trip to a "ghost city"

Our family took a mini-vacation to a somewhat famous city in China about 6 hours away. The city is famous for being one of China's "Ghost Cities." The moniker has nothing to do with being haunted, but merely means empty. It was a city that was planned and developed and invested in with the hopes of roughly one million inhabitants, but those inhabitants didn't arrive initially. So, there were fancily built buildings and wide streets and infrastructure, but no people! However, since it's creation is has filled up some, so we didn't find it to be as "ghost town like" as many articles portray it. There were definitely businesses there and lots of commerce, even McDonald's, Subway, and other chains that even larger cities don't have. It may not have the anticipated population and it may indeed be financially defunct, but by our observations, it was far from a ghost city. 

Here are a few articles about such cities in China if you're interested.

http://content.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1975397_2094498,00.html

http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2015/04/21/the-myth-of-chinas-ghost-cities/

http://multimedia.scmp.com/china-ghost-towns/

The great thing for us about this particular ghost city is that even the nicest hotels aren't full so you can get an excellent deal for a much nicer room than we would typically stay in. On this trip we got a deluxe room at a 5 star hotel for about $50/night. 

not bad, right?

We rented a car and drove there. We saw lots of stunning bridges along the way. China does architecture design very well.

This was a large plaza/square along the river/lake in the city. Catherine has been a bit obsessed with ferris wheels recently so it was a "must see" on her list. There were also carnival-like rides for the kids (more of those pictures later).

I need one of these for our house. Seriously. Hey girls-go run off some energy!

We went to a big park in the city. It was big and even designed to drive through whereas most of the parks in our city don't even allow bicycles, much less cars. We did park and walk a little while and stumbled upon this enclosure with dear. 

One development that may be evidence that perhaps it is a "ghost town."

part of the skyline. This location is famous for having a fountain show. We tried to show up twice at the times published on the sign that the fountains would be on. No fountains. 

sisters driving a car

daddy helping with the remote control. (for the safety of everyone!)

And this is our life most of the time when we're out and about with the girls. Lots of attention, lots of stares, and lots of onlookers taking photos. 

There was one particular housing development that was HUGE! We could see it from everywhere we went. But it was so large we could never get the whole thing in one photo. 

Until we went to a wetlands park outside of town. All those pink-ish buildings are ONE housing complex. But again, occupancy is very low. 

We wrote in our newsletter a bit about the culture of swimming here. What we didn't say was that like always, strangers wanted to take pictures with the girls. You may remember from last summer that Catherine doesn't like swimming because it makes her swimsuit wet. One such onlooker was trying to take a picture with her as she is standing on the side of the pool crying and trying to take off her swimsuit because it's wet. We're telling at her (and him!) and trying to get out the pool quickly enough to stop the inappropriate photo and disrobing!

Doesn't your local indoor pool have a lounge chairs where you can sit and smoke?

Some of the carnival rides the girls enjoyed. 

This ride was cars that rolled in a circle around a small track. A device in the middle shot up ping pong balls which one attempted to catch in the net. Catherine has asked to go back and do this weekly since we've been home.

I have so many more pictures, but as I need to pack for our next excursion to the border, we'll finish here. Hope you enjoyed seeing part of our vacation!