Does China really have a real estate bubble?

Does anyone really ever know what is going on inside China? I think that "China" as a whole is a bubble of some kind - and real estate seems the most obvious. But can a bubble burst in a communist country? I think the world is going to find out eventually as evidence like this just screams of over building and risky lending.

Ristorante Sawauchi

My main reason in going to Japan (and one of the reasons I signed on to the Shanghai project) was to see my friend Aki and his wife and their new baby. Aki is one of the most interesting people I have ever met, and one of the busiest.  Of course that did not stop him from taking the time to treat me like a king, even with a new baby and two restaurants to run, and while making a movie on his iPhone, watching TVwhile driving, taking up golf, and running several kilometers every morning, etc. (you get the picture - this is one busy guy).

The highlight of the whole visit was the meal I had at Aki's new fine dining Italian restaurant, "Ristorante Sawauchi". I have some more written about the restaurant here, with a full set of pictures here. If you are ever in the north of Japan, please give it try!

Shanghai Taxi Experience

There really was no excuse for this...

Jinke Road Metro Stop, Shanghai

So for some reason that I am sure will remain a mystery, we stayed pretty far outside the center of Shanghai, on the new Metro line number 2. The apartment/condo building was basically in the middle of nowhere - just an endless landscape of mid-rise housing buildings, sprinkled with tech company offices. I think the Chinese planned this pretty carefully to keep the subways full in both directions for most of the day, with people leaving for the jobs from the apartments, and others coming to the various international companies sprinkled in the area (SAP was one office that was visible from the road).

Our metro stop was Jinke Road - and as you can see below in the image from Google, the metro station (upper right hand corner) was still under construction when this image was taken - that is how new everything is in this part of China.

National Art Center, Tokyo

Now that I am back from my trip, one of the things I want to do is list individually both the things I thought were worth seeing, and any travel tips I may have picked up. This is the first post in that vein, about a place I happened to find from a Subway poster, the National Art Center, Tokyo.

I thought I was going to see the Man Ray exhibit (see poster below), but what was actually there was a traveling show from one of my favorite museums in the world, the Musée d’Orsay. It was a tremendous exhibit that left me absolutely floored.

This is from their website:

"The National Art Center, Tokyo is a unique and innovative art exhibition facility: Instead of maintaining a permanent collection, it makes the most of a total of 14,000 square meters of exhibition space, one of the largest in Japan, and focuses on serving as a venue for various art exhibitions. The Center also promotes outreach activities through its educational programs, and the Art Library serves to collect and disseminate information related to art.

Located in Tokyo, an international city that attracts people, products, and information from all over Japan as well as the rest of the world, the Center will provide people with opportunities to experience diverse values and contribute to bringing forth a new culture based on the idea of mutual understanding and symbiotic relationship."

So basically the center serves as a rotating exhibit space. But it is also a fantastic architectural space, with several cafes and restaurants, a museum shop, and great public spaces to just sit and relax. It really made me wish that Florence had a place like this - large indoor spaces where the public felt welcome to linger, that also involved great art and a cultural experience.

If you are planning a visit to Tokyo, I would definitely think about adding this to your itinerary. The exhibit calendar, in English, is here.

Tokyo

After about two weeks in Shanghai, I flew to Tokyo. I spent 2 nights there and even though there was a decent amount of rain I had a great time and really was taken with the little bit of the city I got to see. I could imagine visiting Tokyo again, especially exploring more of the museums and temples, and trying more restaurants.

I have plenty more to post about China, and Japan, but I will be rolling that out once I get back home. And I have hundreds of photos too. Here is one:

This is the train crew changing shifts at Tokyo station. A glaring difference between Tokyo and Shanghai is the supreme sense of order and formality that the Japanese have compared to the seemingly permanent chaos of Shanghai. Look at the uniform on the "Captain" of the train - white gloves, suit, hat - every detail is precise. I also have some photos and videos I want to post of construction crews from both Shanghai and Japan - in Shanghai we saw lots of people at work in flip-flops and t-shirts. In Japan, everyone is uniformed, with an amazing amount of gear on, and safety is paramount.  Just some jarring juxtapositions between these places.

Jean Georges in Shanghai

3 On The Bund (annoying, small window Flash website) is the address of a building that has been remade as a high end dining, shopping, and gallery space. I saw an Anish Kapoor installation at the Shanghai Gallery of Art (Kapoor seems to follow me wherever I am in the world - this is an artist that gets around), and - yes -  I had lunch at the Jean Georges restaurant (anyone who knows me knows Vongerichten is one of my favorite chefs in the world). I had been eating $2 lunches all week so I figured I could splurge:

This is the cod with snow peas, almonds, almond milk, and chili oil. It was very good. The desert was incredible, and I had a very nice glass of Riesling. The wine by the bottle is outrageously priced - but I got some background on that from the sommelier. More about that in another post.