What's to see in China? Tall Buildings!

Well, yeah! According to the website World's Tallest Buildings, two of the top ten (Shanghai World Financial Center [492 m.] and the Jin Mao Tower [420.5 m.]) can be found in Shanghai, a third is located in Hong Kong (International Commerce Center [484 m.], and a fourth stands right here in Nanjing, the Zifeng Tower (also known as the Greenland Financial Center). Completed in 2010, the Zifeng Tower, a design of SOM (Skidmore, Owings and Merrill) comes in at 450 meters, just a tad shorter than the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur. Situated on the large roundabout by Nanjing's Gulou (Bell Tower), the Zifeng Tower is visible from everywhere on the Nanjing University Campus.

But the tower is far from the only tall building in Nanjing; everywhere, it seems, old Nanjing is giving way to ever bigger, taller buildings.  Even adjacent to the university campus—at the intersection of Guangzhou Lu and Zhongshan Lu a couple of tall buildings rise to house fancy retail establishments.

As one moves south along Zhongshan Lu and approaches Xinjeiko, where the city's two metro lines intersect and where much shopping can be found, an entire array of tall buildings rises far above the street.

Much of this hi-rise construction belongs to financial and commercial interests, but one can also find much new construction—most of it also hi-rise—devoted to high-end residential use.  Some earlier building favored low-rise gated communities, like this one along Zhongshan Lu.

But more recent structures promising "chic," "riviera" and "stacked villas" are more ambitious—some vaulting straight upward, and others spreading out to encompass entire city blocks.

So along with the rest of China, Nanjing is building, and a great deal of that building is going straight up!