After spending Saturday in the factory, I was keen to get out of Shanghai and see some sights. Initially thinking of heading to Suzhou or Wuxi, I came across this article on water towns, and opted instead to tick another one off the list; especially since I enjoyed visiting Tongli and Zhouzhuang so much. Nanxun,…
After 18 months away from Asia, I finally headed back. Back in the saddle!
Escaping Shanghai is always a challenge, but as I have highlighted in previous posts, the HSR service heading out to Nanjing is opening up the entire Yangtze corridor. This time with my manager, Paul, in tow, we headed out on Sunday to Suzhou station, and a cab to take us out to Tongli, a so-called…
Latest update on the Pudong transformation. I seem to be travelling to China a lot recently. This time, mixed in with some supplier visits and research (oh, and picking up an iF China design award for my wee Vostro V13), I decided to whisk Nikki off for a weekend in the big smoke. Since she…
Kunshan station at sunset. Along with the track hardware, the stations are impressive in their design intent. Beyond the Expo, the biggest impact to my China experience on this trip was the incredible improvements in the transport infrastructure, and in particular, the trains. Most of our suppliers are located in the Yangtze River Delta region;…
Shanghai is a huge, vibrant, emergent city that has had the world’s gaze upon it for at least the last five years. I might argue, however, that there has not been a any cultural development coming out of the city that has really influenced the rest of the world; and ‘modern Chinese style’ doesn’t count…
There is little that is more depressing than considering the slow, lingering death of the British car industry, but in China at least, the heart of British industry beats strong. In a complex turn of events, both Rover and MG were bought by SAIC, and for reasons I cannot quite fathom they changed the name…
After several years of trying (admittedly, probably not trying hard enough), I finally made it to one of the ‘Water Towns’ in the Jiangsu province, near to Shanghai. The whole country had come to a stop to celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival, which I understand indirectly commemorates overthrow of Mongol rule (although I have never quite…
In Shanghai, it’s apparently oh-kay to clip your fingernails on the underground train. Apparently, it is also okay to leave a pile of clippings on the seat for the next customer. This made me physically revolt, more even than seeing people spit everywhere. Rant over.
And what better way to mark it than with an introduction to the skywalk in the Shanghai World Finance Center? While I had been there before, I had not had the chance to experience a death-defying encounter with a 474m drop, in the world’s highest observation deck (higher, even than the Burj). All I can…