Home ?

On February 19, I made the flight from Osaka to Shanghai. From there, it was two more hours by car to Suzhou. No hotel for this visit. My two suitcases and I moved into our apartment.

In the photo above, our apartment is in the building at the back....the one that looks like it has a hole in it's center. If you count up 14 floors on the right-hand side, then that would be our place.

Our temporary home is located in the Suzhou Industrial Park, on the North side of Jin Ji Lake. "Jin Ji" is Chinese for "golden chicken". I've yet to figure that out. It's not shaped like a chicken. Nor have I seen any chickens around. Our apartment looks South out over the lake. Though we've got a couple of buildings in front of us, we can still see a fair bit of the western side. (In the picture below, the lake is somewhere in the haze beyond the trees.)
The lake is pretty much the center of the Suzhou Industrial Park district. Most of the housing, shopping, and recreation in SIP centers on the lake. There are still a few industrial lots available for expansion on the East side of the lake. The parts lying West of the lake are near completely developed. There is still expansion on the West side, but it is going upward rather than outward.