Results tagged “freestuff”

Guess who's climbing to town? According to the Shanghai Daily, the world's top climbers are coming to mainland China for the first time May 2nd and 3rd for a contest hosted by the International Federation of Sports Climbers.

This Saturday is a big one for bar openings, perhaps it's the changing of the seasons (or the lifting of the Olympics curse).

If you are like us at Shanghaiist..... then weeks in advance you strategically map out a strategy to maximize potential fun for the weekend. So here are a few noteworthy events coming up that we think should not be missed and we are always (sometimes..maybe) right when it comes to picking events. The 8th of December will be a big night with PK-14 back in town as is Coldcut w/ DJ Nu-Mark and Pfadfinderei. PK-14...

For any one who missed it, Cold Fairyland and the Scoff both had concerts last night at the Shanghai Concert Hall and 4Live, respectively. Yesterday afternoon Shanghaiist had spent a solid 2 hours writing an exquisite piece of prose about these two shows... but alias, the evil internet goblin crashed our computer, causing us to lose forever that beautiful essay... well, at least you won't miss out on what is happening tonight.

As the weekend starts Shanghaiist is giddy with excitement. Not because this weekend is overly exciting (though there are a few good shows out there), but because this weekend marks the unofficial end of the summer music drought. Next week Coolio and Avril Lavigne with both be in town (where are our media passes?), AK-47 along with Brain Failure and Top Floor Circus will hold a special pre-1234 Beach Rock party and the following week the SUBS will be back in town. September gets even better, though Shanghaiist will be in Beijing to catch the New York Dolls, NIN, Mando Diao, PE and Markey Ramone, Shanghai shouldn't feel left out....the Exploited will be playing at 4Live in September in what will be a shat (replace the a with an i) kicking good time. Ok, enough of what is coming in the near future, let’s get down to what is happening this weekend.

Shanghaiist prefers sugar-free bevarages. We're not getting any younger. And we'd prefer our waistline not get any bigger. (And if it does, we'd prefer it be the result of consuming good beer.) We've been known to have friends who happen to be flight attendants bring us packs of Crystal Light from back home so we can satisfy our cravings for sweetish beverages that aren't full of sugar. In China, there are few sugar-free soft drink options (unless you go to City Supermarket). You've got Diet Coke ... and that's about it, unless you count water and tea. So, we were pretty excited to find that Guangdong-based drink company Mizone (脉动) has recently launched a sugar-free flavor called 冰莓 (bing mei or maybe "ice berry"). It's not bad (and cheap, maybe 3 kuai) and kind of similar to Gatorade's sugar-free Propel Fitness Water. But we hope they launch some flavors other than 冰莓. Look for the drink in most convenience stores and supermarkets.

Well, actually we don't like cats too much since we are allergic, but we love dogs and free drinks. If you do too, you might want to head over to Senses Wine Lounge (515 Jianguo Xi Lu, 龙聚苑酒吧建国西路515号) this week, because they have free drinks for anyone who makes a donation of one kuai (one friggin' kuai) or more to the Shanghai Second Chance Animal Aid organization. That's a deal even the Mouding County police can applaud.

• Shanghai cuisine is set to be "improved", so that a menu can be created for Expo visitors, and they're hoping that "Shanghai snacks in the 2010 Expo will enjoy such worldwide fame as sushi, hotdog, and ice cream." The competition to create new snacks is open to the public, and they say that people can participate via Sohu.
• You can also contribute your thoughts about the layout and other details of the Expo by taking part in the poll on the Expo site, according to Shanghai Daily. However we had a quick look around and couldn't find much about it.
• People's Daily reported an article (from China Daily) several days ago, which bemoaned the sacrifice of old land to make way for futuristic buildings, complaining that vintage Shanghai homes were being destroyed. The article pleads for this not to be the case with the Expo site. Good luck.

If you've been in China for a while you know how hard it can be to find good English books, and even if you just arrived, you know it won't take long to reach the bottom of that box of books you brought over. Sure, you could pick up pirated copies of bestsellers off the back of a tricycle or pay airport prices for a somewhat better selection at Charterhouse, but because we know everyone loves free stuff, we suggest you check out John Pasden's Shanghai Book Swap tomorrow.

Not sure where you are right now, but we're pretty sure we know where you will be exactly one week from now -- somewhere in Shanghai saying, "Oh shit, I forgot about that Shanghaiist party." And that would be too bad, because for a bunch of bloggers, we've actually organized a pretty (if we do say so our damn selves) damn good time. And by good time, we mean semi-cheap booze*, great live music and (almost) free stuff.