It's very close to me - the art district M 50. The area is a contrast to my neighborhood. It is about three kilometers from the center around Nanjing Road and is slowly becoming exclusive. London architect Thomas Heatherwick, one of the hottest designers in Asia, built the "House of 1000 Trees" two years ago and another is being built next to it. Both then rise right on the banks of the Suzhou River, looking like a rugged mountain covered with trees that are artfully lit from below in the evening. There is an exclusive shopping mall in the building, and if you walk along the Suzhou River from there, you can reach the "Environmental Theme Park of Suzhouhe Mengqing Garden". If you live here, you probably have to shell out a 7-digit amount for an apartment. In this area, in the immediate vicinity of the 1000-tree houses, is the art district M 50. There used to be a cotton factory where galleries and studios are now bustling about, and the surrounding residential area was correspondingly simple. If you continue from there in my direction, you first pass under the Metro ring, which here surrounds the city center as an elevated railway. Then you leave the ring road behind you and suddenly you are in a completely different Shanghai - that of the old people, where time still seems to have stood still, where people do ballroom dancing in public places in the evenings, sing karaoke or groups of senior citizens do street dance. Here people still buy at the market, cook for themselves and don't eat international frills in the restaurant, and here there is the hustle and bustle on the streets that is typical for China, which is much less to be found in the expensive districts.
The 1000 Tree Building
Suzhou Creek/Suzhou-Fluss
M 50
