A foreigner is stirring up a storm on China's social media with a plea for help in finding a girl he met while traveling in Hangzhou. Originally posted on RenRen, netizens are finding the young student's dedication to love and forwardness cute and inspiring. more ›

Shot by Ricardo Mendialdua in Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou and Suzhou. more ›

Here's a little Christmas cheer, coming straight at you from Hangzhou's Polar Ocean Park: more ›

The word on the street is that Hangzhou is the first city in China to have free city-wide wifi coverage (much to the chagrin of Shanghai residents), but is it true? more ›

The restaurant could be be the latest item in a long list of revealed-to-be Chinese inventions! Formerly misattributed as Western creations, gunpowder, printing, and even New World exploration have all been claimed thoroughly as Chinese in origin. more ›

Our favourite newspaper Shanghai Daily reports:

HANGZHOU city government is to give Maria Fernanda, a Uruguayan woman who rescued a would-be suicide at the city's West Lake, a "righteous award" to recognize her courage and benevolence, officials said yesterday. more ›

Remember the woman who saved a girl attempting suicide in Hangzhou's West Lake? Earlier media reports said she's American. Well, apparently she's a Uruguayan expatriate living here in Shanghai with her husband, and her name is Maria Fernandes. more ›

Researchers at Zhejiang University in Hangzhou recently unveiled two robots that can play a decent game of ping-pong with both backhand and forehand capabilities. Taking four years to develop, the twin robots' eye-mounted cameras capture stills at 120 images per second, which allows processors to then calculate a whacked ball's position, speed, angle, landing spot and trajectory. more ›

"When she jumped into the lake, the drowning woman was about 20 meters away from the pavilion and was sinking. I could only see her hair," Liu said. "But the foreign lady swam quickly to her, held up her chin with one hand and used the other to swim back." more ›

As if we needed further proof that on the internet, all men are men, all women are men, and all children are FBI agents, a famous 22-year-old prostitute who blogged her sexacapades on Sina Weibo has turned out to be a 31-year-old married man living in Hangzhou. more ›

Watch out, China! Current Denver Nuggets free agent J.R. Smith has just signed a contract to play the upcoming season with the Chinese Basketball Association's Zhejiang Golden Bulls (浙江稠州银行) of Yiwu. more ›

The truth is in out there, and especially in Chongqing. Planes were diverted from landing at Jiangbei International Airport in Chongqing municipality Wednesday afternoon, reportedly due to an Unidentified Flying Object reportedly sighted flying high above the airport. Normal operations at the airport resumed after a little under an hour. more ›

A young post-90's (90后) mother in the Fujian city of Zhangzhou (漳州) reportedly strangled her 10-month son to death during a live broadcast Saturday morning on QQ.com. The 19-year-old mother, surnamed Zou, announced to netizens that she would kill her child and broadcast the murder live on a QQ chat. She apparently murdered her son after having an argument with the baby's father. more ›

This just in, fellow Shanghai residents -- you are miserable! Sure, we may have the highest living standard on the mainland and one of the most vibrant skylines in the world, but who really cares about modern amenities anyway. According to the National China Institute of City Competitiveness, Shanghai ranked dead last among all major metropolitan centers, and was further embarrassed by 90+ smaller cities around China in a report released today. more ›

There really isn't much of a story here, but this twitpic of the New York Knicks' Carmelo Anthony doing his best punk-ass tourist sneer with his panda homey is definitely worth your attention (though Shaq seems to have already claimed the same panda-throne two years ago!). Anthony, along with his potential future teammate Chris Paul of the New Orleans Hornets, is currently in Chengdu as part of the annual pilgrimage of NBA stars to the succulent milkable cow that is the Chinese market Jordan Brand Flight Tour, a four-city brand promotion do that includes store appearances and training camps for the Jordan shoe imprint owned by Nike. more ›

When we wrote about Shanghai’s falling glass problem due to lax safety regulations last month, we were at least happy to report that cars were the only victims. We spoke too soon. In a gruesome turn of events, Shanghai Daily reports, "A 19-year-old woman received compensation from a commercial building operator in Hangzhou yesterday after her leg was virtually severed by a shard of falling glass. She faces amputation. The woman, Zhu Yiyi, is now in a Shanghai hospital for the surgery in hopes of preserving more of her leg….A 1-meter-long sheet of glass dropped from the 21st-floor and hit Zhu from behind on her knee on July 8 as she walked near the 23-story Qingchun Development Building on her way to work in Hangzhou, capital of neighboring Zhejiang Province. Witnesses said her left leg was almost cut off beneath her knee." more ›

