The architecture in the modern Chinese cities that we have visited leaves a little to be desired. These massively populated urban sprawls have developed extremely rapidly over the past few decades as millions have flocked in seeking work. This has required a humongous building program of apartment blocks to accommodate this swelling tide of migration, some of which is government led and some private.

Unfortunately, in my opinion the designs of these apartment blocks is uniform, functional unappealing and quite frankly brutal.

Mile after mile the cityscape does not change and gives a feeling of being on a ginormous country-wide council estate!

You get the picture…

Some of the private developers have cut corners and there is even one famous case in 2008 of a block just falling over!

Fortunately it was still under construction so there were limited casualties. Even so I was fascinated that this was a possibility! It is a good job that it fell into empty ground and didn’t cause a domino effect on surrounding blocks!

Having said all that every so often you turn a corner and are pleasantly surprised but s building with a little more flair to it

Or a more interesting shape

The growth of the upper middle class here is having an effect on the landscape. It will be interesting to watch how this develops.

We finished our little tripette with a ride on the Maglev from Pudong airport into the city (close-ish) to where we live

For the train enthusiasts among you, we travelled 30km or 19 miles in exactly 8 minutes and went at 300 km per hour

It was after 5pm so we only went at 300kph whereas during the rush hours the speeds are up to 430 Kph.

The world’s first low speed Maglev ran 600m and was the airport shuttle in Birmingham. Kevin used to ride on it for kicks and remembers it being free.

This bullet train was opened on 31st Dec 2012 and it was & remains the first and only commercially successful Maglev in operation. It is also the fastest commercial electric train in the world.

And the experience? Well it was a smooth ride but not as smooth as the high speed train we had taken last time we were here. However there was a bit of a typhoon raging outside which have accounted for that.

All that for only 50 RMB which is approx £5.70. Bargain.

You can take a girl out of the library but…

Today Kevin took me on a Mystery Tour to a shopping mall on the other side of Chengdu. I know that I have bemoaned the lack of decent shopping experiences in Shanghai but I was slightly surprised at his desire to visit another one on our holiday (particularly as our hotel was right next to one) Anyway, I went along. After the stress of a new job I was happy to just tag along wherever and not have to think too much. And in fact the pollution levels jacked the AQI up to 166 so it was pretty nasty outside & I figured that an indoor experience was just the thing on a day like this.

What I hadn’t expected was that Kevin had done some research and discovered what is allegedly China’s most beautiful book shop.

I have never seen anything quite like it.

There are mirrored ceilings everywhere which expands the space. This one is the auditorium where author talks happen.

I loved the craziness of the children’s area with its books and crannies and beautiful toadstool features

I guess shelving on curvy shelves is hard though…

Apparently the shop is owned by a former teacher who has a few of these now. He always gets a designer in and the results speak for themselves.

Then we moved across town on heaving subways to our second bookshop destination.

This was in the basement of a shopping mall and was HUGE. It was on three levels with books on both Chinese and English (yay) with an excellent collection of children’s stock. I might have been a little tempted at that point…

Anyway it had lots of stalls with non book items just like Open House in Bangkok but bigger! I was in seventh heaven. I notched up 10k of steps very easily.

And they even had some bookish art in the middle of the mall! Niiice

The main reason for our visit to Chengdu is to see the Pandas. These iconic bears are native to western China & so we couldn’t really live here without seeing them in their home habitat.

Chengdu is home to the national breeding centre and research park or as they say it…

Beginning in 1987 with 12 rescue pandas the park has grown to being the single largest center for pandas bred in captivity.

Pandas eat between 30-50kg of bamboo a day and the recent human population growth has seen a rapid decline in their available natural habitat which has put them on the endangered species list.

That coupled with the precarious breeding cycle (we learned that a female is only ‘on heat’ for a couple of hours each year) had led to a decline in the wild population.

The breeding centre aims to raise pandas which can ultimately be released back into the wild. But first they had to overcome several problems which they have done with advanced genetics to prevent the problems of inbreeding.

