Shanghai, part 6: Luxembourg

Shanghai has a lot of people in it.

At our hotel, I picked up a good map of the Expo -- and one of the full subway system. The stand had been empty on Monday and I took the last the last map this time. It's hard to keep the shelves stocked when they're free.

But the map was only in Chinese!

I finally got an English map at the gate.


Massive crowd control measures unnecessary at 1:30 on a weekday afternoon. We walked right through like it was the Spokane airport.



The USA Pavilion had a huge line, so we kept walking.







We headed through the Americas and Europe to Luxembourg. Quick-moving line.



"Is that the color of their country?" Not really.



"Is that the shape of their country?" Well, sort of.



Luxembourg transported this golden statue around the world from its home on a pillar in Luxembourg City. I wonder what's on the the pillar right now...









After hearing about how great the small country of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg is, we headed back to Americas Square for a song and dance exhibit from Venezuela.


There are shows every half hour all day long at one square or another. Norway, Mexico, etc. We were very far from the stage, but the speakers were so loud at times it hurt my ears.



Since we were in the Americas (I presume), staff came around with trays of free mini-cups of Starbucks coffee. It was cold, but a taste of home.

I have more photos of these pavilions on flickr.

Shanghai, part 5: Random Thoughts

Real branches, fake flowers, motel lobby.

Elder cousin and we walked to a nearby dumpling house for breakfast. The restaurant had two levels of seating, but the fastest business was at the sidewalk window.

We had baozi and wonton soup ... and Pepsi.

The crab dumplings were oily good -- just don't squirt the deliciousness all over your shirt. Like I did.

Chunlin was much more vocal in China, talking to strangers, telling them what to do, where to sit. She had said as much a couple years ago, when taking a office personality quiz: much more a follower in the US, a leader in China. Language, customs.





Between the cars, bikes, motorbikes, and pedestrians, driving in China is pretty crazy. But most everyone pays attention and there are few accidents. Stop lights are suggestions. Only drive on the right if you really want to.

Drive on the sidewalk if you'd prefer.


Plenty of horn honking. Turn signals used.

Around our local subway station, the small plaza was jam-packed with bicyles and motorcycles. It was an unofficial park and ride.


Shanghai has twenty-story apartment blocks as far as the eye can see. The city goes on forever.


A sunny day is laundry day. If the window opens, there were clothes drying out of it.

Sunny but smoggy -- even with rain the day before.



At our hotel, I got sucked into a Chinese soap opera -- in Mandarin with Chinese subtitles, of course. Must stare at the glowing box.

Donald Duck dubbed into Mandarin. They left his laugh the same from the original, but it was quieter than the dubbed dialogue. It seemed very slapdash that way.

We visited Chunlin's elder cousin's apartment. They have turtles.


Chunlin's niece was wearing a shirt that proclaimed in bright pink, "Framtiden: Forget the horizon today." She knows enough English to know it was nonsense, I'd think. An oddly defeatist, inward phrase to be displayed so boldly. Framtiden, by the way, means "future" in Scandanavian languages. ...Makes sense now, right?



More photos on flickr, of course.

Shanghai, part 4: Dinner

Chunlin's cousins in Shanghai treated us to two extravagant dinners. Lots of weird food. Lots of good food.


Some of the appetizers didn't get eaten much.


The sweet and sour fish was enjoyed by all. Pull off a piece and dip in the sauce.

We had the best sesame pork baklava you'll ever eat anywhere.

Pork slices fried, with a kind of hollandaise sauce.

The waiters just kept bringing dish after dish after dish, consolidating and removing empty plates and piling them atop each other.


The first dinner, they asked me what I wanted to drink. Since the only Chinese drink I know (not the only drink I know in Chinese) is baijiu, a liquor, I asked for that. Our cousin then ordered a very expensive and extremely good bottle of baijiu.

Baijiu is to be savored, sipped, smelled. We didn't finish the bottle; we made them take the extra home.

