Are the days of rinsing your mouth out with runoff from a chemical plant really over? The recent culmination of the Qingcaosha water project would lead you to believe that's the case. more ›

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Holy crap, did you even know they could lose control of something that heavy? A 13,000 ton cargo ship "bumped" into a much smaller barge this morning in Huangpu River after its Nanjing operators lost control of the vessel. It immediately sank the smaller boat and resulted in the death of one 60-year-old female who was knocked into the water and drowned. The crash happened down near the Expo site, and coast guard ships were called in immediately to direct water traffic and eventually to salvage the sunken boat. Unfortunately we can now add dinner cruises to the list of activities we thought were much less vulnerable to freak accidents. Also on that list: eating stuff, riding the bus, metro, or escalators, and walking on the street. more ›

Monday mornings are notorious for the feelings of dread that they impose on us all -another manic week of work, deadlines, rush hours, homework, overtime etc. Come Wednesday, we are all filled with a kind of numbness; on the plus side we are half through the week, on the down side - 2 more days of work. Come Friday, however, well, what a great feeling -the weekend is no more than 8 hours away! more ›

A stone’s throw away from the Bund is the Shiliupu docks. Recently rebuilt, for the hefty sum of three billion RMB, the dock saw its official opening on Saturday. Unfortunately, it seems that the only thing the dock is open for is critique. more ›

More photos on the Shanghaiist Contribute page. To see your photos on our Contribute page, use Flickr and tag your photos “shanghaiist”. Or you can email your photos to photos@shanghaiist.com and they will automatically appear on our site (and here). more ›

With Halloween days away, we know it's hard to think about anything besides the awesome costumes and parties that lay ahead. So here are some suggestions to make the days go by faster this week, including jazz nights, handball, and of course, the Scrabblelicious Shanghaiist Happy Hour! more ›

• Ex-Shanghaiist contributor Abe Deyo is quoted to prove why Shanghai bands were silly to wig out over Pepsi's Battle of the Bands contest. [Voxrock]
• Jake Newby then calls the Pepsi English blog out, noting that it was surprising that something all about the Battle of the Bands contest didn't bother reporting on the massive Guangdong stage accident. [Kungfuology]
• Local maritime authorities are restricting the transport of dangerous freight on the Huangpu River to prevent accidents during the Shanghai World Expo. [Xinhua]
• According to this New York Times entry, you can get a first-class ticket between Los Angeles and Shanghai for less than $3,500 USD. WHAT! [NY Times]

• Okay, so apparently Shanghai hasn't stopped on-board temperature checks, because one Shanghaiist managing editor totally had to go through one yesterday night.
• So yesterday was really hot, right? Today's apparently supposed to be slightly cooler, with a high of 32 degrees... and that still sounds sweltering to us. Looks like we'll be staying inside til night time. [Shanghai Daily]
• The first gorilla ever born in Shanghai (and the first in China since 1982) finally has a name, 17-months after his birth. And his name is Haibei. [Xinhua]

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! more ›

Today we watched as the first half of the Waibaidu Bridge （外白渡桥）, or Garden Bridge, was returned to its original position on the north part of The Bund. more ›

We're shrouded in fog! And if you think you're having trouble getting around, think about how the 300 ships on the Huangpu River feel. Visibility is around 1000 meters all around, and reaches lows of 500 meters in some of the worse hit areas. This is the second time this month that fog has made things tough for the 2,000 incoming and outgoing ships Shanghai sees around the area. Last week, 700 got stuck at port. Source:Philstar more ›

Chinasmack brings terrible news of a woman who drowned in the Huangpu River as dozens watched and did absolutely nothing. (The video, probably taken by phone cam, shows the woman drowning and could be a little sickening to watch) more ›

It no longer matters whether you believe global warming is caused by man, or "just God hugging us closer." Because Chicken Little was right, Shanghai is sinking. more ›

Important elements for any anti-terrorism drill — great staging, great scenery and a great location where lots of people can see you. Yesterday's "terrorist" act was effectively countered by the highly efficient security forces in under an hour. more ›

OK, you know we love to slag off Shanghai Daily articles even though we know it's an essentially meaningless thing to do so. Old habits die hard. We just finished reading one about the planned Fisherman's Wharf in Yangpu district, which we are told is

Unlike its namesake in San Fransico with sea views and sea lions, the local FW will be built on the banks of the Huangpu River in Yangpu District, according to the district officials.

