test Your Visual DNA

J<

You know that little space on your MySpace home page... the Cool New People space. Yes, that's the one! Well I came across a young photographer who has a nice collection of photos, and you can even buy prints online if you like. Her name is Sarah Underwood, she's a student at University of Lethbridge, Alberta. She has beautiful photos, be it fauna, flowers or landscapes and she is especially fond of horses. Drop by her site when you have a minute.

Sarah Underwood's Home Page

Enjoy!

J<

A few months ago a friend forwarded me a link to some snow sculpture photos from Harbin. I had never heard of Harbin but found out its north of Beijing. The photos are all well commented. Its a very nicely done web site. But that's only the tip of the iceberg, so to speak. The photographer, R. Todd King, has been in China quite a few times and has many interesting photo presentations. Give it a glance, I'm sure you will find this interesting too.

Here are the links:

The Harbin Snow Sculpture Art Fair 2007

R. Todd King's Home Page

Enjoy

J<