At the second dinner, they ordered huangjiu, a weak liquor with a taste reminiscent of pine sap.



Efforts were made to get the two youngsters to speak English, with some success. Chunlin's nephew was bolder in his speaking, but her niece never spoke incorrectly. Often silent, though.

Happy Solstice!

Summer is finally here. Can't you tell? I know Seattle still has cold, gray skies and the weatherman is calling the month Junuary, but it's summer now!

Huzzah!

Shanghai, part 3: Sore Feet

The Bund is the old financial center of Shanghai, from the foreign concession era in the early 1900s. The buildings used to be just a few feet from the Huangpu River, but now a wide avenue and a pedestrian-boulevard dike separate them. Much like New Orleans on the other side of the world, old Shanghai has sunk a bit and is now below river level.


My grandmother was born in Shanghai back then. Did she see the Hong Kong & Shanghai Bank soon after it was built? It's still standing and looking good. The clock on the Customs House next door is still telling the correct time. Not much remaining from those days, but the line of buildings along the Bund would look familiar, I'm sure.







In a juxtaposition credited to central planning, across the river is the new financial heart of Shanghai: Pudong (meaning "east of the Pu river"). The towers rank among the tallest in the world.



We headed under the river to Pudong for a closer look, me being an architect and all.





Unfortunately, the low clouds precluded us from seeing their full world-class heights.



Pudong has been derided as being soulless and such, but at least it had a big mall to explore... We had sticker shock at the Starbucks, thanks to the currency conversion factor, but then did the calculations and realized -- wait a minute, it's still more expensive than Seattle!

Back on the subway, back to our hotel. This city just keeps going forever. Our first day of vacation ended and we already had four sore feet and a couple blisters.

So, in summary: Shanghai is just like New York City, but bigger. I feel like a giant sometimes, though.


More photos on flickr.

Shanghai, part 2: Exploration

Our first day in China, it rained. "How can we see the sights if it's raining," asked Chunlin.

We forced ourselves to stay in bed till after six o'clock, then went downstairs for a hotel breakfast -- brunch, really, from all the dinner foods available. Old coffee.

Two of Chunlin's cousins arrived at nine -- her mother's brother's daughters. They had booked us a hotel closer to where they lived, on the north side of town, so we checked out of the hotel and lugged our luggage onto a bus, then the above-ground subway to a station near their apartments (but not the closest station, I discovered later), and said goodbye to the cousins and the luggage in a taxi.



Chunlin and I then got back into the busy subway system and ventured forth on our own.

Some of the subway transfers are hideously long and force you to exit the system and pay again. Apparently this is an artefact of building the subway around existing buildings, but if China is willing to knock down so many structures for everything else, can't they alter a few buildings to make the subway system work properly?

We exited the subway at Renmin Square (People's Square). Do you want an umbrella? Bu yao. I don't want one. Greenery, low clouds, relatively few people, and surrounding skyscrapers.









We wandered around in the rain, got wet, got hungry, and headed off to Yunnan Street for a choice of lunch. My guidebook recommended it, or else we never would have seen it. We picked a restaurant that the locals were eating at.


Hungry?

I let Chunlin eat the bird. Enough boneless food for lazy me.

After lunch, we headed to Yuyuan Bazaar. Looking at my guidebook afterwards, I realized I meant to go to the garden there ("yuan" in this case means "garden"), but we didn't. Oh well. We visited other, similar gardens elsewhere.

Instead, we wandered through the packed bazaar, broke down and bought umbrellas, and bought some snacks: fresh mooncakes (yum!), fried crab on a stick (crunch!). Watch the big fish in the pond. A lot of foreigners here.









Watch your eyes -- umbrellas all over!


More photos at flickr.

What about Iowa State?

Have you heard the suggestions of Iowa State (and others) moving to the Mountain West Conference?

Well you heard it here first, way back in January 2007!

10 = 12

The Big Twelve now has ten schools.
The Big Ten now has twelve schools.