The outlook of its main buildings will resemble various kinds of fish to commemorate the city's history. Shanghai was evolved from a small fishing village about 1,500 years ago.

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,... more ›

A 30-year old man in Guangzhou appears to have died of exhaustion after a three-day Internet gaming binge. Paramedics tried to revive him at the cybercafe but failed and he was declared dead on the spot. more ›

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Heading near the Shanghai Expo site today? Might want to hold your breath. This from the International Herald Tribune, originally by way of AP and Xinhua: more ›

If you've ever wondered about the various names that Shanghai has, you can check out this blog entry (in Chinese), which gives brief historical explanations of each. Here's an abridged translation/summary of some of those names:
• Shanghai. The name of the city can be traced back to 1265, the Song dynasty. Back then, what is now called the Suzhou River had two small tributaries, one was called 上海浦 （shanghai pu) and the other was called 下海浦 （xiahai pu). The town being constructed was near the Shanghai Pu, hence the name.
• 沪 (hu4). If you've ever taken a look at Shanghai license plates, you've seen this character. It's commonly used to refer to Shanghai in the news as well. A hu was a kind of fishing tool commonly used in the area. It was made of bamboo, and you stuck it in the river during high tide, and when low tide came around you had a hu load of fish!
• 申 (shen1). This name is still in use today, as Shanghai is sometimes referred to as 申城 (shen cheng), and in the Shanghai football team Shenhua (申花). Shen is from the name of a Warring States period aristocrat whose "nickname" was 春申君 (chun shen jun). Back then, the Huang Pu River often flooded because of the high riverbed and silting, and this guy took it upon himself to fix things up, building waterways and dikes to alleviate the problem. The Huang Pu was renamed the 申江 (shen jiang), and soon shen stood for Shanghai.

Our brothers and sisters at Londonist breathed a huge sigh of relief yesterday — they no longer have to redesign their logo. They will remain, for the foreseeable future, the city with the biggest ferris wheel. Pop open the champagne, guys! They have Shanghai to thank. Our idiot city planners have decided to scrap plans to build a "spinning giant": more ›

If you're new to Shanghai or still in that "testing the water" phase of living here, you should be well aware of Shanghai Daily's guide to living in Shanghai, called Live in Shanghai (previously mentioned here). Recently, the website added a new and useful section about shopping in Shanghai. more ›

Zhu said that after 10 minutes of treatment Bai's lung cancer had been cured and he would recover quickly. more ›

Since "Beijingist the website" won't be happening anytime soon, we figured we'd welcome our neighbors to the north, ever so slightly, into the Shanghaiist fold. Hence, today we unveil "Beijingist the irregular feature," news and views as seen through a Beijing resident's teary-because-there-is-so-much-damn-dust-and-sand-in-the-polluted-air eyes. Occasionally, like today, we'll even allow these posts to be written in the first person -- because it's a little weird having a Beijinger refer to himself as "Shanghaiist." more ›

We'll admit it: When we first saw the map at ShanghaiClimb.com, we thought it might be an addendum to the "14 ways to die in Shanghai" map. But it's not (not yet, at least -- as far as we know no one died during the first month that normal folk were allowed to walk to the top of the world's longest arch bridge). On April 28, the Shanghai Yangzi International Travel Agency opened the Lupu Bridge hike -- 367 steps to the top of the arch, 100 meters above the Huangpu River. During this "trial-run," the duration of which we aren't sure of, the activity costs 68 RMB. Later the price will get bumped up to 80 RMB. You know, we actually might do this. This is about the closest thing to hiking we've got in downtown Shanghai. (And if walking up a bunch of steps crowded with tourists isn't your idea of "hiking," then you haven't attempted much hiking in China.) We're also intrigued by the hike's "emergency route," which by the looks of the diagram, includes rappelling down one of the bridge's supports. more ›

Although Shanghaiist finds the Lujiazui area of Pudong rather charming (in a freaky Jetsons-on-acid kind of way), we are also aware that many people find it to be a tacky mess. So if you thought Lujiazui was a frighteningly gaudy freakshow before, this news certainly won't ease your fears now. Shanghai Daily reports that city officials are planning to add, get this, "THOUSANDS" of lights to Pudong New Area very soon, in an effort to turn Pudong New Area into "the beacon of the city": more ›

From the story in the Jiefang Daily: more ›

Last summer, Shanghaiist snapped this picture of the grassy roofs of the Jin Jiang Hotel on Mao Ming Lu. Hotel workers said the grass had been there "for some time" and that it was "mandated by the district government." more ›