Building Everywhere - the Urban Sprawl

The ongoing building everywhere used to shock me but now it is just standard and blends into the surroundings.  I guess being back in the USA I realized that the scaffolding, cement trucks and construction workers everywhere on the streets of Shanghai, Xian, Sanya, Suzhou, etc is not normal.  Over the last week I took some pictures of new buildings, elevated highways and metro lines being built.  
The latest statistic that I heard was that China believes that 300 Million people will move into the cities from 2010 to 2025 (that's nearly the population of the US).  At the end of 2012, the total urban population was 712 Million (52.6%) from 26% in 1990.  

The biggest construction of them all!  The Shanghai tower will stand
approximately 632 metres (2,073 ft) high and will have 121 stories.  Tallest in China
and the second tallest in the world.

Massive apartment complex of 20-30 buildings of 10ish stories.

On my way to COMAC, new businesses going up everywhere.

About 15 in my 10 km bike to work.

Another one.

They love the apartment/hotel with shopping and restaurants.

More apartments.  Many are empty for years.

If you build it, they will come.

With new building you need more subways (elevated
in this case)

And more elevated highways to handle the traffic.

This is the beginning of 20 building complex across from COMAC.

Ultra-Violet Night

I just got back from our annual Home Leave to the USA.  This is a benefit to all expats where the company provides each family member a round-trip ticket back to their home city.  Or a lump sum, like our case since we didn't go directly back to our home city.  Anyway, that is reason that there has been such a delay since our last post.

This post is about a dinner that Yangmei and I went to at the Ultra-Violet restaurant.  It's not really a restaurant but an intimate dinner for 10 at some remote location.  We met our other dinner guests at the Mr. and Mrs. Bund restaurant and took at 20 minute shuttle to the our spot.   Paul Pairet, a local somewhat famous chef, was cooking the 25-course meal for us.  

Entrance to Mr. and Mrs. Bund

We had assigned seating.  UVB is the menu that
we had.  As you can see, their was movies, pictures
and other visual presented on the table and walls.

This was the preparation for a dry-ice, single
spoonful of a grapefruit-popping dish.

1st course - a single spoonful!  It literally burst in our
mouths!

This was a yogurt dish.

Chocolate covered fograis.

Crab

We were in the forest for this dish of truffles.

They blew cigar smoke under the cover for that smokey flavor.

Not sure what this was other than really good.

Make your own instant noodles.

Squirted out the noodles through a syringe.  

Here is the 10 - we knew one couple and there were 8 of
us in our group.  Astroturf on the table and it felt like we
were on a picnic.

Two dishes that looked alike but tasted very different.

One of the five desserts.

Breakfast - well not really since this was an apricot that only
looked like an egg.

To our surprise, Chef Paul was in the back cooking!

Team Building 2013 - Wuzhen

It is mandatory for companies to have an annual team building event for its employees.  We allocate a portion of our annual budget to this offsite, overnight event.  This year about 200 of us headed on a 2 hour bus ride to Wuzhen.  Wuzhen is considered a 'water town' since its buildings are built alongside canals to assist in transporting people and goods throughout.  

Token toll booth heading into the area.

The buses stopped for lunch about 15 minutes from the hotel.  I'm not really sure why we didn't eat at the hotel but as with many things, you just don't ask since there probably isn't a logical answer.

Group #9 organizing for the team photo.

During lunch we were organized into our groups for the afternoon's team-building activity.  The event was a treasure hunt through the water town area.  The teams each had 10 people with one member being a foreigner that would have the pleasure of eating the local food (e.g. stinky tofu).  It ended up being a great way to tour the city.  Albeit a little fast for some who wanted to soak up the sights.  

A couple of my work team members.  

Walking out to the 'town' area.

Getting our bearings.

Every tourist location has to have a pagoda.

The attraction of Wuzhen is the water town concept and it being old.  It was about 100 years old - not really old like we would think but they thought it was.

Small streets made for walking only.

This was a ricey cake thing.  It wasn't too bad.

Lots of nice bridges over the canals.  Also many couples on boats
getting toured around the city.

Map of Wuzhen.

One of the scavenger hunt findings.  An old
'British' like mailbox.

Many pictures being taken with the nice walls and scenes.

Photo opportunity.

Restaurants and bars along the canal.

Night life was quite but the building were beautifully lit.

After a night of dinner and drinks we had a really bad breakfast and heading to Nanbei Hu.  Nan = North, Bei = South, Hu = Lake.  But first we did some cherry tomato picking and eating.  It was an interesting event  where we were given a bucket and then told to go pick tomatoes.  They were safe to eat, so we were told, and they were sooo sweet and yummy.

Tomato and other veggie greenhouses.

Simon about to eat one.  Not the red one!!

Ziad through the vines.

Cherry tomatoes and pickle sized cucumbers.

 Then we had lunch near the lake and given about an hour to tour.  So many of us rented a power boat for $5 each and had a 30 minute ride around.

Zong Zong, John and me.

Some locals enjoying some water sports.

Another group of colleagues enjoying a boat ride.