Reviews on China Garden compound?

Shanghai Expat Forum Index » City Living Forums » Relocation and Moving

Author

Message

AnnaR

Newbie

Joined: Oct 08, 2008
Posts: 8

Status: Offline

Posted: Oct 27, 2008 - 04:04 AM
Post subject: Reviews on China Garden compound?

Hi,
I'm interested to get in contact with people currently living at or recently moved from expat compound China Garden.

We're a Swedish family with 2 kids - who will either go to SCIS or RBIS schools - moving to Shanghai in January-09. My husband will work in French Concession area.

Some questions:
1) Are there many western families with children in this compound?
2) Is it very noisy as it's rather close to the elevated highway?
3) What are the standard like here? house + facilities
4) What's the traffic situation like?

Thanks for all the answers I can get!!

Havard

Reacher

Joined: June 21, 2005
Posts: 313

Status: Offline

Posted: Oct 27, 2008 - 09:59 PM

I am no resident of China Garden, but one of my friends ownes a house there. Try to give you some input as nobody replies to this thread:

1. I saw some expat families around when I visited there. Not sure how many.
2. Most of the houses are not that noisy as there is still a distance to the elevated highway.
3. No clue.
4. Very close to SCIS and within walking distance to RBIS. Takes about 20-45 minutes to drive to French Concession. Good access to the ring roads.

tnmom

PopStar

Joined: Mar 04, 2004
Posts: 1082
Location: No longer in Shanghai
Status: Offline

Posted: Oct 28, 2008 - 07:37 AM

We looked at a house there that was probably the nicest finished home we saw - beautiful floors, nice tasteful trim, etc. Biggest problem - no oven. But this could vary from house to house as they are individually owned. In my experience it's much easier to live in a place that is compound owned - no long distance landlord to call to get things fixed.

smalred

Newbie

Joined: Oct 26, 2008
Posts: 4
Location: Shanghai
Status: Offline

Posted: Oct 28, 2008 - 10:02 PM

We looked at this compound today. We could hear the highway and airport noise but it was not too intrusive. I generally like the feel of the place since the houses face each other with front porches.

As for mix of residents, we couldn't really assess it easily. Some evidence of kids bicycles and Hallowe'en decorations so we concluded that the W European and American presence was evident.

The town homes that we looked at were nice design if you can cope with the stacked floors design, lots of stairs and many levels to move between (may not be good for families with small children).

The units we saw were desperately in need of thorough cleaning and they were showing a lot of wear and tear issues. Roof tiles damaged or missing, some cracked and worn facia boards and defective guttering (my father was a builder so I notice these things). The second unit we saw had some water internally problems which I think were linked to the external balcony, water damage and staining was evident and musty smell throughout.

The poor state of repair of these units spoiled what was initially a very favourable impression.
Regards
S