The scientists test the female pandas urine to be able to tell when she is ready to conceive. The center has successfully impregnated females and raised over 100 panda cubs. We visited the nursery where the current cubs slept and they were just adorable. Cutenesses overload.

Pandas have a short oesophagus and this means that they only digest 17% of their fiber rich diet. One consequence of that is that they rest or sleep a lot to conserve energy. Many of the pandas we saw were just ‘hanging’

Particularly the ones in the sub-adult enclosure (or teenagers as we quickly realized)

Some of those positions did not look comfortable!

The park is also home to several Red Pandas

The are called this although they are not technically related to the panda species at all! It’s just a name to confuse everyone.

Perhaps ‘foxy lemurs’ might be a better name. Any other suggestions folks? They were still quite cute too though. (Not my picture below)

We had a thoroughly enjoyable day with multiple opportunities to see these cuddly creatures. Until recently tourists could pay $200 to have a photo taken beside a panda but too many diseases were passed across and some pandas died so fortunately this practice stopped. It was crowded

But not too bad in places

Fascinating facts:in 1984 China stopped giving Pandas away and instead only loaned them. This means that all pandas in zoos and parks around the world technically belong to China. Adelaide Zoo for instance has a pair of Pandas and they currently pay AUD 1 million a year to China for their loan. All cubs born overseas also belong to China.

Pandas are the most expensive animal to keep in captivity costing five times more than an elephant!

Panda diplomacy however has been around since the 7th century when China is recorded as giving a pair of the animals as a gift to Japan.

China uses the pandas to improve its image and create relationships with nations able to supply it with needed resources & technology. This has been described as an exercise in ‘soft cuddly power’.

Finally we got chance to send some cards via Panda Post! Yay!

Photo courtesy of Zang Zhile.

Here we are at the end of September already and celebrating the first Golden Week which doubles as our much needed half term break. But what a glorious name for an October holiday with overtones of yellowing leaves and ‘mellow fruitfulness’.

Monday in fact marks the 70th anniversary of the establishment of the a People’s Republic of China and to mark the occasion there is a 7 day national holiday.

Everywhere is bedecked with lanterns & the red flag, even our humble apartment block gets one

All factories and offices are closed and there is a mass migration of people as many head home to see family or the more affluent travel abroad. We are used in the west to choosing our holiday weeks but not here. It’s everyone altogether and as such the hotels, transport and attractions are heaving! Sardine time. The Chinese I have come to realize have little concept of personal space and no ability to queue! This image is of The Bund in Shanghai and one of the reasons why we headed out of the city and flew 2.5 hours west to Chengdu.

Here we have encountered old China in the alleys around our hotel.

The alleys were a maze of courtyards and shops topped with the iconic rooflines of traditional buildings and although there were plenty of people around we felt a sense of calm and could imagine the inhabitants wandering around in flowing silk robes.

Shops were filled with eye catching displays to tempt the crowds in. These bamboo sticks had messages on a little like the key gates in Europe.

People wore traditional dress and the tiny alleyways reverberated with soft chiming music amidst the unusual vendors.

These buildings were once the home one wealthy ruling class and you can see how important they occupants were from the height of the thresholds. (Kevin shown here for comparison)

Our favorite was the dragon place. We weren’t entirely sure if was the entrance to a restaurant, tea house or shop! It was simply splendid whatever it was

Interspersed between courtyards and leading to retail spaces were many moon gates. I love the shape of these as they remind me of a warren of hobbit holes

We walked for hours just soaking up the atmosphere. It’s so different from the ultra modern Shanghai

The 15th day of the 8th lunar month marks the mid-autumn festival here in China. It is a time of the full moon. We get the day off on Friday (Yay) & a very welcome long weekend.

Essentially a harvest festival legend has it that there was an excellent archer called Hou Yi and one year when 10 suns rose in the sky scorching the earth, Yi through his skill and bravery shot down 9 of the suns with his arrows, leaving just one to give light. One of the gods admired this feat and gave Yi an elixir of immortality. Yi and his wife Chang’e planned to take it together but a thief broke in and tried to steal the potion when Yi was out. Chang’e refused to hand over the vial instead swallowed it all herself.