"TWO former vice mayors in east China, convicted of corruption and taking millions of yuan in bribes, were put to death today. Xu Maiyong, 52, former vice mayor of Hangzhou, the capital of Zhejiang Province, and Jiang Renjie, former vice mayor of Suzhou, a city in Jiangsu Province, were executed today, Xinhua reported. Xu was given the death sentence for taking 145 million yuan (US$22.31 million) in bribes, embezzling 53 million yuan and abusing power. Nicknamed 'Xu of Plenty' because he possessed a lot of money, houses and women, Xu accepted and sought bribes from 14 companies and individuals and helped them get government projects, evade taxes, obtain land and get government jobs, China News Service reported. Jiang was found guilty of accepting 108.57 million yuan in bribes from property developers between 2001 and 2004 when he was in charge of urban planning, construction and real estate development in Suzhou." [Shanghai Daily] more ›

China Daily has some devastating news for us -- we're NOT China's most expensive city when it comes to housing prices! That honour has gone to our neighbouring city of Hangzhou, with an average housing price of 25,840 yuan ($3,921.78) per square meter. more ›

Looking for something new to give your wife/girlfriend/mother tomorrow? Xinhua suggests this "gelivable" China-only Miu Miu purse. The 50 pieces of this bag edition is only available in Hangzhou's MixC Mall (which, if we may remind you, is only 38 minutes away.) It's a purse roughly about the size of an iPad and features a removable chain that can be worn as a necklace. And of course, it is appropriately red. Priced at 10,000 RMB. more ›

We were questioning why a Shanghai-to-Hangzhou Maglev was necessary since plans for it were resuscitated in 2009. Apparently, despite winning approval of the National People's Congress last year, it's now off again. An official said that the cancellation of the 22 billion~35 billion RMB endeavor was "a decision made by the central government after research by Zhejiang Provincial Development and Reform Commission." Seems like someone took a closer look and realized it was a bloated vanity project - especially when, for all its high technology, the maglev would've only cut the current commute time between the cities by 10 minutes. more ›

Woohoo. 2011 looks set to be a great year for budget travellers, especially those that are looking to get down to Southeast Asia. Australian budget airline Jetstar has announced a new flight that will connect its Singapore hub to Hangzhou from 22 March. The flight frequency will be increased from thrice- to four-times weekly by 27 March. more ›

High-speed “G” train service from Shanghai to Hangzhou is slated to begin on October 26th, making it that much easier to take in the views of West Lake, eat some dongporou and walk through the Longjing tea fields. more ›

Last we heard of Charles Lanceplaine, he was busy with a documentary on skateboarders in Shanghai. At some point in time, he took a little time off to film another type of 'boarder - surfers. Did you know that "since 2007, Surfing China and Wabsono, with the permission of the Chinese government, has invited Pro surfers to surf the bore known as the 'Silver Dragon'" in Hangzhou? more ›

While dates for a China release are still up in the air, the iPhone 4 was recently launched just a short flight away in Hong Kong... and it turns out that, count our lucky stars, that may actually be the cheapest place to go to to get one! more ›

To the right is Wang Lu, a girl from Xinjiang who was just crowned China's representative in the Miss Tourism International 2010 competition. To get the first place prize, she showed off her noble temperament, magnanimous spirit and dazzling evening wear looks over the last few days in Hangzhou. more ›

Remember that UFO in nearby Hangzhou that shut down the city's airport for a couple of hours? The authorities have investigated and they can say with absolute certainty that the UFO was not flown by aliens. more ›

On Wednesday, Hangzhou's Xiaoshan airport was shut down for about an hour while airport authorities scrambled to figure out what unidentified flying contraption was hovering on their radars. Yep, a UFO closed down the Hangzhou airport. more ›

The times they are a-changing! Guess where we found all these pictures of Evangelist Luis Palau's much talked about Gospel rally in Hangzhou? On the website of the "United Front Work Department of CPC Central Committee"! more ›

Remember that proposed maglev train - the one from Shanghai to Hangzhou - that we thought was scrapped after protests and then brought back up again last year? Apparently it won approval at the National People's Congress this weekend. The 199.4 km-long line is said to cost an estimated 22 billion RMB ($3.22 billion) - a surprising 13 billion RMB less than what a shorter line was proposed to cost in 2006. Huh. The train will allegedly go at speeds of 430km/h, essentially turning Hangzhou into a Shanghai suburb. more ›

• No worries about getting the runs while exploring the World Expo - Shanghai has been making extensive efforts to ensure that we are never far from a toilet. The city has installed toilets about every 200 meters for the estimated 400,000 daily visitors expected each day. In addition, sophisticated rubbish collection systems will help us to forget we're in a Chinese city. [Shanghai Daily]
• Looking for something culturally stimulating this week? The Tony award winning Soul of Shaolin tells the story of Hui Guang, a son and his mother. The show is a stunning display of Wushu Kung Fu that is sure to astound you. The performance starts this Thursday at the Shanghai Theatre Academy. [Smart Shanghai]
• China is planning on forming an organization of top universities called the C9 and Shanghai's very own Fudan University and Shanghai JiaoTong University will join with other prestigious schools across the nation in a Chinese "Ivy League". We wonder if they're copying this tradition for better education opportunities for their students or to increase elitism? [People's Daily]