Everybody in town who is Irish or pseudo-Irish will be at the St. Patrick's Day Ball at the Shangri-La tonight, tickets for which sold out sometime last fall. A quick scan of Upcoming.org and SmartShanghai shows a dearth of St. Patty's Day fun in the rest of the city, which shouldn't really come as much of a surprise -- this is China. O'Malley's claims to have the best craic in town this weekend, and mentions lots of giveaways but no drink specials. Plan B is having a 150 RMB open bar tonight for it first anniversary, and the fact that it is St. Patrick's Day seems like a happy coincidence. Everything else appears to be business as usual ... which means we'll probably grab a pint or two at the Blarney. more ›

Last weekend’s immensely successful staging of Shanghai’s first Asian Gaelic Games tournament has ensured that the event will return to China’s commercial hub next September, when teams from across Asia will once again compete to take home the Derek Brady Cup. This year’s unlikely winners were the Dubai Celts, who pipped Hong Kong to the post in extra time, with the ladies trophy collected by feisty Beijing, a team that lost every single one of their matches this time last year. Following a stunning win over tournament favourites Singapore in the quarter-finals, Shanghai’s mens team lost out to Hong Kong in the semis, but saw their star forward, James McDonald of County Down, take home the Most Valuable Player of the Tournament award. The Shanghai Sirens ladies team held on to reach the Plate finals (one stream below the Cup), but were beaten by a powerful Singapore side, boasting, as rumour had it, a 40-year-old former inter-county player and mother of three, who went by the name of Mary, and thundered in a clutch of stunning goals in the second half. more ›

OK, we think we've finally recovered from Friday night. The Shanghaiist launch party at British Bulldog Pub was hot, in almost every definition of the word. We packed the place, forcing the bar to open its rarely used third level. Opening band Xingfu 13 rocked the house in a shortened set (they were delayed by a lack of a stool for their drummer, and couldn't stay longer because they were using a cable needed by the other bands back at Tang Hui -- how indie rock is that?). And the Shanghai Cowboys killed, and confused the handful of regular pub patrons in attendance. Based on some very unscientific drunken polling, everyone had a good time at the party (except for maybe the uncharacteristically frazzled event organizer -- but you'd be frazzled too if you had to deal with ... ah, we're not going to name names). The raffle -- though somewhat unorganized because bar management forced the Shanghaiist crew upstairs at the last minute -- made several prize winners very happy, some eerily so. more ›

A final party plug before Shanghaiist lugs a shitload of T-shirts and raffle prizes over to the British Bulldog Pub. We had a couple last-minute additions to the raffle prize list (below), so be sure to check it out one more time. (Raffle tickets are 10 kuai, by the way, and five for 40 kuai. Entrance, of course, is free.) There are two threads about the party currently running on local message boards. One controversially suggests that "cute guys don't read blogs." Maybe that's true. But we at Shanghaiist read somewhere -- probably a blog -- that cute guys and hot girls tend to like live music and alcoholic beverages. And on those two criteria, we have you covered. As our friend Jake would say, this party is going to be "fresh." more ›

Not sure if you heard or not, but we're having a party on Friday. And while people seem genuinely excited about the great live music, the cool prizes (see below) and the chance to meet Shamus, we all know that what will really pack 'em in the British Bulldog Pub are the Shanghaiist.com T-shirts! (Play along, folks.) Yep, Friday will be your first opportunity to purchase these custom-made, 100-percent-cotton wonders that have local fashionistas foaming at their pouty little mouths. You know why, right? They are ringer Ts! Shanghaiist T-shirts, which come in normal Western sizes, will sell for 60 RMB on Friday. That's less than a beer in some bars in Shanghai. Some lucky party-goers will win a shirt in our lucky draw. Here are some of the other prizes up for grabs: more ›

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. more ›

On Friday, September 16, Shanghaiist will officially turn 67 days old. Sounds like a reason to celebrate! more ›