Chang’e flew to the moon where she could still be close to her husband. There she resides to this day and if you look carefully at the shadows on the surface you can see her.

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Apparently if you look closely next to the moon lady in the shadows is a rabbit grinding up medicines for her! I’m not entirely sure why.

At this time of year the Chinese gaze up at the moon as Hou Yi once did. And they eat Mooncakes which represent the full moon. On the day of the festival they gather as a family to pray, to give thanks for the harvest and to celebrate their unity.

There is a proliferation of Mooncakes in the weeks leading up to this festival. A few years ago I tasted one which was solid and dry and seemed to suck every ounce of moisture from my mouth. That experience put me off Mooncakes. This has now been rectified by re-education as my two library assistants have been bringing me a different moon cake to try every day.

Here are some of the tasty treats:

The marks on the top are the makers brand

inside this one it has a sweet and creamy yolk like an egg

This was a Hagan das ice cream one (quite expensive I understand)

There are meat Mooncakes too which resembled sausage rolls in a different shape

Apparently these are so popular that people queue for ages in the rain to get some!

I was fascinated by these sweet ones in domes

Each Mooncakes had its own little package of silicia crystals underneath!

So many different types.

Yesterday we received a beautiful gift via the cleaning lady who explained everything in Chinese so we are non the wiser who it is actually from.

The one we ate had a filling of sweet chopped nuts similar to a baklava.

The tin alone was gorgeous. It’s a shame that we don’t know who to thank.

Shanghai isn’t just big it’s vast! You can travel on a train for 2 hours and still be in Shanghai! There are 26 million people living here and I had expected to have been served a world class shopping experience. I have been disappointed.

Our problem is that our winter wardrobe was packed into storage in Morecambe. We thought that we were going to be in tropical climes and wouldn’t need jumpers, coats or boots! Now here we are in China where they have cold, wet winters. We looked in the lock up this summer but our warm clothes were packed so deep we couldn’t access them easily! And we also had limited luggage allowance so we decided it was just going to be easier to buy things here to last us for 3 years. Hence my need to go shopping.

As I also need to restock the kitchen my ideal venue was a department store, something along the lines of a John Lewis or Debenhams or event an outlet store. But strangely Shanghai doesn’t have them or any equivalent.

There also isn’t a central shopping area (like Oxford St in London or Siam in Bangkok) I was expecting glitzy shopping malls catering to china’s nouveau riche. Somewhere where you can try things on, wander around, see the choices available- you know, old fashioned things like that.

Instead we are faced with Tao Bao, the massive online shop. Everything but everything is ordered online. When I ask my Ex-Pat friends where to get things from they all say Tao Bao. Tao Boa looks like this:

And as you can see all in Chinese. Great! There is another site in English which obtains many (but not all) of the same items at a highly inflated price just because it’s in English. What a cheek!

Tao Bao I have found does accept English in the search bar which is a relief. So I can search, however I have to think carefully about search terms. ‘Wellingtons’, ‘Wellington boots’ and ‘Gum Boots’ returned nothing but ‘waterproof boots’ did.

Next we needed sone basic letter sized envelopes, not something out of the ordinary you might think. Think again! It was REALLY hard. There are no obvious stationary shops, Tao Bao showed us this

Which are pretty but not the sort of thing you want to send a letter to the bank in! It took ages of searching to get regular envelopes!!!

The prices are very reasonable and items are dispatched and delivered within only a few days. On occasion though the driver has called me with a question & we’ve had a less than interesting conversation as they speak NO English.

My main problem though is that the item description is all in Chinese so I am unable to read the small print. Last week I confidently ordered what looked like a sieve from the picture (none being available in Carrefour) only to find when it arrived that it was the size of a tea strainer!!!! Hey Ho.

It’s all trial and error.

We did find the famous ‘fake’ market but the pressure from stall holders to drag you into see their wares was the most intense I have experienced ever. One guy waited for me outside every booth I went into which I felt was pestering and just made me want to leave.

