One of the main perks of moving to China is the relatively low cost of living. If any expats tell you otherwise, they're lying. The flip side is that it can be incredibly frustrating when you come across certain items that cost the same or more than you would normally pay in other countries. Beer and alcohol, particularly at bars and mid/high-range restaurants, immediately come to mind as do computers, name brand electronics, and cheese.......

As Shanghai welcomes Chinese New Year for the first time in decades with a dash of snow, we trawl Flickr for pictures that best capture the essence of this week-long (or to be precise, 15 days' worth of) festive cheer filled with red firecracker sprinklings and endless fireworks. The unexpected snowfall brings along its share of inconveniences - slippery roads, beware! by ?lifemage? Homebound crowds at Shanghai Railway Station trying to get hold of the......

There has been plenty of criticism leveled at the Shanghai subway system, both on Shanghaiist and elsewhere, for things that could be better about it: it closes too early, the interchanges take too long, it's too crowded and too hot/cold, it doesn't reach XXX place, etc. If you fancy yourself on optimistic person, though, you know that one way to change the negatives into positives is to change your complaints into things you're looking forward......

Two bits of transportation news from random sources: The Xinmin Evening Post reports that the Shanghai Pudong Airport Authority and the Shanghai Mapping Institute will be making free maps of the city available in special racks at the Pudong Airport starting this week, with plans to expand to Hongqiao Airport and the Shanghai Railway Station. The map is the standard Chinese map of Shanghai that you can buy for RMB 6 at bookstores throughout the......

We have discussed Shanghai's new bullet trains before, and last week we actually had a chance to ride one. Condensed review: We like. The obvious advantage, of course, is time. We went to Nanjing, what was once at least a three hour journey (and in some cases five or six) is now between two and two-and-a-half hours, depending on the number of stops. (We also like arriving at Shanghai Railway Station — compared to, say,......

We were leafing through the latest City Weekend* over breakfast this morning when we realized we forgot to tell you something very important: We love Southern Barbarian (南蛮子). It's a Yunnan restaurant that opened in the fall (we have mentioned it briefly twice before). It is easily one of our favorite restaurants in the city, Chinese or non-Chinese. The food is fantastic — tasty and plentiful — and it is cheap (especially when compared to......

Browsing the Ditiezu.com (Subway-ers) BBS, we came across some interesting tidbits: Rumors say that new Siemens 8-car trains are about to hit the Shanghai metro system on Lines 1 and 2, possibly the 15th of this month or possibly next month. This should do a bit to relieve the currently over-congested 6-car trains. The LCD displays on station platforms are being updated to show the capacity of the next arriving train.Tongji University administrative vice-principal, and......

We swear we heard the PA system announce yesterday that we were at Jinjiang Park metro stop, when we knew we were at Huangpi Nan Lu (and so did everyone else — lots of confused faces). We assumed the metro just got its sound files mixed up ... but could it have been someone's mobile phone ringtone? Micah tipped us off to a RAR file online that contains high-quality mp3 files of 19 "We are......

Micah spotted something a little familiar during his daily perusal of the Louis Vuitton website: ... white-collar fashion-enthusiasts in Shanghai are upset that the spring-summer 2007 Louis-Vitton bags are exactly like those plaid red-blue-white bags you see farmers lugging around at Shanghai Railway Station as they head home from a visit to the city. We've got one in our closet. Should we post it on TaoBao? Photo by joeywan.......

Shanghaiist wound the clock back a few years yesterday afternoon at the New Jiangwan City SMP Skate Park (the biggest in the world!) watching a scarily young posse of locals and laowai get around a massive series of concrete bowls and ramps on skateboards, inline skates, BMXs, motorbikes and scooters. There were plenty of t-shirts with statements, lots of spills, some impressive frontside-180-nosegrind-to-fakies, and far too many members of the local constabulary considering the modest......

We first learned of Italian photographer Olivo Barbieri's work earlier this year. His unique aerial tilt-shift photos look great online -- and we can't wait to see them in person. Starting tomorrow (Monday) at Bund 18, you can view his "Site Specific" exhibit. From MOCA Cleveland: In site_specific_, his ongoing series of films and largescale stills, Italian artist Olivo Barbieri creates unusual aerial portrayals of various international cities. Filming from a helicopter with a tilt-shift......

If the only railway station waiting room you’re accustomed to in China is the grimy, smoky one with endless waves of humanity sitting on those red, white and blue striped bags of live produce, then you’re going to enjoy the South Shanghai Railway Station for a change. We were fortunate enough to pass through the gleaming, spotless and modern facility last night on our way back from Hangzhou (RMB 44 for soft seat; 1 hour......

We doubt they mean God. Remember what we said a week ago about female-only cabins on trains that run between Shanghai and Beijing? Well, forget everything we told you. That plan has been derailed: Railway authorities began offering the compartments last week on all trains travelling between Shanghai and Beijing, in an attempt to cut down on sexual harassment. The Shanghai Railway Station announced it would stop offering the compartments. Officials at the Shanghai Railway......

Shanghaiist feels lucky that we will stay home for Spring Festival after reading this Sohu report (in Chinese) about the annual holiday transportation peak between January 14 and February 22. Ticket prices for trains, buses and boats are up 20-100 percent during this season and everything is going to packed, uncomfortably packed, like can't fight your way to to the toilet packed (and then if you finally make it to the toilet, you'll wish you......

The good news is this: A record high of more than 10 million people are expected to flock to Shanghai during the Spring Festival season this year, a year-on-year increase of 8 percent. Meanwhile, 11.56 million people will leave the city during the 40-day period, mostly migrant workers and university students who will head back home to join their families for the Chinese lunar New Year. This means that there will actually be less people......

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......

Today is International Anti-Drugs Day, and China started the festivities two days early. China celebrated like only China can on Friday -- by executing lots and lots of criminals. (China executed some 5,000 people last year -- more than 91 percent of the world total -- and those are are just the executions we know about.) Wu Xiaohui, a drug trafficker from Yunnan, was executed in Shanghai, and her story is like a cross between......