Results tagged “xiangyangmarket”

We love WiFi — Shanghaiists are sociable folk, and this Shanghaiist in particular has fallen into an easy Sunday routine of catching up on news and email with a cappu and sandwich at local cafés. We like having a “third space” — a local hangout where we can meet up with friends, have the occasional coffee, and wile away the hours. We’ve already mentioned a few recent faves, and celebrate the expansion of free internet across our city as evidence of an emerging café culture beyond the ubiquitous Starbucks.

Shanghaiist was browsing around on SHExpat Forums yesterday, and came across a thread discussing the loss of one of Shanghai's renowned cheap eating establishments — Turk's.

Photo by Peijin Chen taken from 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.

We were walking on Maoming Lu near Huaihai Lu recently when we spotted (behind the watch/bag/shoe hawkers announcing to us that Xiangyang Market was no longer) a rather large image of the Statue of Liberty being attacked by a giant octopus. This caught our attention. The advertisement adorning the west-facing wall of the Cathay Theatre was for the movie Octopus 2: River of Fear (also known as "OCPOTUS" on some local posters). We generally try to stay on top of the latest goings on in the film world, and we were curious as to how we failed to notice the release of a movie about a massive cephalopod that attempts to take over Manhattan. So we did a little research.

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:

Shanghaiist was at Xiangyang last night, but it wasn't the usual Xiangyang, but more like Xiangyang on steroids. Everyone ignored the broadcasts telling them to leave. Vendors took off their shirts and slashed prices, selling sunglasses and other knick knacks for 5 or 10 RMB. Even after people started leaving, the market spilled out into the street on Nanchang Lu and Xiangyang Lu where traffic nearly came to a standstill. Expect more of the same today. Bring a suitcase (or buy one!) and some garbage bags -- most of the good stuff is probably already gone, but who knows, you might get lucky.

Photo by Shanghai Streets taken from the Shanghaiist photos page. To see your photos on our photos 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.

Via AsiaPundit we learn some breaking news: It has been confirmed where Xiangyang Market will move once it it officially shut down on June 30. Where? Online of course. Visit xymarket.cn for all your fake goods needs. Here's what Pacific Epoch wrote about the site:

Photo of Xiangyang Market from Shanghai Daily.

Shooping down pristine white slopes has been a recreational option for Shanghai residents since the Yinqixing Indoor Skiing Resort opened back in 2002, but it has taken all that time for Shanghaiist to actually get its all-weather, gore-tex gloves on (Xiangyang Market – 50 kuai) and hit the 45m-high slopes that are apparently "covered in snow of a depth up to 50cm". Well Shanghaiist got a very close look at those slopes, and they are indeed covered in a whole mound of sugary, quicksand-esque snow the likes of which we have never seen in our lives before. It quickly became apparent that one’s board or skis served as the proverbial ladder across a thinly-iced pond, but no need to panic, so long as you’re over one and a half feet tall.

They can close down Xiangyang Market if they want to, Shanghai is still going to be the world capital for fakes. We've got the obvious ones: bags, shoes, watches, DVDs, CDs and the like. But we've also got fake maps, fake Starbucks and, yes, even fake eggs. And now Sinosplice shows us fake oranges. Well, we imagine it's the sticker that is fake, not the orange. (It appears these "Nalencia"s have been around for a while. And, for those of you not familiar with American oranges, it should be "Valencia.")

That'll buy you a lotta Prada. The Shanghai Daily reports that Sun Hung Kai Properties, one of Hong Kong's largest property companies, is in in "final talks" to purchase the Xiangyang Market land from current owner Maxdo Group for RMB 3.6 billion. Sun Hung Kai is expected to invest a total of RMB 6 or 7 billion to turn the prime real estate into "office, retail and hotel space." The group already owns four other properties in Shanghai.

In a crushing blow to faux fashion and a strong move to support intellectual property rights protection, the Shanghai Municipal Government has announced that Xiangyang Market will be closed by the end of 2006.

Shanghaiist has heard from two pretty reliable sources that a "big fire" is causing a "cloud of smoke" to rise from the area near Xiangyang Market. Can any Shanghaiist readers confirm this or add more details? Email photos to info(at)shanghaiist.com.

Photo of Glen Frey, whose song "Smuggler's Blues" was a hit in the mid-80s, from eaglesfans.com.

Watch! Bag! Shoes! Looka Looka!

For all of you who are afraid of accidentally buying fake brand-name goods when all you really want is a pair of socks, this is your day. Having been to Xiangyang Market over the weekend, we heard from one of the “salesmen” that the yearly crackdown is going on as we speak and that it lasts until Wednesday.

Recently the bird flu has been all the rage, making appearances in such diverse locals as Vietnam, the Ukraine, and a quarantined parrot in England. And, of course, China; specifically Anhui (isn’t that kind of close to Shanghai?). People are scared, and the only known possible vaccine, Tammiflu, has become rarer than a virgin in a hair salon. What is one to do?

That's the grand vision of Andrea Cruz, fashion designer and self-confessed shoe addict who with a group of fellow savvy businesswomen and fashionistas, is franchising Shanghai's popular boutique Hotwind to the Phillipines. Although Hotwind in Shanghai stocks a wide range of clothes and accessories, Cruz and her business partners are focusing on the footwear range -- perhaps because of Filipinas' renowned predilection for shoes. Cruz made this curious statement in the Manila Times: "The shoes are of high quality because it’s from Shanghai, yet the prices are far more affordable than signature brands." (Italics added by Shanghaiist, of course.) Oddly enough, Shanghaiist's mother, a Beijing native, also frequently comments upon the superiority of Shanghainese products over those originating from elsewhere in the world. And yes, she has been to Xiangyang Market.