We did have to travel to another area (for a meeting) and found a small shopping complex there which had a very unusual structure which lit up at night. So maybe there are others that we just haven’t discovered yet.

The whole shopping experience plus coffee stop etc seems to be reduced to sitting at home ordering on your phone then waiting in for the delivery & hoping it’s right! I am fortunate that my two library assistants have helped me to learn which buttons to press but I can’t ask them to translate all the time.

One thing which we have seen which is fascinating are these automated servers in some restaurants or markets

They glide around in a very futuristic way and we feel as those we are in an episode of Lost in Space.

All the shopping apps link to the main app which is called We Chat. It’s a messaging, phone and Facebook app all rolled into one. It also has a wallet which has been linked to my Chinese bank account. No one uses cash anymore. Everything is scanned on your phone and the money is deducted instantly. I even buy school dinners that way!

We Chat also has a scanner with a pretty nifty translate function. You can scan some text and it translates it to English as if by magic. This can be quite amusing. I bought a rice cooker (everyone has one) and the buttons are all in Chinese.

In the shop I had been shown which sequence to press to cook the rice but I was curious about the other functions. The button on the left I suspected was a timer but when I did the translate it said ‘book an appointment’ LOL!

Perhaps this kind of shopping is the way of the future and China is just way ahead of the west.

Don’t get me wrong there are a couple of malls, but so far all have contained shops that I wouldn’t want to buy anything from… so if you are planning to visit us, bring everything you need as shopping won’t be on the agenda

… on the plus side we can easily obtain cheese and wine.

At last we venture out into the city secure in the knowledge that whatever happens there is tea and toast waiting for us back in the apartment now that the long awaited toaster has arrived… more on shopping later.

Kevin likes to travel by metro (underground) where possible as it is cheap, efficient and we can figure out where to go usually without have to ask anyone. The Shanghai metro is vast and very clean. Fortunately there is a brand new station about 10 minutes walk away from us and a journey into the centre takes about 20 minutes for a cost of 45p.

The trains are spacious but need to be as it is fairly crowded. I haven’t managed to get a photo of it but as you travel through the tunnel there are adverts playing on the dark walls through the windows. It’s pretty snazzy and hi tech.

All the metro stations are accessible with lifts and beautiful flat surfaces so that’s good.

Downtown Shanghai is the financial district and the skyline is the iconic symbol of the city with its plethora of high rises.

This is the view from The Bund (which means embankment but as this is an Arabic term the Chinese have their own word which translates as ‘Outer Beach’ but any sand is loooooong gone)

Behind me is the Shanghai world financial centre, or the bottle opener as it is fondly known.

Walking around Underneath these buildings and admiring the architecture from ground level gives you a crick in the neck but the angles afford some great perspectives

The twisty tower is called the Shanghai Tower and it twists 1 degree per floor to offset the winds at high altitudes because of the frequent typhoons which hit the region. The tower has an inner glass structure and an outer one, like two tubes and contains 149 elevators!!!

The middle building is the Jin Mao Tower but it’s quite boring as it just offices and a hotel. However at the top is a glass walkway without rails called ‘wander in the clouds’ which I will NOT be attempting!

Some are clearly ‘no expense spared’ structures

We traversed the spiraling skywalk above the traffic fumes which gave a different view of the buildings.

This one with the balls is the Oriental Pearl Tower which is owned by China television. Apparently you can have a buffet meal in the revolving restaurant at the top for £35.

We were mega impressed by the rubbish bins on the skywalk (we are easily pleased) which were plentiful, one every few hundred yards and each one beautified with a plant beside the ash tray. They wouldn’t stay there for very long in the UK!!!!

All in all we walked for 8 miles only dipping into the ground floor of the buildings for a drink or some relief from the heat and humidity. In one tower we saw some shops and were impressed by the benches in the opticians. We thought it was an optical illusion, but, they really do float!

And I like the top of this tower. Why be boring and square when you can have petals.

