2008年7月16日星期三
traffic lights are merely a suggestion
We are leaving for Beijing tonight. My friend Heidi is here- she lives in NY but we are way old friends from Iowa. She has been a total shot in the arm, getting up at 6 and coming back at 8:30 when I wake up to tell me the 15 things she already discovered on her morning jet lag walk. (When you get to China you usually wake at 5 for a week. It's great, then most of us ultimately return to my lazy later sleeping ways.)
I'm still working on case studies for an area in Shanghai called Hongqiao. CAUPD planners want to present a design to the goverment that redevelops the 3.5 sq.km. area as both a hub of international trade functions and a trendy residential and commercial zone for upscale young people. My project is a little bit challenging due to the fact that the post-doc candidate I'm working with doesn't speak English and is incredibly busy. We are managing though. I'll post a few slides next week.
I'm getting a crash course in giant master-planned developments.
The four of us went to Hangzhou last weekend. As Georgia and Rebekah wrote in their blogs we were expected something very small and natural. We had been inundated with bucolic, heavenly images of Hangzhou on TV as this tiny town where all you do is take rides in boats on placid waters surrounded by a light, moody fog thinking tranquil thoughts. On the train ride there we read our guide books more carefully and Georgia realized first that Hangzhou actually has 6.1 million people in it.
We had a great time, though it was just as hot and chaotic as Shanghai. The high point of my China experience thus far was renting bikes and riding them around the West Lake. I honestly can't remember the last time I was on a bike. Maybe twice in the last 10 years. I told Chris that I wished we could have shot a bit of video of the biking and he responded "yeah, I thought the same thing, but then I thought "I'd rather live."" You had to keep your eye on the ball.
My roomate Sara is Buddhist. She works with women's organizations abroad most of the year (in places like Liberia, El Salvador, Papua New Guinea, Cote D'Ivoire) and I remember her once saying that when she was in El Salvador she actually appreciated her morning icy bucket showers because it was impossible to be anywhere else but fully present in that moment. While biking was surely infinitely more fun than an icy bucket shower, I thought of her while we were dodging various modes of oncoming traffic. We were nowhere else but at West Lake in Hangzhou on the bike.
Mini bird's nest (olympic stadium in Beijing)
Ipodistas on the discount train
I'm still working on case studies for an area in Shanghai called Hongqiao. CAUPD planners want to present a design to the goverment that redevelops the 3.5 sq.km. area as both a hub of international trade functions and a trendy residential and commercial zone for upscale young people. My project is a little bit challenging due to the fact that the post-doc candidate I'm working with doesn't speak English and is incredibly busy. We are managing though. I'll post a few slides next week.
I'm getting a crash course in giant master-planned developments.
The four of us went to Hangzhou last weekend. As Georgia and Rebekah wrote in their blogs we were expected something very small and natural. We had been inundated with bucolic, heavenly images of Hangzhou on TV as this tiny town where all you do is take rides in boats on placid waters surrounded by a light, moody fog thinking tranquil thoughts. On the train ride there we read our guide books more carefully and Georgia realized first that Hangzhou actually has 6.1 million people in it.
We had a great time, though it was just as hot and chaotic as Shanghai. The high point of my China experience thus far was renting bikes and riding them around the West Lake. I honestly can't remember the last time I was on a bike. Maybe twice in the last 10 years. I told Chris that I wished we could have shot a bit of video of the biking and he responded "yeah, I thought the same thing, but then I thought "I'd rather live."" You had to keep your eye on the ball.
My roomate Sara is Buddhist. She works with women's organizations abroad most of the year (in places like Liberia, El Salvador, Papua New Guinea, Cote D'Ivoire) and I remember her once saying that when she was in El Salvador she actually appreciated her morning icy bucket showers because it was impossible to be anywhere else but fully present in that moment. While biking was surely infinitely more fun than an icy bucket shower, I thought of her while we were dodging various modes of oncoming traffic. We were nowhere else but at West Lake in Hangzhou on the bike.
Mini bird's nest (olympic stadium in Beijing)
Ipodistas on the discount train
2008年7月10日星期四
Urban Planning Museum
The most interesting part of the musuem for me is shown in the videos I shot- which I'll try to upload tomorrow.
The Shanghai Urban Planning Museum is 5 floors of just planning stuff, sort of a collection of the city's plans leading up to the World Exposition 2010 and some historical documents and models. Shanghai is very proud to be hosting the expo.
The first two floors are for the nerdiest of planning nerds, mostly maps and before and after shots of key buildings and neighborhoods. The fourth floor is almost entirely occupied by a model of the City of Shanghai. This museum is INSANE. The tallest building you see in the smaller model hasn't been built yet.
The museum is just overwhelming. The larger model, again, is a complete reproduction of the entire city- the biggest model in the world. It's unreal. The accompanying videos of their plans were super stimulating. Sort of a frenzy of national pride. Again, I'll upload the videos and you can see for yourself.
The drawing with the floating people was from a section showing building case studies from around the world that had inspired planners for Shanghai. I don't know what the heck is going on with these floating people, but there you have it.
The green hearts were from a wall on the third floor where visitors were supposed to write down their dreams before the Expo (perhaps because the Expo is a time and place of creativity and invention?). These are a couple of my favorites. Forgive me for being so very base.
My favorite: "I wish for a six flags in Shanghai and no more hunger." Apparently someone also wants into UCLA on scholarship?
Below: a shot of me looking not particularly happy, behind me is downtown Shanghai.
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