I don't think either wants to switch names.

Makes sense, right?

Quote of the Day

From Red vs Blue, Season 3:

Captain Flowers: Men, your delightful tomfoolery puts a spring in my step and a bounce in my britches. If I weren't your commanding officer, I'd pick you both up and give you giant bearhugs and make you call me Daddy.

Private Church: Ummm. Thank God for the chain of command?

Shanghai, part 1: Arrival

We've now been back from China longer than the time we were there, so I guess I better get telling you all about it, right?

Starting with the airplane. We flew Hainan Airlines, which is a Chinese company. The planes on the Seattle to Beijing run don't have individual air vent controls. The Beijing to Shanghai flight had air controls for each seat, but they didn't change much. A little air circulation is nice, I've discovered. Chinese culture seems to disagree, however, when it comes to interior spaces.

I slept most of the flight down to Shanghai. On our landing, Chunlin spotted fireworks on the horizon, but I could barely crack open my eyes to see. Probably a wedding. I was told that many weddings have big fireworks displays.


This sign is the name of the airport, by the way. With all the signs throughout town written in Chinese (with a little English thrown in), it felt like I was in Chinatown. But Shanghai is much bigger...


Chunlin was happy to be back in China.

We had resevered a room at a hotel near the airport. I thought it was the Xingong Business Hotel. When the taxi driver got us to the address, the hotel had two names: Shanghai Gold Hotel and Eastern Business Hotel, neither of which match the name on the internet. Correct hotel, though.

Our room had a nice view of the airport, a major arterial street, and a giant golf ball.




Welcome to Shanghai!

More photos on flickr.

Big Ten Plus Ten

Instead of inviting one college or even five, the Big Ten Conference should invite nine!

This way, they'd have twenty: the Big Ten plus Ten, divided into two divisions of ten each (naturally).

Instead of dividing east-west or north-south, the same for every sport, the conference would be divided into the good teams and the mediocre teams, different for each sport. Thus the Big Ten Division of the Big Ten Conference in basketball would only have about five schools in common with the Big Ten Division in football.

Schools that don't particularly care about a sport don't have to waste resources competing against the top teams in the league. The lower teams wouldn't have a chance at earning the Big Ten championship in that sport, but if they were any good, they'd be in the upper division, right? The Plus Ten Division would thus be a second-tier holding pen for schools that would rather be playing other sports.

Since the Big Ten has a high academic standard for membership (i.e. membership in the AAU), there are only a handful of schools that could be invited. Discounting Ivy League schools, west coast schools, and deep south schools, there are even fewer choices. Of these, the Big Ten should invite:

Kansas
Maryland
Missouri
Nebraska
Pittsburgh
Rutgers
Syracuse
Vanderbilt
Virginia

Other Division-I AAU schools within the same region are Iowa State, Buffalo, and Stony Brook. Iowa State would fall in the mediocre category in football and basketball and doesn't have a baseball team. Vanderbilt has a bad football team, a mediocre basketball team (but better than Iowa State), and would be the third-best baseball team in the whole league. Plus, Vanderbilt has a better academic reputation.

Even though the conference would probably base the divisions on a longer range of time, here is the Big Ten Division (Football) based solely on last year's rankings:

Iowa
Michigan State
Missouri
Nebraska
Northwestern
Ohio State
Penn State
Pittsburgh
Rutgers
Wisconsin

Six of those were in the top twenty nationwide. Pretty tough conference, I'd say.

For comparison, here's the Big Ten Division (Men's Basketball):

Kansas
Maryland
Michigan State
Minnesota
Missouri
Ohio State
Pittsburgh
Purdue
Syracuse
Wisconsin

Kansas, Syracuse, and Ohio State were in the top five last year. With five others in the top twenty-five, this is an unbelievably tough basketball conference!

...So what was the Pac-10 thinking of doing this week?

Increased Density near Light Rail Stations

After visiting Shanghai and Beijing, I have realized that Seattle is a small town. I have further realized that our light rail system is a joke.

