Results tagged “hotels”

           

As we stepped off bustling Jiaozhou Lu and through the large and heavy wooden gates of URBN, we felt as if we had left Shanghai. The hustle and bustle of Shanghai seemed to have disappeared and already we could feel ourselves loosening up, relaxing. Just through the threshold was a small cobble-stoned, tree-lined courtyard... and to our direct left, decorated with an artful take on bamboo scaffolding, the hotel.

When summer comes, everyone wants to dive in the water to cool down. Recently, many hotels and high-end clubs in Chongqing posted ads in a BBS claiming that they offer beauties at the pool to "play with" as a deal to attract male customers.

Despite stereotypes, it seems like Shanghainese men are less henpecked than you would think: they're less likely to wash their wives' panties than other Chinese. Wait, what?...

If you walked by Century Square last Thursday, saw a whole slew of people jumping on an absolutely huge mattress, and wondered what the hell was going on - we have the answer for you: It was a publicity event.

The Chinese Consulate-General in Mumbai is located less than 100 metres away from the Oberoi Hotel, one of the luxury hotels that were bombed by terrorists yesterday, but no casualties have been reported as yet. In what appeared to be a highly coordinated effort supposedly by a little-known Islamic group called the Deccan Mujahideen, teams of heavily-armed gunmen unleashed at least seven attacks across the city, including the landmark Taj Hotel, a popular tourist attraction and a train station, killing at least 100 people and injuring another 200. In an interview with the Legal Evening Post 《法制晚报》, Vice Consul Wang Zhenhua (王振华) has said the consulate-general was "very fortunate" to emerge from the blasts relatively unscathed. Wang was sleeping in the consulate when he heard a huge blast that rattled the building that housed the consulate. Since then the consulate-general has been working nonstop — making and receiving calls related to the safety of Chinese nationals and organisations, liaising with hotels and police departments, and beefing up security at the consulate-general. On hearing that the Oberoi Hotel had been attacked and hostages held there, Wang's top concern was for the general manager and employees of Sinopec's Hong Kong subsidiary which had its office located in the hotel. Fortunately they are all safe and no reports of Chinese casualties or hostages have been made yet.

You won't have to go to Dubai to enjoy seven-star luxury anymore as the world's second seven star hotel — and China's first — is going to be built in Sanya, Hainan. Construction of the 120m high hotel will begin later this year and will be completed by 2011 to be managed under the Fairmont Hotels & Resorts brand. Shanghai Daily tells us more:

Located in the center of Haitang Bay in Sanya City, the hotel will spread over 150 square kilometers and include a luxury yacht club, a golf course and the biggest ocean park in Asia.

Continue reading "China's first seven star hotel to be built in Sanya, Hainan"

Our parents and sister just visited China for the first time. We won’t bore you with the details on what we did in Shanghai, but since many of you are hosting visitors and/or visiting China for the first time for the Olympics, here are some of the highlights from our travels to Beijing including suggestions for elderly and disabled (something we couldn't find anywhere else online).

Where have we heard this one before? In a move to realize the State Council's ambitions, the city's hotels are now encouraged to become more environmentally friendly. As part of this process hotels will stop using small containers of shaving foam, soap, lotion etc. In other words, no more stealing hotel-sized toothpaste and shampoo bottles, folks. Hotels who live up to requirements will be rewarded with a gold or silver "leaf", to add to their stars. [Source]

Last week Shanghaiist attended NextStep’s Green Business Forum to find out more about Shanghai’s local, green businesses. The focus of the conference included the carbon credit market and how to greenify your office or building.

Unusual honesty from the Shanghai Daily which makes you wonder if they're not actually gloating:

HOTELS in Beijing are slashing prices for next month's Olympics after the expected windfall of visitors failed to materialize, hotels and travel industry executives said yesterday.

Continue reading "The Great Olympic Meltdown: Beijing hotels slash rates after foreign tourists fail to show up"

Sometimes you wonder if China will finally make up her mind, flip-flopping over wanting tourists, then keeping them out even if they have got Olympic tickets for security reasons, going even to the extent of driving foreign residents out. But what next for the foreigners who weren't sent home or for the remaining handful of tourists who thanked their lucky stars for having made it into China? Among other things like worrying over where to get their daily intake of greens, the latest problem seems to be if hotels will take them in.

I got to the lobby with my camera but the staff made me delete the photos I got. I have some from the outside on my Flickr page tagged with Shanghaiist.

Set back from the junction of XinLe Lu and XiangYang Lu, opposite a blue-domed Russian Orthodox Church stands the Mansion Hotel.