Jinqiao is the neighborhood where we live, a suburb of Shanghai. Pronounced GIn-chow it is a much sought after location, a des-res part of Shanghai. Partly this is because it is an enclave of foreign nationals. There are at least two American schools (mine in one), Dulwich, The British school and Chinese schools which offer an English program. The streets are lined with gated compounds of luxury villas and high quality apartment blocks.

Jinqiao is in Pudong which literally means ‘east bank of the Huang-Pu River’. Puxi being the west side. Pudong is really quite new as until about 30 years ago the area was mostly fields and farmland.

To cater for the foreigners’ western tastes there is a Carrefour supermarket, an American owned grocery store stocking imported items and multiple restaurants catering to the western diet such as Papa Johns Pizzas, Mexican, Italian and even a good old Irish Bar!

There is the ubiquitous Starbucks and Costa but the coffee there is really quite expensive at £3.50 a cup! All in all it has the feel of a western ghetto. You could live here quite happily on burgers & fries and a never experience the ‘real’ China.

The roads and pavements are tree lined and well maintained

You can see here the red section for bikes and the ridges section for walkers. After the typhoon when the streets were littered with fallen branches and debris the sweepers worked extra hard and it was all cleared by the next morning! And they do sweeping by hand.

I particularly like this junction (intersection) below as they have recently installed flashing colored bricks which help to tell you when to cross. This is super useful.

As you can see the crossings are quite wide. They are all pretty much this size. So it’s a fair step to walk to either the school, church, shops or metro station. The good thing about that is my increased step count (I am topping 10k steps nearly every day!)

Some of you may have read about Chinese government restrictions on churches but it appears not to be the case here in jinqiao. We can see spires all around.

This one is the Catholic Church.

We go to the all encompassing Protestant one which is in another gated complex. There are several large halls which are used by various congregations. We attend the 11am one but interestingly it is only for non Chinese nationals

I love walking through these streets though snd in the morning on my way to school everyday I see this

Its a meeting- Asian style! So different to ours.

As the ground here is flat bicycles are endemic. Some are the public bikes which you can pick up and leave wherever (you pay per ride with the QR code and your phone) and some are private. This is just a glimpse of the street outside our nearest metro station

The access to our apartment building isn’t great though I have to say. Not exactly disabled friendly…

But all in all we are settling in to our new surroundings and learning what’s where. It’s lovely when you turn s corner and come across something that you just wouldn’t find at home…

Next job is to explore the rest of the city… Shanghai here we come!

My new school is part of the American Lutheran church’s education mission arm. It has a beautiful campus here in Jinqiao which was established about 22 years ago. It is very well maintained if a little small for the growing numbers of students who want to enroll.

The church cannot proselytize here in China so the mission of the school states that we provide ‘ Education wrapped in relationships’ which I think is a beautiful aim and helps to reinforce the personalized nature of what we do. The school sees every child as a ‘gift from God’ (and I must admit that this is a challenge with some children on some days!!!) but this philosophy means that there is a very distinctive atmosphere on campus. Several people comment that there is something ‘different’ that they can sense when they visit.

And it isn’t just in the artwork or messages around the school.

The staff are overwhelmingly nice and I couldn’t have wished for a warmer welcome. As the orientation period ends and the children begin to arrive, all the new staff found a chocolate on their desks from the Assistant Head of School along with a poem about starting a new position. The head of the elementary school today came round to thank everyone who helped with the registration event. It’s small personal touches like that which makes all the difference.

Every year the school chooses a word to focus on. This year it is ‘Envision’ how we can all work towards making a better future. And on Wednesday’s many staff wear pink to remember those who have had breast cancer (must go shopping for pink items)

I have joined a Secret Friend scheme. Those of us who have opted in get a person and we do something nice for them once a month. We send birthday & Christmas cards anonymously and at the end of the year there is a big ‘reveal’ it a brilliant way of building community and I am going to enjoy trying to figure out who my secret friend is.

In the meantime there is much to get to grips with:

American curriculum, American terminology & American spellings

Mac books

The ‘great fire wall’ means VPNs and other workarounds (which frustratingly don’t always work how you think it should!)

Not to mention finding my way around and between new buildings

A new year has started. Let it be a good one.