Last week my husband came home from China, laden with gifts from a reunion with colleagues from his previous expat posting. One gift was a papercut decoration for the Year of the Horse, now proudly displayed on my front door and as a header for the blog to celebrate Chinese New Year.
The other gifts were so unexpected, and so generous – so I am using the blog to send our friends in Dalian, Shanghai and Guangzhou a big Thank You, 谢 谢, and 恭喜发财。Here are a few of the beautiful gifts, some from our favourite brands – Shanghai Tang and Liu Li Gong Fang.
The dragons of China may be timeless, but the skyline of Shanghai keeps changing. Here is the view from my husband’s office last week. The highest building in the photo is the Shanghai Tower, which was topped out in 2013 at 632 metres, making it the second tallest building in the world.
I remember the “olden days” of 2007 when the Jin Mao Tower seemed enormous, and the Shanghai World Financial Centre (“the bottle opener”) was still under construction. Click here to see a photo on my Flickr account: Progress in 2007
Even better, click here to see a photo of blue, smog-free, sky in Shanghai in 2009: JinMao and SWFC together – and blue sky!
Finally, Happy Chinese New Year to all Distant Drumlin’s readers – I will finish with a photo of the lantern decoration outside the Chinese Embassy here in London.
Distant Drumlin 