Some photos from our district, Dong Ting

The Chinese really peg us with traffic lights - check out the arrows and how there's an actual timer telling you how long it will be on that light for. So simple yet so effectively. Increases pedestrian life expectancy believe me.

This is one of the two close range supermarkets to us - about a ten minute walk away. Unlike the other one, this one doesnt have a huge fresh food outdoor market like the other. We buy a few odds and ends then usually get snacks from the street cart vendors out front. There's one that sells this sugared bread that is just the best stuff ever.

Apartments like this are everywhere and all along them are tiny little shops. Half of them are dark inside but all of them open and selling random things. I think they conserve power and save money keeping the lights off. There's been a few shops selling safety gear like witches hats and reflective vests for workmen which has us boggling a bit.

Another example of the tiny shops that line all the streets around here.

The supermarket sausage hotdog thing section. Mmmh mmm.

Kind of fugly rock displays that are in the traffic islands around here. Most trees and bushes are wrapped in plastic to protect them from the cold.

Shops and restaurants everywhere.

These weren't just good, they were lovely.

Typical street scene. The roads are very wide, making crossing them interesting. There's usually a constant stream of people. It's not packed to the rafters as such, but there's stuff going on everywhere. It feels so utterly foreign out there.

I wanted to have my photo taken with an intersection behind me. Who wouldnt?

Apartments and more shops.

Dong Ting district's answer to Chadstone, The Fashion Capital.

Some lovely Chinese brickwork. Keep putting bricks into it until there's no more hole.

Lots of places around here have security guards(or police) in little gate houses like this, with these weird roll out metal gates. If you look closely at the full sized image you will see a whole bunch of chickens just inside the gate.

The kids hit the basketball courts straight after their last classes. I believe it's like a set period - sport/exercise. The school treats exercise as a very important function of their day to day activities.

Here's the students coming out of class in their droves. That's their living quarters on the right. If you look closely at the larger photo, there's a security guard/policeman pointing at us and coming towards us on the right hand footpath. He obviously hadn't seen us around the school before and didn't know who we were. He got nods of they=ok from the other guards in the gatehouse behind us though. We haven't once been stopped, i think we're pretty much known now.