At the Sheraton Hotel there's a new hero in town: Spiderman is washing the windows.

By James Creegan

You heard that right, ladies and gentlemen... Our city's foresighted urban planners, God bless their hearts, have looked into their glassball and decided that Shanghai needs another Lujiazui — and really, soon — in three years to be exact. Well if they were able to build Lujiazui I in ten years, we have every confidence they can build Lujiazui II in three. Never ever ever doubt the ambitions of Shanghai city planners. Just build first,...

The yuan broke the 7.4 mark against the US dollar for the first time yesterday largely fueled by expectations that China is seeking a quicker appreciation of the currency to fight inflation.

China issued a sweeping denunciation of Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian on Thursday, accusing him of stirring animosity between the sides to divert attention from his personal scandals.

The latest issue of TIME Magazine has an interesting story of a US-based company that has just set up shop in where else but Inner Mongolia, to feed the millions of hungry Chinese who are now looking to eat something other than pork:

Shanghaiist loves our dear readers because you never hesitate to let us know when you disagree when it comes to a restaurant recommendation. Well, now's your chance to put a little of your own skin in the game. Famed restaurant guide Zagat is currently collecting survey responses regarding restaurants in Beijing, Hong Kong, and Shanghai. Users who submit the survey by the September 23rd deadline will receive a free copy of the resulting 2008 China's Restaurants and Hotels Guide when it's published. According to Zagat they are covering over 175 restaurants in Shanghai. We signed up (site registration is required in order to take the survey) to take a peek. The restaurants are broken out by district, and glancing at the full list it looks like usual suspects from the listings on City Weekend (which, by the way, appears to have upgraded their website).

Gosh. With the third allegation of hacking by the Chinese military into government computers in Germany, the United States and the United Kingdom surfacing within two weeks, the guys at the Foreign Ministry have been kept busy! Fons Tuinstra points to past cases of bored teenagers who have successfully hacked into other governments and surmised that the German government could not have said that they had an issue with millions of bored Chinese teenagers! Richard Spencer made the erudite argument that if the "US and other western governments are busy infiltrating the computer systems of foreign governments... it is disingenuous to complain too vigorously when those same foreign governments become good at doing it back". Hmm...

Shanghaiist really needed a break and what better place to take that break than... the Venetian? I know what you're thinking: biggest casino in the world + gambling Chinese tourists = a big fat headache. Well, it wasn't that bad, really. The Venetian was fully booked over the weekend so we could only get one night at the Vegas transplant... which was quite enough for us. The casino is an exact replica of its Vegas hotel, except about ten times bigger, and just as gawdy and tacky... which makes it perfect for the throngs of Chinese crossing the border each day. The casino (which looked to be the size of several football fields) was completely packed both Friday and Saturday, and reached a fever pitch around midnight both nights. The big game in Macau is Baccarat, which is a glorified version of high/low, and a electronic version of Roulette called SicBo that is played with dice. The second level was the shopping plaza, complete with false "Venetian style" storefronts, canals and singing gondola drivers (see picture). Shanghaiist doesn't gamble (except for hold 'em poker, which isn't offered in any casino in Macau!), but was content just watching other people throw their hard earned money away.

This Youku video shows some women offering old men massage hanky-panky, all out in the open in an unnamed city, for as low as RMB5! The world's oldest profession is alive and well in China, and it is everywhere.

ChinaOnTV.com is a U.S. based online video network, with all content presented in English. The mission of ChinaOnTV is to continually increase the public’s awareness of China’s history as well as contemporary Chinese life and achievements, in order to foster international trade, business ventures, cultural understanding, travel, peace and good will between the peoples of all nations.

Picture of the H5N1 (bird flu) virus from ibuzzo.

Among the many things one can do to make China "lose face" in the international eye:

Ok, whatever people might say about the Bund – tacky, over-priced – most are still damn glad it's there rather than not. It is, after all, the most enduring reminder of Shanghai's decadent international past. Consequently, when the paradigm of this past, the Peace Hotel, recently closed for its US$65m makeover, a few questions were raised about the area's future.

We’re sure everyone has forgotten due to a lack of media coverage, however, Shanghai will be hosting the 2010 World Expo. In order to prepare for Shanghai’s debut on the world stage, several construction projects are underway. After all, Shanghai has to upstage former World Expo hosts, such as Knoxville in the US, Hanover in Germany, Aichi Prefecture in Japan, and the main rival, the 2008 host Zaragoza, Spain.