..here is the view from my hotel room...and as you can see, there are hardly any cars nor people on the streets at this hour......but its bright out there!!!.  having a couple of hours to spare....a stroll i the street would be fun i thought...quickly packed my gear and off i went...to the street of this little town in guangzhou...

.... i was greeted on the first turn round the block by a huge lion statue. one thing caught my eye was.....this liogon - breed of lion & dragon....statue was actually strangling another creature with its left paws!!! ...unique!! i told myself....as i cant read chinese and do not have anyone with me either, i couln't tell what the building behind this gateway statues was. i continued on with my little morning adventure...

...i came across this street with what looked like a street side hawking stalls ...all lined with large picnic umbrellas...its obviously some sort of a market street - i guess...

i decided to explore further as from past experiences, some markets do have interesting morning activities within...there were many pieces of garbage left strewn on the floor - probably from last nights's business. the perculiar market smell of the place confirmed its identity...

...as i walked deeper into the little street, i stumbled upon a tricycle. as you can see here, this is one of the common mode of goods transportation that i see around this little town. this tricycle was locked ...both the front and back wheels were well locked to the body..... not surprising in this part of the world where a three-wheeler like this may be a hot favorite!!!...

...the street leads into a narrow path leading into a wet market. a very familiar scene...the setting of the wet market is similar like what we see back home (singapore).  the perculiar wet market smell just lingers in the air as i walked quietly behind the man in the photo trying to get the most of the place into a picture.

the stalls are well lit and you can find colorful modernized sign postings - not like those wooden boards with painted words. the place looked rather run-down with badly cracked concrete floor with little half-dried puddles of water scattered everywhere....

...after spending a few minutes  there, i then realized that the man who was standing in front of me with his bicycle was actually looking at the lady from the vegetable store all the while - hmm...a love story about to begin???...well......i just left them alone and hurried out back to the streets again...

...as i stepped out towards the streets, i saw a few delivery men coming around to deliver the daily supplies to the market....after sitting along the sidewalk and observing the type of goods delivered ..... it seems that the larger and goods that may have been coming from  places further out in the villages were delivered by motorbike....where as for those readily available ones...they were normally coming in bicycles....from sources nearby...what d'ya think?....he...me and my assumptions....

...this would probably fit into my wife's mini-van at home...come-on these are skilled balancing act i thought..haha probably..no margin for a grand prix type of turn...i suppose...

...walking on out in the streets with my eyes opened wide, i saw something that i have always wanted to share with my family members......coal blocks...coal blocks that are commonly used here in china.  coal blocks are very common source of fuel for cooking and heating in home here in china.  i have seen people coming in tricycle selling coals while i was in tianjin.  the photo here shows a spent coal block.  the block comes in black blocks of coal and they would put the coal blocks as it is inot the stove where it would burn like those barbecue solid fuel.  once spent, the look like a block of dried sand....

.....here is the closest and best i could get to document the spent coal....the color that you see is as is.....i did not have the chance to take a ohoto f a fresh coal block but ....imagine that its black and thats how it looks like.. ..

...there are many redevelopment projects happening in the area and many old shops have been given a facelift.  wonder how they do it most efficiently......by letting their workers sleep on site..... ...

...one can see many buildings under renovation as there are some manjor global convention coming up in the city....they have greatly improved in the safety of their constructions...with use of proper scaffoldings as compared to the past...

...most of the old buildings are going through some sort of renovation to make the place better.  the government have spend lots of money to develop the city...

...while i was walking by the scaffoldings...i heard a loud rumbling diesel trucks slowing down by the roadside.....what looked like a zoo enclosure......hehe. upon close examination....i realised  what it was...a truck carrying pork....well...i guessed after it have arrived in the markets...it would robably be - "smoked pork"

...only about 300 metres from where i saw the construction area was a nice tall building with full metallic finish glass panels.  the building stands out from the crowd of older low lying buidings.  at the time the shot was taken, i could see many people on motor bikes passing by doing delivery of vegetables and other goods for the market.  it looks like a common scene here just after sunrise...

...time was running short as i had to head back to the hotel to head for work....so i decided...to do a "four way traffic junction" photography....here is a close up short of a street-side statue/sculpture which had some story-board on its side....again...not knowing what it says.....i could only admire and capture the expressions these sculptures are meant to project..

...i stood right by one of the the traffic lights at the junction and stayed there to capture as much as i could......and to my surprise....it was a good decision....i got many shots of interesting people as they made their way through the crossings - both pedestrian and cyclist alike...here is the first of the group of photos of some of the locals........to my surprise....he smiled at me!!!

....as cars are very expensive to own here in china...most people young and old, men or women prefers cycling to driving....it doubles up as an exercising equipment too...

...an off-duty security guard was seen here waiting at the crossings all smart in his uniform and ready to start a new days of work...

...here is what i saw.....students,  going to school, food delivery in progress...women heading to the market...people going to school...the traffic junction was so well used that even the painted markings on the road was faded ......

......she must have been wondering what i a m doing looking down to the floor.as i was using my angle finder all along.......

...one unique sight that i thought i had captured was of a rubbish collector who had an overturned teddy bear....one that is even larger then the man - himself......on his rubbish cart...a cute rare sight indeed...

...after the last "teddy bear" in the cart, photo...i decided to head back to my hotel....else i will be late for work...gosh...what a morning thought......the traffic just got heavier as more people are hitting the streets...as you can see here the motorbike are now outnumbering the cyclists...

...i walked by a street-side news stand and looks like most of the newspapers have been wiped out ...here you can see the owner actually counitng the left overs and rearranging what's left of the morning sales......hmmm....maybe the old man might be his dad i thought...

...i was heading towards the last street before my hotel when i saw a familiar object lying on the floor - being kicked around by a security guard who was working in one of the redeveloped buildings.....can you see what i see?......

...hahah...it was the teddy bear that i saw earlier  - pushed in a cart at the busy traffic junction.  what i thought might happened was the rubbish collector might have unloaded the teddy bear at this location to use the fill the cart with more "valuable -recyclable wastes" like metals scraps or things like that from the construction site...hahah...i thought that was a funny encounter.....what d'ya think?.....in the last frame, the security guard saw me as i put away the camera and i just gave him an innocent smile and i walked away......quickly!!!

...time check...my wrist watch showed 8.00 am.....time for work.......