Picture of the Day: Attempting to Build Dreams

At lunchtime my colleagues took me to a giant complex area near our office called Wanda which is near Guomao, in the south east side of the city.

It's actually a short walking distance for us to where Wanda has clusters of office buildings and naturally the ground and second floors of these places have a number of restaurants.

There's a fast food kungfu place inspired by Bruce Lee that I had always wondered about, but my coworkers told me to avoid it like the plague as the food isn't good and the portions small.

They also pointed out a Hong Kong-style cafe and even another branch of Herbal Cafe where I can get my Cantonese soup fix.

We went to have Vietnamese pho noodles at Pho 88. They had wondered why the name is so strange, so I explained that pho is actually Vietnamese for rice noodles.

The place wasn't too busy and we manged to get an empty table at the height of lunch hour. I got a giant bowl of beef with beef tendon for 18 RMB, including a small plate of bean sprouts, chilli peppers, a bit stingy on the basil leaves and coriander, and a wedge of lime.

Nevertheless it was a good change for me as I usually hit the company canteen for jiaozi or dumplings, or to a Yunnan guo qiao mi xian or "cross the bridge" rice noodle place.

After we had our fill of lunch, we walked back and I noticed a small old brick house among all the high-rise buildings.

And surrounding the dilapilated home were giant billboards advertising "Chateau de Luze", with pictures of modern loft-style apartments.

Was this brick house the last "nail house" holding out for more compensation? Or was it an attempt to hide the ugly business of gentrification?