Tales of City

After the Chinese New Year, the housing market seems to rebound, according to some real estate agents that I met last several weeks. “Some householders bid up their house price, and some others have less room for bargaining than that in last year”, a broker said.

I doubted whether house price slip in China last November, and four months later, will it usher in a new round of rising price regrettably?

The Chinese Government has been announcing to control house price for a long time, since early this century, and many relevant polices have been issued but we all saw what happened in last decade.

The latest restriction housing policy is still effective, but the property transaction is likely to resume active after two years cool down. The housing price rose higher after new control policy issued in the past, will such strange circle work again?

I have been looking for an apartment in Shanghai for several months, but without any progress, I am still waiting for a better timing since it looks like that the house price is slipping in China. The question is when it is the best chance?

This July, I had gone to see two residential quarters in Jiangqiao town of Jiading District. The average price was about 20k RMB per square meter. Recently I have received several text advertisements, all said that the property developers have special discount. Xiangfuwan, for example, has 10% off discount and provides extra 25k funds for buyers.

It says that Vanke, the top resident property developer in China, is selling all its houses with as much as 30% discount. The sales office of  its property called Qinglinjing was smashed by its customers who bought their apartments before the discount with higher prices. Similar smashing occurs in several other sales offices, not only in Shanghai, but also other cities, like Beijing.

Now the government still claims that it will not loosen the economic policy, and Premier Wen Jiabao said that the government is determined to control the house price. But to be true, the government lost its credit in the past years.

If it is not the best timing to buy an apartment in Shanghai now, then when?

China is definitely a big market contributor for Apple, and its front line cities play major roles, such Beijing and Shanghai. There are 3 Apple Stores in Shanghai and 2 in Beijing till now. I have introduced the Apple Retail Store located in Hongkong Plaza in July, and this time, I want to introduce another 2 stores in Shanghai, Lujiazui and East Nanjing road Apple Stores.

The first Apple Store in Shanghai is the Lujiazui Apple Store located in the IFC building. You can go there by metro line 2 at Lujiazui station.

 Lujiazui Apple Store

The Apple Store in east Nanjing road is the third one in Shanghai that opened last month, while the second one is that in Hongkong Plaza.

 Apple Store in East Nanjing Road

Apple Store in East Nanjing Road in night time

As east Nanjing road is a walking street and is a famous sightseeing place in Shanghai, the Apple Store there attracts many tourists from other cities, what usually makes the store very crowded. It may be not a good idea if you go to this store to buy Apple products.

Yesterday afternoon, two trains crashed in Shanghai subway line 10. Till now, 271 people have been injured without dead.

At 14:10 on September 27 (Beijing Time), because of the equipment failure at Xintiandi station of metro line 10, the subway trains slammed to brake. Then the section between Jiaotong University and East Nanjing Road was scheduled artificially. At 14:51, two subway trains collided at Yuyuan station, the very central of Shanghai.

The signaling fault was supposed to be one of the accident cause. The signal system provider of metro line 10 is CASCO, and the same train signal system was used in Wenzhou train crash accident.

Although the metro line 10 resumed operating 4 hours after the crash, part of the line (from Yili Road to North Sichuan Road) is out of service for further investigation.

I had a trip to Zhenjiang during the Middle Festival. Zhenjiang is a city with more than 3000 years history in the southwest of Jiangsu province. It is about 2 hours train from Shanghai and is suitable to visit in the weekend, when it will be no crowd. I just stayed in Zhenjiang for one day and may not catch the highlight spots of the city, but it is worthy a visiting IMO. What I want to mention about in this blog is the Xijindu Ancient Street, which is the most concentrated and most intact historic district in Zhenjiang.

 The roof of the Xijindu residential area

A corner of the Xijindu historic street

Zhenjiang is an important transportation hub in the recent history, owing to its location near the intersection of the Yangtze River and the Grand Canal, and in which condition, the UK built the British Consulate in 1889 in Zhenjiang Xijindu.

 The British Consulate in Zhenjiang since 1889

There are residential buildings since the late Qing Dynasty and Early Republic, and are still inhabited. The buildings are in old style and the doors attract me.

Zhenjiang’s special food are Guogai noodle (锅盖面) and Yao meat (肴肉). I like them very much and still have aftertaste.