Tiananmen Square as viewed Monday morning from the Tian'an Gate
On Monday, October 4th, I visited the Forbidden City. I went straight through, from south to north and double backed again after I noticed that I missed the entire right side of the city complex. The 15 rmb entrance fee to get onto the Tian'an Gate was worth it and the wait was fairly minimal despite the massive crowds. Read More »
We interrupt our regularly scheduled broadcast to announce my arrival to the capital of China, Beijing! Woo-who. Quite a trip that was. As some of you may know if you have read the recent New York Times article, this week is China's National Day week (celebrating the PRC) in which some 200 million people travel all over the country for a mini vacation to visit new places and mostly old people (that they know, not necessarily old in age). I had the audacity to travel to Beijing from Sunday, Oct 3 to Thursday, Oct 7; knowing full well the swarms of people I would find here. Read More »
Living in a city of up to 23 million people has left me starved for culture because the policy here is to obliterate the past (or, at least, recreate the past as some commercial construct/theme park). Recently when I was traveling to what is called the Nordic Lighthouse (actually a warehouse, but renovated and a pleasant area) I spied some of that culture clash from the elevated subway -- the bland modern encroachment of "progress" without architectural context nor significance threatening to stamp out the storied layers of the past:
View from southeast to Pudong from metro line 3/4 in from the elevated section between Baoshan Lu and Hailun Lu stops [Sept 23rd
It was this mind set that led me to the surprising Shanghai Art Museum, which, while not as exhausting as the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco, is still worthy of praise (especially the bronze and ethnic minority folk art gallery). I visited the museum on Sept 18th. Read More »
The Cattle Lanes of the Madang Lu Expo Entrance
On the evening of September 16th, Ahmed, a new colleague Scott and I made it out to the Expo, Pudong side. I would later learn that the attendance was somewhere in the order of 150k for the day; the evening being much less. This is a far cry from 500k during the summer, especially on weekends and obviously much less than the projected 6-700k expected during this week's National Day Week. It is very common at the Expo to wait several hours, up to 5-7 hours (!!!) to get into one pavilion, so getting into any here is quite an accomplishment.
I visited the Expo again on a blue-skied September 24th with Wa Guo who graduated RISD LA in 2009. She was with friends, and with my quick walking pace all over the EXPO, tired them out quite a bit for the city slickers they are 🙂 So I had the opportunity to follow up on many the pavilions that I saw previously only at night.
I had the good fortune on the evening of September 3rd to meet with a fellow 'landscraper' from RISD and from the Class of 2010. Sun Li, or, Li Sun as he was known at RISD, is here in Shanghai working for a new (since April) landscape architecture, planning and urban design firm called Integrated Planning and Design (IPD). The following day originally had me going to Suzhou with Ahmed from work, but things didn't work out and I took the opportunity to catch up with Li some more by going to another water town called Zhujiajao. Read More »
Yesterday afternoon I headed out to ShContemporary 2010, or the "Asia Pacific Contemporary Art Fair" housed in the Shanghai Exhibition Center as pictured above. This marks my first Art Fair, which basically means a whole lot of booths/mini-galleries of work being shown by their respective galleries and representation. It was largely uninteresting save for seeing the Korean sculptor Lee Jae-Hyo's work (which was written about in Sculpture magazine), Yu Guang with his (?) evocative and atmospheric illustrations and by far the most interesting of anyone else there, Yang Yongliang with these landscape collages of China's building boom. They are made to look like the traditional, historic landscape paintings but with a modern twist. I liked the work so much that I wanted to buy the album the gallery had but it was their only copy (tsk, tsk, poor planning) so all I had to settle for was writing down my email so that maybe I could buy it later (or I just have to go to Beijing). Read More »
I cannot tell if this is an old structure or merely a brand new structure made to look old
Back on August 28th, I made it out to the "Old City" and the YuYuan Gardens. The Gardens, to which I leave the Wikipedia entry as adequately descriptive, covers some 5 acres of some very skillfully designed small spaces with such appropriate scale that these 5 acres seem much larger than they are. I somehow managed to enter the Gardens via the Exit, and hence, missed the grand entrance and their associated crowds until the very end:
This was for the best because I got to explore the quieter parts of the Gardens in relative seclusion. Read More »
How can I describe John Portman's work? The work that he did for his own house is curious, and the tower complex that he designed for Italy was provocative (if only it were actually built with white stone) but then he also has made some serious blunders when designing community complexes. Read More »
People's Square as seen from the Urban Planning Exhibition Center
Arriving at People's Square, which I accomplished via the Red Line (Metro Line 1), was a bit anti-climactic. I was expecting some grand vista like that of the infamous square which-must-not-be-named in Beijing. Instead, I came out of the People's Square metro station into the usual blasting heat but surrounded in green. I met three people that I believe were pretending to be English-learning tourists from Hangzhou (though they could have been legit) but managed to politely decline their advances of going to a tea ceremony (I read on Wikitravel that this is a common occurrence with an end result of going to a tea house that costs the invitee several hundred rmb). Honestly, however, I was on my way to the Urban Planning Exhibition Center and could care less about a tea ceremony. Read More »
On Saturday I tasked myself with finding a reliable food source. That meant finding a Carrefour. I deemed it too far and on Sunday found another, higher quality supermarket closer to home. But Carrefour still proved to be a slight treat with their attempts to translate the meaning of certain products in the cereal aisle. If I were to ever create a band, I just might call it "Bird's Nest with Rock Sugar", "Pearl Powder" or "The Essence of Chicken."
I also bought some microwave diners which proved to be bust. That prompted Sunday's quest to find something of higher quality. I called an indirect family friend, Rita, who told me of City Shop and Element Fresh. City Shop is an expat supermarket and there's one not too far (a 15 minute walk). Somehow my feet did not lead me there today; I went to the Grand Gateway in search of Element Fresh and instead discovered Ole (and later went to Element Fresh). Rita told me that Element Fresh was on the ground floor, and, in European understanding, thought that meant the basement and not that the first floor as it is the United States. This is how I discovered Ole, which is a brand new supermarket of Whole Foods similarity (and for that matter, most other mid to high end Western supermarkets). Yes, it is expensive, but it's the only place I've found that has organic milk imported from Australia (which has to be safer than domestic milk...)
Sunday's breakfast of Fruit Oats and Milk
I bought this soup mug Saturday night because the apartment lacks any kind of cutlery/plates/bowls, etc. At Ole I bought throw-away plates, plastic cutlery for I think about 10 rmb. At least now I can have a pretty decent breakfast with bread, butter, honey and tea.
The view from the other side of the apartment. The garden below is not adequately planned because it is annoying to navigate; I think it was meant to be looked at versus actually being used.
Next post will be on People's Square, which I visited Sunday afternoon. I think this experience of finding food has started to turn some gears in my head in regards to efficient urban planning (or how inefficient it can be)...