Photo from erussel1984Via email from Shanghaiist reader Ned: I just wanted to let you know there was a fire at approximately 3.45pm in the Shanghai Centre. I am not sure what floor it started on but was in the Portman Hotel. I work in the office tower and we had no warning until we saw smoke outside the windows. I got to the lobby with my camera but the staff made me delete the photos......

Quality and beauty are the two features Andrew James looks out for when he sources for contemporary art. This was what he liked about Dorothy M. Yoon's works when he first came upon them at a London art fair. Last Saturday's opening reception for Dorothy's first solo exhibition in China attracted a good number of people, presumably intrigued by the bizarre portraits of Asian females in all kinds of blonde wigs imaginable. While surreal......

A group of Shanghai residents who had applied to the government for the right to hold an anti-maglev protest were rejected by the government. Despite this, small numbers of them intended to go on another "walk" in order to publicly air their grievances. This time, they were stopped by some other residents. According to this AP article, this is what happened: Residents in armbands used a megaphone to warn people not to "linger here too......

It wasn't that long ago that Shanghaiist headed straight to Crystal Jade in Xintiandi for our regular weekend dim sum brunch. Since then, however, our new loyalties lie with two restaurants closer to headquarters. Our first impressions of Lynn back when it opened early last year was that customers were paying the bulk of the price premium for its sleek, modern decor and presentation rather than the quality of its traditional Shanghainese fare. However, dim......

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......

Live Bar has always been open to different genres of music, and of late, seems to be the venue of choice for Chinese folk, metal and student bands. Friday night they will host one of China's most popular nu-metal bands, Twisted Machine. Any fan of metal should not miss this show, a great chance to see what Chinese metal has to offer. On the other side of town, up'n'coming indie rockers, Yuguo will play an......

Readers of SH Magazine (and that probably means MANY of you here as well) that participated in its first Readers' Choice Survey have voted us Shanghai's Blog of the Year! Thanks to all of you who made this possible! So Nanjing Xilu was the Street of the Year, and Liu Xiang was the Person of the Year. H&M was the hottest fashion shop for both women AND men, and Qipu Lu was the best......

The Shanghai Special Olympics concluded yesterday. Over the past two weeks, 7,500 athletes, 40,000 volunteers, and 3,500 event officials descended on the city to stage events for 25 sports. Highlights here. At the closing ceremony at Jiangwan Stadium last night, Kenny G played a rendition of “Butterfly Lovers” (梁祝) as women in butterfly costumes descended from cables strung to the stadium lights. When they reached the stage, they claimed a Special Olympian and escorted......

Tonight 8pm NEXTSTEP @ Vintage Living 3F, 2068 Nanjing Xilu, by Yongyuan Lu, T: 6249-0469 Calling all Shanghai entrepreneurs! Come meet new faces and get to know other like-minded individuals at this week's NextStep event which features Tony Mustafa of Essential Finance. All are welcome, no membership required, and no cover charge. Wednesday 8pm Shanghai Skate Nights @ Shanghai Concert Hall 523 Yan'an Dong Lu (near Xizang Lu) The bi-weekly Shanghai SkateNights continues to gather......

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. Peter was beat up pretty badly and left unconscious in the alley/parking lot behind the bars.......

Spago is a new fusion restaurant located opposite the Fenshine Plaza fake market on Nanjing Xi Lu. Spago's proximity to a knock-off market is ironic in light of an apparent and blatant trademark violation by this Shanghai 'branch'. It is easy to miss Spago from the street as it is tucked away in an alley like an inconspicuous noodle shack. Walk through the door and you are immediately greeted by a very cool bistro café......

And it is "a match for anything on the Bund"! No surprise there. But wait, there's more. Spago "has already become a popular lunch spot with pasta, Western, pizza and Asian sets for ¥19, 29 and 39" and is perfect for "fashionistas on a shoe-string." What? Huh? Nowhere in its four-star review of new Shanghai restaurant Spago (595 Nanjing Xi Lu, 南京西路595号, Tel: 6271-3777) does City Weekend mention that "this versatile new space" maybe, just......

Which reminds us — we need to go to the gym. Cold Stone Creamery — the fast-growing American chain of ice cream shops featuring servers who, on top of a (you guessed it) cold stone, mix just about anything you want into your serving and, unfortunately, sing while doing so — will open its first Mainland China shop in the basement of Shanghai's Raffles City mall near People's Square on April 23. We have been......

In two weeks time (April 5), we Shanghainese are going to celebrate the Qingming Festival. Tomb sweeping, or honouring the deceased, is one of the important Qingming Festival rituals for most Chinese. Eastday (in Chinese) said already around 30,000 Shanghainese went to Suzhou for tomb sweeping last weekend, and from the past years’ experience, the 10 days before and after Qingming Festival is the most frequent travel time for people, therefore, more people are expected......

The monthly MobileMonday meeting will be held in Shanghai today. Interested in the future of mobile shopping in China? Here's the official invitation: “M-commerce”, “mobile wallet”, “Near Field Communications (NFC)” or “m-ticketing” are not savvy marketers’ jargon anymore! Like a vengeance, mobile payment & transactions is back in the limelight in China, for good this time. More on the official MobileMonday website. The event will take place tonight from 6.30pm at Kathleen's 5, 325 Nanjing......

