Disney has given us more tantalizing shimmery peeks into the Shanghai park that just broke ground this April, and according to their website, here's what we can expect from their enormous centerpiece castle: more ›

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Office ladies rejoice! Plans have been announced for a theme park that would bring Hello Kitty and her blank-faced cohorts to China. Purveyors of kawaii kitsch Sanrio Co., Ltd. have reached an agreement to license their characters to Zhejiang Yinrun Leisure Development for a theme park project in Zhejiang's Anji county, an hour and a half's drive northwest from Hangzhou. more ›

Shanghai Disneyland isn't the only massive real estate project Disney Co. is taking on. Besides the theme park (on which work has begun), there will be a town attached. I suppose it was naive to think anything with the word "park" in it could be built in China without being connected to a luxury housing estate. more ›

It's heeeeereeee - Shanghai Disneyland is breaking ground and beginning construction this Friday. more ›

The Korean Foreign Minister has issued an apology over the sex scandal involving three Korean consulate members in Shanghai. All three men under investigation are suspected to have had relations with the same woman! That's a pretty scandalous-y scandal. more ›

At an investor conference a few weeks ago, Walt Disney Company released official artwork of Shanghai Disneyland. The new park is set to open in 2015 (after they finish bulldozing people out of the way and sucking up Shanghai's tourism budget) and is expected to draw 7.3 million visitors annually. more ›

Shanghai has announced plans to invest 400 billion yuan 40 billion yuan into its tourism industry during the next five-year plan. [Correction: we originally reported 400 billion, the correct figure is 40 billion.] While Shanghai Disneyland and Happy Valley's "second phase" construction will suck up most of the money, there are also 11 other projects in the works, including ecological parks and nature resorts, as well as the Fengxian 'Oriental Venice' project. more ›

Earlier announcements already tagged November as the start to the building of Shanghai Disneyland, but recent reports have the whole deal going down today. According to the city and Shanghai Shen Di (Group) Co., who's joint venturing with Disney over the 25 billion RMB ($3.6 billion) deal, the theme park will be a "strong international tourism resort," with a pleasant, low-carbon environment. Right. Low-carbon. Anyone else having trouble getting excited over the "happiest place on earth" all things considered? more ›

Wave farewell to the Shanghai World Expo without much sorrow, because our very own Shanghai Disneyland is expected to start construction in November 2010. Overseen by the Shanghai Shendi Shendi Group corporation, the park will be developed alongside many other facilities such as film studios, arts and media areas, a book-publishing hub and other attractions. The Disney madness has only just begun, with Youku, China's largest video hosting site, joining forces with Disney to stream some of the studio's TV shows. So put on your headphones, because a dose of Desperate Housewives isn't the worst way to drown out the construction clang out over Pudong. more ›

Out with the old, in with the newest ridiculously expensive development project. As Shanghai is finally gearing up to start construction on its Disneyland (the appropriate reaction to this is still, "Why?"), more people are being forcibly evicted to make room for the theme park. Evictions are one of China's most notorious repeat offenses as thousands of people were forced out and displaced for both the Beijing Olympics and the Expo. more ›

At least if all goes well for Shanghai Shentong Metro Group, who publicly opened bidding on Tuesday for the project to link our on-again off-again finally-confirmed wonder park to the Line 11 subway. The new subway track is planned to cover over 9km and will be likely roughly three stations away from the current Line 11 Luoshan Lu station. It's expected to be completed by 2012, a good two years before the park itself plans to open. more ›

Despite approval from Beijing authorities, it seems like the future of Shanghai Disneyland still isn't completely certain. Now the Shanghai members of the Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC, a top political advisory body) are raising a fuss about how much money the amusement park will hemorrhage once it's built. It pointed to the losses sustained by Hong Kong Disneyland, arguing that perhaps that should serve as a warning before details are signed off on. Welp, even if Shanghai Disneyland never comes to fruiton, here's something else we can look forward to: a space park, which will open in Hainan in around 2013. more ›

