Solar eclipse tomorrow, watch it with us!

So even if weather forecasts aren't the most promising for tomorrow's solar eclipse, we'll still be at various Coffee Bean & Tea Leafs around the city chatting about the weather and keeping an eye on the sun. Well, not directly on the sun. Assuming the rains let up enough for us to actually watch the eclipse happen, here's some safety tips courtesy of Parkway Health:

Watching a Solar Eclipse is not without dangers. Looking directly into the sun with the naked eye can cause permanent visual loss. Damage can occur rapidly, without pain, and without being immediately apparent. Children are specially at risk.

It is never safe to look directly at a partial or total eclipse without appropriate protection. Standard or polaroid sunglasses are not solar filters and do not provide enough protection for looking at the eclipse. Also, devices such as smoked glass, photographic films, compact disc, digital cameras will not provide enough protection.

The UK Department of Health, Royal College of Ophthalmologists, and College of Optometrists advise against any direct viewing of the sun. By far the safest way to view the eclipse is by projection . A simple way of doing this is to turn one’s back to the sun and use a card with a 2 mm pinhole cut to project the sun’s image on to a second white
sheet one meter away. This image can then be viewed safely.

Another safe technique for viewing the eclipse is the use of special eclipse-viewing glasses. However, please do ensure that your eclipse-viewing glasses come from a reputable vendor. There are plastic imitations that will not protect you.

We will be providing special eno/Shanghaiist/Coffee Bean projection eclipse viewers at each of our five locations - though if you want glasses to look directly at the sun, you're on your own. You could use your camera to watch it, but some lens aren't capable of handling that heat and could break.

For shirts to commemorate the occasion, here are two awesome designs from eno: one reminiscent of ET and one with a more standard eclipse pattern. Each are 99RMB.

And once again, the locations:
- Xintiandi: No.10, Lane 181 Taicang Lu, 太仓路181弄10号
- Next to Cantina Agave: Unit 01A-1, 291 Fu Min Road 富民路 291号， 01A-1单
- Red Sculpture Space: Unit 207-208, 138 Huaihai Zhong Lu, 淮海中路138号207-208单元
- Shaanxi Bei Lu: F1, 1388 Shan Xi North Road, 陕西北路 1388 号 F1
- Super Brand Mall, Pudong: 168 Lu Jia Zui West Road, 陆家嘴西路 168号