A couple of months ago I had a walk around our estate and took some photos. It’s spring now, and they’re already out of date insomuch as everything looks grey, and there’s no blossom on the trees, but here they are anyway.

Tongzhou is a suburb on the edge of Beijing. Somewhere above a million people live here, but nobody seems sure of the exact number.
My estate’s name translates as “Era Century Star City” apparently. It’s got a good right to call itself a city, it’s bigger than many British towns. It includes 96 apartment buildings, some of which are massive. Here it is from the air (thanks Google maps!)

The entrance is a massive faux-Roman swoopy thing, with a giant archway.

On the other side the estate is organised in massive rows, a bit like this

A shame I took these photos in winter, it probably looks a lot nicer now.

The sun reflects on the buildings in unusual ways. I should do a timelapse later, maybe.

Fans of Chinglish, here’s your fix.

My bike is one of these.