Our house

A couple of people have asked us about our home and the district we live in - so I thought I would take you on a bit of a tour! 

As you may recall from an earlier email - Russ and I live in Pudong - which is on the east side of the river - a "new district" that is primarily the financial district and residential district. 

We live in one of the many tower block precincts.  Ours is called Shimao Riviera Gardens.  

This is our "name card" - it has our address
in Chinese and a map on the back to help
taxi drivers get us home! 

It is a massive complex comprised of 7 tower blocks - 48 stories high - housing around 350 apartments in each tower!  The grounds themselves are massive - with loads of gardens and a man made lake. 

The facilities include 2 gyms, a swimming pool, a small grocery shop, beautician and a restaurant.

Majority of the residents are Chinese- although you do see some western expats walking around. 

Although many would say the Pudong area lacks true soul - there is something to being a little removed from the crowds and frenetic, non stop activity of Puxi! 

Our apartment is a 2 bedroom apartment up on the 28th floor. It's quite spacious with 2 bathrooms and a western style kitchen come laundry.  Chinese kitchens don't usually have ovens whereas the western style kitchens do.

The lounge dining area currently has a fabulous view looking back across the river over to Puxi.  At night the boats light up and travel up and down the river and the buildings on the other side treat us to a fabulous light show every night! 

Unfortunately our fabulous view of the river is fast being built out with the construction of another large residential compound.

On the other side of our apartment we have fabulous views to the west - right over to the old city.  As you can see this precinct has a lot of space and greenery to enjoy! 

View from the study - looking back to Puxi.  The building
on the left of the photo is one of the Shimao towers. 

View from the master bedroom

This image shows Russ at the entrance to the complex.  The complex itself is surrounded by local housing and small businesses.  There are Chinese supermarkets,wet markets, small businesses,  bottle shops, cafes, an English pub and eateries all within walking distance. 

The bus stop for Russells office is right outside the complex (which is handy)  From there its about a 10 minute bus trip for Russ to get to work. 

Our nearest metro station is a 15 minute walk - or a 10 minute bus ride.  So we can get anywhere we need to go using public transport . 

The public transport is really cheap - we pay 2rmb (about 40 cents) for each trip (regardless of the destination! ) 

Our apartment block can be seen off in the distance - to the right of the dark
grey group of buildings right of centre.  They appear as 2 buildings standing
separate to each other. The gold Aurora building left of centre houses one of Russells offices.   

In a future blog I'll take you for a walk around our local neighbourhood and introduce you to it's people, the shopping and our favourite spots! 

Until next time 

Take care 

Kate and Russ. 
xx

The far canals of Suzhou

This weekend we ventured out of Shanghai to Suzhou (pronounced Sue Joe). Suzhou lies 90 klm west of Shanghai - a well known "town" famous for its old historic canal district, it's gardens, opera and silk. 

The canals were built thousands of years ago to assist with the movement of goods along the silk road.  Suzhou itself is famed for it's silk production - Suzhou was China's capital of silk production with archaeological evidence of silk production dating back to the late neolithic age - but i'm getting ahead of myself.....

Our journey started at the Shanghai railway station where we boarded our bullet train to Suzhou.  We travelled first class - at the cost of 49 rmb ($10) and found ourselves arriving in suzhou only 25 minutes after boarding!  Reaching a top speed on 288 klm/hr

Of course according to Russ the train trip was the best part of the weekend!  And yes - he did track the journey speed with his iphone app! 

We decided to stay in the old town of suzhou  and I found a little "boutique" hotel that was a converted Ming Dynasty (1368 - 1644) mansion.  Ping Jiang Lodge sits right in the middle of the canal district and offers an authentic suzhou experience!  It is fair to say that the lodge was a little "tired" but I guess it has the right to be somewhat weary having stood for 100's of years!  The lodge retained the classic layout of a traditional Chinese home with rooms that were contained with walled courtyards and gardens.  We stayed in a large room - somewhat reminiscent of a barn!  Chocker block with quirky Chinese antiques and other memorabilia!  I cant say it was a comfortable stay (on a traditional straw bed!) but it was certainly an opportunity to get inside one of the buildings you usually only get to admire from the outside! 

