Our friends over at BEAN have a superb dining deal that you should know about: To celebrate Earth Hour next month, China's first eco conscious hotel is offering a 3-course meal with wine for only 200RMB.
Earth Hour candlelit dinner on Mar. 26 @ Downstairs, URBN Hotel
Weekendist: March 26 - March 28
Lots to do this week! In case you missed it, we've already outlined several opportunities to get involved with Earth Hour celebrations as well as enjoy the last couple days of the JUE Festival. Now, for the other stuff:
What are you doing for Earth Hour?
Every last Saturday in March, Earth Hour happens. The event asks everyone in the world to turn off everything they possibly can for just one hour. And the last Saturday of March (March 27th) is in exactly two weeks! How are you going to celebrate/commemorate?
One more Earth Hour photo and then we're done! Honest!
The Boston Globe has compiled a bunch of much prettier pictures of Earth Hour around the world, including a picture of the banks of the Huangpu River as seen from the Bund. The fun thing about this gallery is that when you click on the pictures, they fades into what the area looked like during the Earth Hour. We realized we have to apologize to the Aurora building - it did in fact turn its lights out. Perhaps the picture by the Earth Hour building was just taken a tad too early. Sorry, Aurora building!
Earth Hour in Shanghai
While the Chinese government may not have been quite as turned on about Earth Hour as we may have initially hoped, Shanghai at least gave the movement - which involves turning everything (you can) off for one hour every last Saturday in March - a good try. It switched off the lights at the iconic Pearl Tower and was supported by the ICBC building and several prominent Lujiazui hotels.
Earth Hour: Drink away the darkness!
Sure, you could always just stay at home tonight, turn out your lights at exactly 8:30pm and then wait around an hour before you declare yourself a good environmental citizen and go back to your regular life - or you could recognize the whole movement for what it really is: a way to feel a part of something bigger than yourself with like-minded people... and an excuse to get drunk in the dark! So here's a couple places to chug a few in the name of Mother Gaia.