Despite hopes of many to turn the area around the soon-to-be-begun Shanghai Disneyland into a resort-like area for China's burgeoning population of rich people, it seems like the Shanghai government's got another idea: budget housing. Mayor Han Zheng said yesterday that he's trying to negotiate for the allocation of some land around the site for lower-income housing. The Shanghai Daily article on the matter notes that there were some objections, but surprisingly (not) doesn't list them. We think we can guess what they were: Ummm... why put in budget apartments when you could have... a golf course? more ›

Those grand plans we've heard for Shanghai Disneyland to be a whopping four times bigger than Hong Kong's seem to have gone the way of Bambi's mother. According to the National Development and Reform Commission, the park will initially take up 287 acres of land, which would make it the smallest Disneyland in the world, measuring up to just over half of the size of the flagship park in LA. We're a tad disappointed at the sudden shrinkage (did Mickey take a cold shower before the meeting?), but the park may expand as business grows. Then again, who's really surprised that the plan for Shanghai Disneyland has changed once again? more ›

Woah Mickey, now that Shanghai Disneyland finally seems to have gotten all its papers in order, it seems like everyone can’t stop gabbering on about it (for instance, has anyone else noticed that Shanghai Daily has kind of turned into Shanghai Disneyland Daily today). Except, we suppose, us. Hey, give us a break, we’ve been covering this roller coaster ride of a deal for so long that it being greenlighted has actually left us a little flabbergasted. And so, since we’re at a loss for words, we’ll let other people talk about what they think about the soon-to-be erected (well, at least by 2014) Sleeping Beauty castle in Pudong. more ›

After years of back and forth, it looks like Shanghai Disneyland has been given the go-ahead. According to news sources, the Shanghai Municipal Government Informatin offices announced the deal's approval early this morning. While details still have to be worked out between the mouse and the ministries, it seems like a pretty set deal. more ›

Seemingly apropos of nothing, Li Bincheng, a leading tourism official in Shanghai, told people that China can sustain three Disney theme parks if it wanted to. "China has a population of 1.4 billion or 1.5 billion. It will not be a problem even if there are three Disneylands here," he said in response to a question about competition between Hong Kong Disneyland and the on again-off again Shanghai park. He then went on to add that if the Shanghai park ever actually came to be, it'd probably be ten times larger than its Hong Kong counterpart. But no worries, because Guangdong and Guangxi residents will probably still go to the much much smaller Hong Kong Disneyland since they live closer. Hmmm, that sure is a lot of talk for something that hasn't even won approval from the higher ups in Beijing yet. Source: SCMP more ›

• Yes, we told you about it before, but we wanted to remind you: Cherie Blair, wife of former-British PM Tony Blair, will be visiting Shanghai to talk about important things on August 16. The seminar will be from 3:30pm to 5:30pm and the wine salon will be from 5:30pm to 7:30pm. 380RMB pre-order and 480RMB at the door. [Urbanatomy]
• Blogger Jenn Wong has some great pictures up of the Nike Human Race, which happened over the weekend. Over 10,000 people participated. [Our Way to Fall]
• Shanghaiist contributor Rebekah Pothaar checked out the Dali exhibit, making sure to pose hilariously next to as many Dali masterpieces as she could. [Chinatravel.net]

• Woah! Is the Shanghai Disneyland idea back on? A Disney news site reports that Bob Weis, Exec VP of Walt Disney Imagineering may have been hired as the creative lead for the "in-development" Shanghai Disneyland Resort. [AWN]
• An exhibition about Cartoon Games is starting on the 4th at the Shanghai Exhibition Center (that building across the street from the Portman). We're curious and entry's only 50RMB! [Xinmin]
• Oh no, signs the recession still isn't completely over! Rental prices for high-grade offices here continue to plunge. [China Briefing]

With all that whining and wheezing earlier this year, you would've thought we'd reached a resolution by now. But even though Disney is pulling resources out of Hong Kong, it still hasn't committed fully to putting them into Shanghai - and it's hard to tell who's fault it is. more ›

According to China Daily, the Walt Disney Company and Shanghai's municipal government have finally signed a project proposal to build a Disneyland theme park on the Chinese mainland. Assuming the newspaper hasn't jumped the gun, this would put a stopper on the will they won't they drama that's shadowed the deal since it was a glint in Mickey Mouse's eye. more ›