The Shanghai Daily reports that The Longhua Fashion and Gift Market is struggling to attract patrons. The Longhua market attracted the bulk of the vendors from the closure of Xiangyang market last June, however it appears that patrons have decided to give this location the big swerve. The main reasons that spring slowly to our mind include the distant location from downtown (yes, Xujiahui isn’t downtown people), and the relatively poor transportation options to get......

Sunday morning, while most people will be sleeping/ clubbing/ trying to get sober, about 15,000 runners will gather for the Shanghai marathon and half marathon, starting at 7:30 am, on Nanjing Dong Lu and Sichuan Lu. For those who feel sympathetic (check the weather forecast) and want to cheer the participants up, they start from the Peace Hotel, run on Nanjing Dong Lu, Jiujiang Lu, Nanjing Xi Lu, Yan'an Xi Lu, Zhongshan Lu, etc. etc.......

This is just a little note to say: It's on. And by "it" we are of course referring to the Jing'an Diner Battle of 2006 -- it's no longer a one diner district. At the risk of making it seem like all we did this weekend is drink beer and eat waffles -- hey, we also adopted a puppy! -- we wanted to tell you we visited the new Moon River Diner at the New......

Mr. Ma, toy bicycle maker...

A Japanese website -- apparel-web.com -- has a section called Street Fashion Photo, with sections dedicated to Tokyo, New York, London and -- your guessed it -- Shanghai. They have pics organized by street: Nanjing Dong Lu, Nanjing Xi Lu, Huaihai Zhong Lu and Xujiahui. Worth a look. There's probably a lot more to it than pics, but we can't read Japanese.......

Good Boonna Café: We miss bohemian charm like we miss an old-fashioned milkshake. Luckily, Boonna Café (open in two locations; Boonna 1 is on Xinle Lu, Boonna 2 on West Fuxing Lu, directly across from JZ Club) has both in spades, not to mention attentive waitstaff, a Mac G4 (how often do you see one of those in a coffee shop?), and no cell phone rings set to the blare of (bad) Korean pop. Yet.......

We know -- yet another hard-hitting report from Shanghaiist. Sorry, but we need our cereal in the morning. And, as any cereal connoisseur in this city will tell you, it's not a cheap habit to maintain. We're not proud to admit it, but we once spent nearly US$10 for a box of Cinnamon Life at City Supermarket -- it was an impulse buy (and we justified it, as we always do with expensive purchases, using......

We know we are a bit late on this, but the Shanghai Biennale will be going on until November 4, so you still have time. The following are our observations from one day spent at the Shanghai Art Museum last week. We accompanied a friend who is into design to the opening of this Biennale, themed HyperDesign. It features more than 100 artworks by 93 groups of artists from 23 countries and regions. There are......

As we often do after getting married unexpectedly, we went shopping for women's shoes this afternoon. Didn't find any shoes, but we did find a rather amusing piece of masturbatory exercise equipment on sale at the Golden Eagle Mall (the one behind Citic Square on Nanjing Xi Lu that no one ever goes to). We enjoyed the commercial on display, and we thought you might, too. Check out the video above. We Googled "iGallop" and......

How many times have you found yourself sitting around your living room just itching to attend a local expo? Didn't think so. Well, for those out there who are interested, get those reading glasses ready. If the previously mentioned Sex Expo ("Sexpo"?) isn't quite your cup of naughty tea, then perhaps this might better suit your uptight needs. As reported last week in Shanghai Daily, the 2006 Shanghai Book Fair will be held at the......

We expect nothing less of Xinhua, but it is good to see that they are maintaining the party line regarding the recent closure of Xiangyang Market. Here is the caption they used for the photo that appears top the right: Two workers blocked the entrance to Xiangyang Market in Shanghai, east China, July 3, 2006. Xiangyang Market, a major Shanghai tourist attraction with more than 800 tenants, was officially closed on June 30, 2006, as......

There are some blogging contests currently going on that Shanghaiist readers might be interested in: Best China Blogs (which has monetary rewards), the Asia Blog Awards and China's First Annual Original Videolog Contest.If, like this local "amateur model", you plan on stealing 24 items from the Zara on Nanjing Xi Lu, don't forget to cut out the smaller security magnets hidden inside the items in addition to the larger more obvious ones.Jackie Chan, Nicole Kidman,......

Shanghaiist went to Big Bamboo early this morning to watch a ref from Uruguay dominate the World Cup match between the U.S. and Italy. Shortly before the 3 a.m. match time, we plopped ourselves down on stools upstairs with a prime view of the bar's only big screen TV. That's when we were told that they were closing the upstairs part of the bar and asking everyone to watch the match downstairs, because they wanted......

Scotch whisky producer Chivas is a taking a Chinese newspaper to court.It's almost World Cup time, and in China we all know what that means -- time to start churning out fake merchandise!"The Bush administration has built a new full fledged war plan for China, the first new conventional war plan since the end of the Cold War."What does the municipal goverment believe to be one of the biggest potential threats to our city? Skyscrapers.......

... take his word. Jarrett Wrisley, who wrote for Shanghaiist for about 20 minutes last summer, has highlighted tomorrow's event in his "New & Noted" column in SH: Haven’t been to the City Diner yet? You might want to check out their happy hour, being thrown by Shanghaiist.com, the city blog run by Dan Washburn and his team of Shanghai spectators. Head to City Diner on May 20 from 11am-2pm and, for ¥100, enjoy their......