Results tagged “orientalpearltower”

Shanghaiist gets mention on Agence France-Presse

Hey! Not to toot our own horn or anything (okay, we're tooting it a little), but it looks like we've been mentioned on the Agence France-Presse. That makes us feel kind of famous! In an article about Shanghai's recent attempts to eradicate Chinglish, the AFP quoted our picture of the sign at the Oriental Pearl Tower, where visitors are warned that "ragamuffin, drunken people and psychotics are forbidden to enter." Heh heh heh. It's too bad they didn't also include that bit about the "peculiar smell of effluvium." We were thinking of making that our new tag line.

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Slow weekend for music, lucky for us the bands that are playing (Live Earth is the exception) are worth seeing. This is the weekend for concerts dedicated to raising environmental awareness, accomplished by plugging in watt hungry amps and singing about sex and beer. On Friday Recycle a pop punk band, less pop more punk, will be joined by old school punkers Loudspeaker and garage rock favorites Banana Monkey at 4Live. On Saturday PK-14 (Public Kingdom for Teens) an amazing post-punk band from Beijing marks their return to Shanghai for the first time in over 1 1/2 years with two shows. Celebrating their launch of environmentally-inspired tees (proceeds of which will go to charity) the clothing shop ENO gets things rocking at 4pm with July 16th a garage rock band from Nanjing, Boojii the Shanghai Shoegazer band and the cat's meaow....PK-14. For those who can't get enough of them at the afternoon show (that should be everyone!), PK-14 will also be playing Saturday night at the Dream Factory. If great post-punk music isn't your thing then plenty of cheesy pop music will be available at the official Live Earth concert being held under the Oriental Pearl Tower (not exactly the most environmentally friendly of buildings).

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

At least they don't lag behind in anything important!

  • What's next? A Paramount Theme Park in Tianjin?
  • ICBC is going public.
  • The Ministry of Information has blacklisted 102 wireless services across China and we have no clue why.
  • When it's the anniversary of something important in China (other than your birthday), please do not in any way commemorate it, or buy anything that might be related to it. They're watching you!
  • The Swedish King and Queen sailed to China in a wooden ship -- were they on there for the entire 10 months it took to get to Guangzhou? They meet with another unelected leader on Wednesday in Beijing.
  • Australian PM John Howard is a realist, which means he doesn't believe in lecturing Beijing about politics.
  • Carrefour is trying to rid itself of corruption which affected how products were placed and stacked!
  • In case you haven't seen Pirates of the Carribean 2 yet, check out Chow Yun-fat's wicked mustache.
  • Just as Starbucks sued a Shanghai place for using its Chinese name (星巴克), now Nestle is suing a Zhejiang teahouse that calls itself Que Chao (雀巢), the Chinese name for Nestle. At least they sell Nestle stuff inside.
  • Some venture capital Chinese company claims it cracked Skype protocol and demonstrated this fact by calling someone's Skype using a non-Skype program. The implications are that Skype could be shut down in China. The Skype folks are dismissing the claim.
  • The controversy surrounding Shao Xiaoshan, Zhang Ziyi's naked body double in The Banquet continues: She talks about how her Chinese-American fiance called her a whore and broke up with her over this issue, as well as the numerous unsavory things that go on behind the scenes in the film biz. Cecilia Cheung says ZZY was unprofessional for using a body double, while Zhou Xun comes to ZZY's defense. On the whole, Shao thinks she's done a good job of generating publicity for herself.
  • Jaywalking caused 25 deaths in Shanghai this year, leading authorities to crackdown on jaywalking. Same article says that many of the drivers involved don't have experience either. Seems to us they ought to crack down on shitty driving, too.
  • Don't be the last person on your block to get a Super Voice Girl doll.
  • The British Open will be a warm-up for Tiger's return to Shanghai this fall.
  • 胡锦涛主席启程出访五国
    Chairman Hu Jintao sets out to visit five countries, including 美利坚合众国 (the USA). Did you hear about the dinner at Bill Gates' house?

    We wrote about Thames Town earlier, and it seems that Kristie Lu Stout, armed with her "Shanghai Diary" has taken it upon herself to bore many, many people with her take on what several hundred thousand people have already had their take on. You'll enjoy this:

    Acting as a tourist-in-your-own-city can be addictive. Having enjoyed our exploration of the Longhua Temple and Martyrs’ Memorial during the Spring Festival, we looked for another fresh expedition right on our doorstep.

    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.)

    Shanghaiist knows a thing or two about Australia. So we obviously know a bit about sharks (or “Noahs”, as they’re called Down Under). We therefore read with great interest that the Shanghai Ocean Aquarium has opened a special exhibition called “I Love Sharks -- Our Ocean, Our Home.”

    Just what in the name of Gabby Reece is going on beneath the Pearl Tower this week? They've trucked in 300 tons of sand and dumped it at the base of our city's signature structure -- and no, it's not for one of those God-awful "foam parties" (that doesn't happen until Saturday). It's not a giant ashtray either, although that no doubt would be quite popular considering the way Chinese tourists choke them down. Nope, this fake beach almost on the shores of the Huangpu is for the grandaddy of beach volleyball tournaments in all of China -- the 2005 China National Beach Volleyball Championships -- a marathon that began way back in April and included stops in seven Chinese cities, culminating with the Shanghai finals, which began Tuesday and end on Friday.

    Shanghaiist’s worst travel experience ever was on a 15-hour “sleeper bus” (ha!) from southern Shandong Province back to Shanghai. Packed to the rafters, Arctic January temperatures, layers of ice on broken windows, an ancient, festering interior dotted with rusty metal benches and the occasional sodden blanket (actual interior, pictured), black smoke chundering out of the engine console inside the vehicle, a desperate need to urinate for the second half of the trip and a Soup Nazi of a driver who couldn’t even be bribed to stop. To make matters worse, we joyously spied the night lights of the Oriental Pearl Tower in the disorientating haze of bladder pain and thought the horror was over, only to discover it was a miniature of the Pearl Tower located about 200 kilometres northwest of the city and we still had a four-hour crawl left to go.

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