Lane renovation update

Our lane made it into the paper! Shanghai Daily had a picture of our lane work, describing the updating happening while keeping the charm of the older neighborhood. Our ayi thought it was my picture in the paper since everyone around here gets a good laugh at my constantly taking the update photos! They don't understand our fascination with their work process.


This is one of the many rebuilt brick stacks housing the plumbing works. Watching the bricklayer put these together is mind boggling. The speed with which it is accomplished, and the level, perfect nature in which it is done. A talented craftsman.Cement being mixed on the lane and carried by wheel barrow to locations around the lane.
It's our turn! The destroyer arrived on our lane at the daily start time of 6:45 a.m. and started the pounding, building shaking operation of digging up the concrete. This is a photo out our bedroom window. Our bamboo garden in our patio is directly below. As an aside, bamboo, as I am sure everyone knows, grows like weeds. The bamboo has gotten too crowded in the pots, and it looks like we are going to have a day of splitting the bamboo and repotting! Fun ahead.
The beast arrives! Once again, being flexible, limber and adroit on your feet is an absolute requirement to living here! I see 80 + year olds nimbly navigating the continually changing landscape of the lane.
Later that day the entire end of the lane had gotten chopped.
The front part of our lane. When referring to our lane here, I am referring to the lane which is the actual lane our house is off of. The main lane, with the gate from Changle Lu, is the first lane you saw in this endless process. They have turned several corners and finally made it to our hideaway lane.
This is the next morning. Overnight all the huge pieces of broken up concrete had been hauled away to...
the sidewalk outside our gate on Changle Lu. There were three piles on the sidewalk, all this size. They were gone the next time we exited the lane. The quick removal is always stunning.
The ditch digging begins. We head out on a beautiful Saturday morning. Work starts as usual at 6:45 with lots of banging, shouting and shoveling.

Later that afternoon, ditches dug, pipes installed and covered up again. Only the holes for the brick stacks are left.
They are now at our front door! We walk across ditches covered with mats to reach our door. Mud, mud everywhere. We walk on their work area, really the only way to get down the lane. We need to quickly step aside when the wheel barrow comes barreling down the lane with full loads of bricks, concrete chunks, wet concrete, pipes. There is no sense of letting lane residents go first or get by with some measure of safety! Every man for himself, and if you are not aggressive, you could be standing in the same spot all day. Put your head down and go!