Lodge Cafe

Pingjiang lodge

Traditional bed

Our room

Bathroom

barn like ceiling

Once settled into the Lodge we were off on our 3 hour cycling tour of Suzhou that took in the historic canals, the grand canal and canal side markets. 20 years ago Suzhou had no motorways, all transport was water transport.

Here we go!

The Grand Canal - Suzhou

Group pick halfway into the ride!

Canal side homes

Suzhou opera stage

Canal crossing

The day was hot - and the ride took us not only through the old town - but through the inner city - which was hair raising to say the least. Much of the old town is currently under destruction, to make way for new housing. I can't describe what it's like to see large blocks of ancient housing totally flattened.  It seems such a shame - but at the same time residents of those homes live in unbelievable conditions.  We explored a number of the old homes that are currently lived in - our guide explained that one home would have once housed one family - but this all changed during the cultural revolution and now up to 10 families live in a home that was built for 1.  Below are some of the images of the housing we saw the inside of.  The number of electric meters tells you how many families are housed in each home. They all share 1 kitchen and 1 bathroom. 

10 meter boxes all in row

shared facilites

By the end of the ride we were all in agony - its true to say that our butts have lost their bike tough!   

After a quick freshen up we managed to hobble up to one of Suzhou's finest restaurants and enjoyed a lovely meal - that night, after all the activity, we didn't even notice how hard the bed was! 

The next morning it was up bright and early for another day of exploring (although Russ bailed and spend a quiet morning exploring the local cafes!)

Suzhou is home to one of Chinas most revered gardens - The Garden of the Humble Administrator - and I swear the day I went - so too did half of china! The garden was constructed in the Ming dynasty and, if you look past the throngs of tourists, you can see the romanticism of china in its garden houses, willow trees and lotus flowers. 

After exiting the garden I left the marauding crowds behind and found peaceful tranquility in Suzhou's silk museum.  As I said earlier Suzhou has produced silk in China for thousands of years.  It was the only supplier of silks to the ruling dynasties of China.  So much of it is exquisite, with rich colours and patterns that transport you back to another time.  The museum is artful and takes you on a journey from ancient times through to modern day and demonstrates how silk is made.   I loved it! 

Busy, living silk worms at work!

silk loom

bobbin section of the loom

After my time in the silk museum I returned back to the old town (in a rickshaw!) and joined russ in one of the many cute cafes along the canals.  In fact this cafe doubled as a postoffice.  The cafe walls were covered with postcard racks and the cafe full of young Chinese buying, writing and mailing postcards.  Quite a novel idea and one that was clearly well received! 

Then it was time to return to Shanghai.  Within 2 hours of our departure from Suzhou we were home, showered and sitting in our local pup  chowing down on their traditional Sunday Roast, and russ was enjoying a nice cold VB! 

It was a hectic weekend! And once again China continued to fascinate with me with its never ending contrasts.  Suzhou really does manage to transport you to another place in time.  Many of the images in this post capture the beauty of Suzhou and perhaps romanticise it somewhat! Suzhou is a "town" of 11 million people and the mere density of people, the cacophony of noise, the onslaught of pungent aromas and the patches of squalor at times were, in truth, quite overwhelming.  But that's China!  

Sky high in Shanghai

Shanghai is just full of swanky bars - and with such a bright skyline accessible from both sides of the Huangpu river there is no shortage of "sky high" bars! 

The Ritz Carlton's Flair is one of our favourites -  and it's a 3 minute walk from Russell's office!  

Flairs indoor/outdoor bar is perched up on the 58th floor - and it has a large outdoor barbeque area - just perfect for a TGI Friday dinner and drinks! 

As you can see from the image on the left it provides a eye to eye view of Shanghais iconic Pearl tower. 

And once the sun goes down the view is spectacular!









Another favourite is the bar and restaurant at Century 100 - in the World Finance Centre.

Century 100 is one of the highest bars in Shanghai - poised on the 91st floor!  Your ears really do pop on the way up and on the way down. 


Century 100 is one of the top spots in Shanghai for sundowners!  

Both of these bars lookout from the Pudong side (where we live) -  over to the older Puxi side where the famous Bund sits. 

Chin chin!  

oh and don't forget - you can enlarge the image by clicking on it!