Hide your kids, hide your wife and hide your husband too, because a 23-year-old man surnamed Yin truly, actually believes '''the earth is going to be destroyed'' in 2012. Unfortunately (or fortunately?) for the young agitated man, he will miss the spectacular event, as he will be serving jail time the next two years for making a false bomb threat at the JinMao Tower in March. more ›

• How much did it cost Chinese online gaming giant Shanda to turn the Jinmao tower into a huge game advertisement? $50,000. Phew! [Interfax China]
• One Shanghai resident finds the real reason to train for the Great Wall Marathon: it helps you get your wallet back from pickpockets. [China Travel.net]
• Speaking of marathons, the 2009 women's international road cycling race will be starting up this Friday in Shanghai. The five day race will cover 400km and is the first to be held in Asia. [Xinhua]

This news just in from Shanghai Daily:

FIVE workers were injured in an explosion at a demolished building near Shanghai's landmark Jin Mao Tower in Pudong New Area this morning, Eastday.com reported. more ›

Call it the unauthorized sequel of Alain Robert's Spidey-themed Jinmao jaunt, from last June. The Shanghai Daily reports:

An unidentified man became the sixth man to climb the 88-floor Jin Mao Tower last night, although he certainly took his time completing the ascent. more ›

A special event and great photos have bent the rules for our Photo of The Day feature. Flickrite Apan & Gringo On Tour snapped these amazing photos of Alain Robert's successful campaign to climb the Jin Mao Tower and the enthralled crowd far, far below. Enjoy! more ›

Robert's earlier attempt in 2001 was halted by authorities. In the past, Robert had coyly hinted at his desire to climb Shanghai's highest (functional) building. The Jin Mao Tower, which currently ranks as the fourth highest in Asia stands at 420.6 meters (1380 feet). more ›

Photo by staffh was found via the Shanghaiist Contribute page. more ›

This photo was taken by Shanghai blogger Jakob Montrasio on Saturday. He writes: more ›

23 year-old Zhang Jincheng (张金成) broke a world record upon hopping up all 88 floors of the Jin Mao Tower on a bike. Zhang hopped sideways up all 1,980 steps in 1 hour 41 minutes, breaking the record set when someone (we couldn't find the name) went up the Eiffel Tower in the same way. Each step is about 20 centimeters high, 40 deep, and 1.4 long, which made it hard for a guy on a 1.5 meter long bike to hop up each one, but hop he did. Zhang said that the first time he saw the Jinmao Tower, five years ago, he swore that he'd climb it, and on the last day of 2006, that's exactly what he did. more ›

One of the landmark structures, Jinmao Tower, has been erected, and another, the Shanghai World Financial Tower, is being built. ... more ›

The two photos above are from Shanghai. The second, we think, is Shanghai Railway Station. Barbieri's work comes to our city as part of the Shanghai Biennale and the Year of Italy in China. More Biennale events are listed here. more ›

A couple good Shanghai blogs have noticed recently that the under-construction World Financial Center in Pudong is gaining rapidly on its older (and soon to be shorter) cousin, Jinmao Tower. more ›

Via Gridskipper, we learn that The Observer has singled out some of the world's top hotels, calling them the "Magnificent seven: icons of modern hotel design." A Shanghai property, of course, makes the list: more ›

Dog Year treats more ›

Last month, the developers and designers of the nearly-a-decade-in-the-making Shanghai World Financial Center (WFC) skyscraper in Pudong caved in to pressure from China's Japan haters and announced they had made alterations to the planned appearance of the building, which will be one of the world's tallest if it ever gets completed. Most notable among the changes -- the large circular hole that was to cut through the building's top floors was replaced by a large trapezoidal hole (uh oh, murderous cult alert). Some had complained that the circle design looked too much like the "rising sun" image from Japan's flag, especially considering the WFC's developer, Mori Building, hails from Tokyo. (Of course, the building's designers Kohn Pederson Fox -- three decidedly un-Japanese names -- don't have offices in Tokyo, opting instead for three other powder kegs of anti-China sentiment: New York, London and, er, Shanghai.) more ›

Shanghaiist chose an apartment based on the location of the original Megafit gym on Huaihai Lu. Not that the gym was anything spectacular. It was fine. We had a membership there. And we needed to be walking distance from where we worked out -- the last thing we needed was another excuse not to go. It was a three-story gym with nice big windows and if you used an elliptical machine on the third floor you overlooked an old neighborhood with tile roofs and you could see the Jinmao Tower. Now, Megafit has moved to the third floor basement of the building next door, one floor beneath the Huangpi Nan Lu subway station. more ›