With the whole bomb scare in Jiading district recently, you can't blame us for being a little nervous. Luckily, a bomb threat on Line 2 in downtown turned out to be false. Unfortunately, a couple of elderly were knocked down and bruised by the ensuing stampede. Also: "The crowds poured from the train onto the platform, leaving bags, cell phones and other belongings scattered on the carriage floors. One passenger told the Shanghai Daily reporter that he saw someone carrying a bomb-like object sitting in the last carriage and he openly admitted that it was a bomb, which sent others fleeing for safety. That man left the scene after getting off the train. Police are questioning witnesses in order to track down the man." [Shanghai Daily] 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 ›

Sometimes a particular gallery in our Flickr pool catches our attention - like this intriguing and adorable photo set from user cmar55. When asked what the toy was, and what he was doing, cmar responded: more ›

A group of kimono-clad geishas entertain passersby on the Nanjing Lu pedestrian street as part of a pile of fringe events in the ongoing Shanghai Tourism Festival. more ›

Anyone who's into rock knows that Windows Underground is the most reliable place to hear good live music at the weekend right now. The new Nanjing Xi Lu venue took the baton from Tembo as Windows' live messenger (arf!) a few months ago and has been packing them in from day one. more ›

From Matt Seigal of catshanghai.com:

There was a message floating around to meet on Nanjing Dong Lu outside the Sofitel at 3pm in order to stand still for five minutes. Passers by look amused and the police appeared rather baffled. I was going to join in, but I didn’t want to pass a chance to film the event on my cellphone. The event was great fun.

Shanghai will always be a step ahead of the capital, Beijing, when it comes to some things. Like freeways — Shanghai got the Huning Freeway first (back in 1988!). And now, wifi freeways. more ›

BBC's Shanghai correspondent Quentin Sommerville goes to the Pingyang neighbourhood south of Shanghai and finds that the anti-Maglev protests have not quite abated. In his report [VPN required], he makes the following observation:

Rarely have protests in China been so well organised, or the protesters so well-dressed.

Translation of captions:

OPPOSING THE SHANGHAI MAGLEV ONSTRUCTION PLAN: 10,000 RESIDENTS TAKE PART IN THE 'HARMONIOUS WALK' NEAR PEOPLE'S SQUARE more ›

As far as I know, the street names in Shanghai downtown work like this: East to West roads are named after cities (Nanjing Lu, Beijing Lu) and the ones that run North to South are named after provinces (Shaanxi Lu, Tibet Lu). Since most place names in China are two syllables, that keeps the size of the street names to a pretty manageable level. So this one must be pretty unusual. more ›

Though never a fan of Starbucks, more because of their bland-ardization of the world's greatest drug rather than due to any kind of deeply held anti-corporate leanings, Shanghaiist nevertheless enjoys supping the occasional hot chocolate from a Medusa-emblazoned mug. With this Monday being particularly harrowing, we were looking forward to a dose of sickly sweet cream-topped womb regression, only to have our fragile psyche strained to within an inch of another long, expensive course of... more ›

You will get to see scenes like the one above on Nanjing Lu a lot less often from next year on. All those rumours that we've been hearing have been confirmed. The May Golden Week holiday is going to be cut down to one day, and this may happen as early as 2008. In the meanwhile, three more national holiday have been added: namely the Tomb-sweeping Festival, Dragon Boat Festival and Mid-Autumn Festival. This... more ›

Photo of the Mont Blanc superstore on Nanjing Lu from All Roads Lead to China more ›

Photo of a Mummy 3 set in a Hebei Province desert from China.org.cn more ›

From 2 dogs: Nokia's flagship store on the Nanjing Lu pedestrian shopping street opens this Saturday, on 27 Oct. more ›

Right: Walk down Asia's longest and busiest shopping street (did you know it was in our city?) with the guys from The Shanghai Show. Yes, Nanjing Lu remains as psychedlic, mesmerising and frenetic as ever. more ›

Walking into Steak & Eggs, Shanghaiist was flooded with fond childhood memories of chowing down on big greasy breakfasts at truck-stop diners during family road trips along Interstate 10. Sure, we love Moon River and its classic 1950's theme, but Steak & Eggs is the first place we've eaten at in Shanghai that fits the mold of the no-frills American roadside diner. more ›

Yet another fire has broken out in Shanghai and not too far away from where the last fire broke out! This video shows some building on Nanjing Lu on fire and the fire brigade actively working to douse the fire. It remains unclear from the video (or from the comments) which building that was. Was any Shanghaiist in the area today? more ›

Yes, it is that time of the year again! The Fourth China International Adult Toys and Reproductive Health Exhibition returns at the Shanghai International Exhibition Center this weekend in Hongqiao from Friday to Sunday. more ›

Hhhhhm, Shanghaiist thinks new biz mag "Shanghai Economist" looks scarily similar to another publication on the market – White Rabbits for anyone who guesses which! We'll give you several clues: on the first few pages, it offers a neat little summary of recent news, drawing a line between world politics and economic statistics. Getting warm? Another clue, nearly as hot as this Shanghai day: the writers are anonymous. Still not close? Ok, the real clincher: the title of the other publication is actually contained within this magazine's very own name. Yes! You got it! Candy all round! Shanghai Economist is an “exact” replica of the Economist, from the contents, to the style, to the headers and footers (although not the actual front page – shame on them). Fortunately this monthly magazine is free, unlike the hefty amount levied for its counterpart (wouldn't it be great if they operated by the same ethos in Nanjing Lu's fake market?). But then again, in life you get what you pay for, right? more ›

Closing Dish: Although we haven't ventured out into the heat to check with our own eyes, we did hear from a very credible source that, at least for the 12 minutes he was standing in front of the place, Rendezvous Cafe appears closed for business. Apparently, all the lights were out and a sign written in Chinese had been placed on the locked doors. more ›

With the amount of shame emanating from the pictured women's body language, you'd think the cop was busting a Shenzhen whorehouse. But no-- this is Nanjing Lu East, and the scam is overpriced tea. more ›

Zhang Yue (张跃) of Luoyang is the kind of guy that we want around, all the time. Why? Because Zhang is known for plucking cigarettes out of people's mouths right as they are about to light up. The anti-smoking crusader has taken his show on the road to the tune of over 200 cities in China, and was recently spotted on Nanjing Lu, snubbing out eleven cigarettes in the space of half an hour. Normally, you don't do things like that -- especially to hard-core smokers -- but perhaps Zhang's altruistic motives, supplemented by his anti-smoking informational pamphlets, manage to convince where other methods fail. You can read reports about Zhang's exploits in Chengdu and Foshan as well (reports in Chinese). Thursday, May 31 is World No Tobacco Day. more ›

Shanghaiist has been hearing a lot of rumours of late of dodgy, well, more dodgy behaviour along the Tongren Lu bar strip south of Nanjing Road. This morning, Shanghaiist was forwarded an email by our golf-enthralled editor via one of his trusted acquaintances. The email contained details regarding the assault of two expat males on Tongren Lu this week. more ›

Shanghai's new double-decker bus more ›

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That's what one report suggests is happening, as certain domestic Chinese brands are unable to renew their contracts on Nanjing Lu despite being willing to pay whatever increase in rent was necessary. more ›

After Shanghaiist learned from Shanghaiist that street names changes are in the works, we thought it appropriate to post about something we recently found at a Chinese bookstore: a series of maps of old Shanghai. more ›

Meanwhile, locals watched skater exhibitionists, had near-death experiences snowboarding, checked out the flowers in Century Park, sang their heart away, went to their favorite bars, and, well, did their laundry. more ›