Around school

For the past few weeks I've been meaning to get some pictures up of the area surrounding our school.  Our school is called the Yongding branch but from what I can tell we are located in Feng Cun (cun is Chinese for village).   Julie works at the Feng Cun branch on Thursdays which is about a quarter of mile down the road.  Over our two plus months here it has been fascinating to see the rate of development in 'our' little slice of China.  Within a half-mile radius of our school their are seven cranes putting up residential buildings.  Three of them are for luxury apartments.  See here:

If you were looking down at the school from at satellite this development would be to the right.  There is a giant metal orb skeleton over this luxury development.  The tower on the right-hand side sticks out pretty noticeably and the top of the orb is near the center of the picture with the crane on the right pointing at it.  This has been an object of my intrigue since we arrived and it will be shame if they don't have it completed by June.

Below you can see a very large residential building which is over twenty stories and the exterior was just finished a little over a month ago.  Whether anyone is living in it yet I do not know.

 Directly behind the school was an open area when we arrived two months and stayed that way for about a month.  It was a grassy area with a large hill of about twenty to thirty feet in the center and sloping up (from the left to the right in the adjacent picture).  It has changed dramatically in the last few weeks.  You can see some of the earth moving equipment and the hill is now gone.  I've asked a couple of people but they either don't understand what I am asking for don't have a clue what this land is being prepped for.

I spent a few minutes watching the large pole looking contraption work this afternoon.  It appears that is a large drill and works as a giant post-hole digger.  They lower the drill bit and casing into the ground then retract and dump a big pile of dirt on the ground and then repeat.  It kept my attention for five minutes.

 Above you can see the serious earth movers at work.  Below is the view from the a hallway on the second floor of the school.  The classroom area of the school is made up of a three story building that is shaped like an 'E'.  You can see two of the arms, one on the right and one on the left.  In the center of the picture are two twenty story residential buildings.  The one on the right was just topped off last month and the brick facade is still being finished.  The one on the left has been topped off since we arrived but I do not believe it is occupied yet, but it is close.

Below the building on the left you can see the green coverings of a luxury development, I am not sure if it is related to the one you saw above.  It looks like that project has been stalled for a while as a large concrete wall was built, it appears, sometime ago.  Just the other week a crane was added over this development so it appears things are headed in the right direction.

 At the bottom of the picture you can see the school's track with several basketball courts in the center.  Just beyond that is a road that in the last month has been resurfaced and cross-walks and school zone signs were added which Julie greatly appreciates. 

 You can see the other side of the 'playground' here and beyond the road is the Feng Cun town square.  There is a large wall (you can see in the middle of the picture from the center towards the right) that divides the larger section of the square from a smaller area, for some reason.  The square has gotten a major up fit as it used to have a dirt road running just to the left of the wall which has now been covered with pavers to match the rest of the square.  We walk through this square almost everyday. In the evening large groups of mainly women will dance while other people talk, play card games, badminton, and a variation of hacky-sack There are almost always some vendors selling food, clothes, toys, etc and once in a while what appears to be a mobile bookstore.

Across the street you can see a playground.  This playground belongs to the kindergarten we teach at each Friday morning. 

Hope you've enjoyed the pictures and here is a view from above the school if  you'd life to explore. Map

Till next time, Ryan.