This can be fixed, however.

The main reason I consider Seattle's Link Light Rail a joke is that we don't have the density to support a mass transit system of that nature. Therefore I propose to massively increase the building heights around each light rail station so they become the satellite downtowns they should be. Imagine a mini-Belltown at each station, and you're getting the idea.

In the late 1990s, while the light rail was in design, neighborhoods along the route asked the city council for zoning changes to suit their new stations. Unfortunately, they thought small. They made minor changes to make the streets more pedestrian friendly, but left the building heights alone. Thus at the Rainier Beach station, for example, the maximum building height is 40 feet adjacent to the light rail station! In my plan, these parcels could have twenty-story highrises.

If we have light rail, we need to encourage people to use it. What better way than have a whole bunch of people live across the street from each station? Sound Transit could then expand the number of cars in each train and the frequency of trains and pretty soon we have something resembling a city.

A bit more detail:

The stations are all in an "Urban Village" designated neighborhood, of one sort or another. Some are Residential Urban Villages; some are Hub Urban Villages; some are Urban Core Villages, and two are in a designated industrial area. Each of these circumstances should be treated differently.

Since downtown Seattle itself is an Urban Core, those "villages" would have the most intensive zoning. Zoning would be mixed residential and commercial, similar to Belltown. Urban Cores include the International District, Pioneer Square, Downtown, Capitol Hill, both Univerity District stations, and Northgate. Parcels within a quarter-mile walking distance of the station (staying on public roads and walkways), building heights would be unlimited. Within a third of a mile walking distance, building heights could be limited to 240'. Within a half mile walking distance, the maximum height would be 125'. The rest of an Urban Core Village with a light rail station would be limited to 85'.

Mind you, downtown's Urban Core already has higher limits, so those could stay as-is. Pioneer Square and the International District Urban Cores have special zones, so I would propose modifying the heights in those rather than throwing out all the design characteristics included in those. I want neighborhoods to retain their individuality, just with more people.

The Hub Urban Villages would be slightly smaller in scale, with all of the height requirements shifting inward by one step. Of the existing line and the North Link (in design), only Mount Baker is a Hub Urban Village, but Lake City, Fremont, and Ballard would fall in this category if they receive stations in the future.

The Residential Urban Villages would be slightly smaller again than the Hub Urban Villages. These would include Rainier Beach, Othello/Holly, Columbia City, Beacon Hill, and Roosevelt. Parcels adjacent to the station would have mixed-use zoning with a height limit of 240'. Parcels within a quarter-mile walk would be mixed use with 125' maximum height. Within a third of a mile, buildings could be 85', and would be zoned either commercial or residential depending on their existing zoning. Within a half mile walk, buildings could be 65' high, zoned per the existing use. The remainder of the Residential Urban Village would be either Midrise or Neighborhood Commercial.

One problem, however, is that many of the light rail stations are at the periphery of their Urban Villages. Just a couple hundred feet from the Rainier Beach station, for example, is single-family housing outside the Urban Village. This is an inefficient and stressful juxtaposition.

I propose upzoning a "buffer zone" around the stations, in a similar stepping pattern as listed above. The fact that these streets are outside the Urban Villages should be honored, however. Instead of drastically altering the zoning to mixed-use, the current zoning for each parcel would instead be modified. Within a quarter-mile walk of the station, the density of each parcel would quadruple. Within a third of a mile, the density would triple. Within a half-mile walk, the density would double.

Thus a Single-Family 5000 S.F. zone very close to a station would become a street of Lowrise 2 zone, which doesn't allow much taller structures, but does allow more units on a property. This would be a minimally invasive rezone of a neighborhood outside the Urban Village, but still allow more people to live within walking distance of the light rail station.

That about wraps it up. Increase the housing supply in Seattle. More affordable housing. More people using the silly train we're already paying for. Provide more freedom to property owners. All that good stuff.

Now I just need to get the mayor's attention.