Cheat-Sheet of Shanghai Road Names

Claire Li wrote an interesting article on the translation of roads in Shanghai in That’s Shanghai.

If “Central Tibet Road” on the road sign is correct, why is “Xizang Road middle” also used for the same street?

Source: ref: page 11, That’s Shanghai Magazine, Nov 2004 Edition

He/she also mentioned that a committee of 26 experts has been formed. It is great.

If they have time, they should at least take a look at the typos in Metro Stations first. To get ready for an international city, more initiatives like this are needed.

Since the name roads have already been named inconsistantly, and the philosophy of this site is to help, not to complain, I am offering you this cheatsheet so you can still find your way in the complicated naming systems.

Variations of Road Names

Always take the first one or two words as the key element for that road. Than take the following translation:

Middle = Zhong = Central = M = C

East = Dong = E

West = Xi = W

South = Nan = S

North = Bei = N

Road = Lu = Rd *This is important

Station = Sta = St

Yi Lu = No. 1 = No. 1 Road = One Road

Er Lu = No. 2 = No. 2 Road = Two Road (example: East Zhong Shan Er Lu, Zhong Shan East Road No. 2, Zhong Shan Er Lu East all refer to the same road)

Road Names

The main part (the first one or two words) of the road names also varies from location to location. Remember the space between to words are optional (I don’t know the official suggestions). For example

  • Pudong Airport = Pu Dong Airport
  • Yan An Road = Yanan Road
  • Wu Lu Mu Qi South Road = South Wulumuqi Road = Wulumuqi Nan Road…

While most of the roads are translated to English using Pinyin, there are some English translation for some places and roads. For example, Xizang is translated as Tibet. So both appear. Renmin Square and People’s Square may be both used. Pay attention to this.

Learn Some Chinese

The easiest way to avoid the confusing translation is, to learn some Chinese and always read the road names as a Chinese does. No matter how confusing the English road names are, the Chinese name for the roads are unique. For example, just ask for Fu Xing Dong Lu (Fu Xing East Road, remember the translation formulas?) so local people can easily understand and help you.

Good luck and don’t get lost in the big Shanghai maze.

Interviewed by my Favorite Magazine

I was interviewed by my favorite magazine in Shanghai. We had a great conversation. I cannot disclose the name or the reporter of the magazine at this time, before the article is published, but it will be very interesting after it goes out.

Readers of this Blog are Invited for Interview

The magazine is looking for some readers of this blog to participate an interview conducted by reporters in Shanghai. They are very interested to know how readers use this website. Volunteers need to meet the following criteria to be qualified:

  • The participator should be a frequently reader of this site (Wangjianshuo’s Blog). How frequent is frequent? If you think you are, you are.
  • The participator must live in Shanghai (relocated, visiting, or permanent residents, etc). The baseline is, you are in Shanghai when the interview is conducted. I am sorry that many very nice readers do not meet this rule. But this interview is conducted in Shanghai.

The reporter wants to discover how people (with an expat focus) in Shanghai use websites to survive in this city and improve their lives. My site was chosen as a good example. I’d like to take the chance to hear some voices from my readers too. The reporter is very professional and his questions are very interesting.

If you want to share some comments, and (maybe) be mentioned on a very good magazine in Shanghai, please enter your name, your day-time phone number, email address and a very short (optional) description about yourself in the form. All the information you entered will be directly mailed to me and the reporter. I don’t keep the information on the server so it will be used for the interview proposes only. The enrollment closes at 23:00, Dec 10, 2004, Shanghai Local Time.

Name:

Day Time Phone Number:

Email Address:

Description:

I am looking forward to your participation.

UA858 PVG – SFO

UA858

United Airlines UA858 is a symbol. It connects two important cities (Shanghai and San Fransisco) in China and the States. Millions of passengers visit U.S. via this flight. All of my previous trip to the States was via UA858. It is often the starting point of many stories. If I were an artist or novelist, I will definite create something around this flight. I didn’t see arts or literature for this flight. At least I didn’t see one in Google search.

Here are more information about this flight.

UA858 connects SHANGHAI/PUDONG and SAN FRANCISCO

Departs at 1:45PM and arrives at 8:10AM the same day. This is the most interesting part of the trip – after many hours of travel, you go to the past because of the international day line.The trip is 6168 Miles.

Check status of UA858.

My trip on UA858

Inside UA858. (src)

Pacific morning

Wendy will also go to U.S. via this flight.

United Airlines in Shanghai

Company name: United Airlines

Toll Free Phone (inside China): 800-810-8282. This toll free number works very smart. It is a Beijing based toll free number. When dialed in Shanghai, it will transfer to its Shanghai office seamlessly.

Direct phone: +86-21-33114567. (The old number, as published in the United.com and almost all the publications of United +86-21-62798009 does not work in Nov 2004).

Website: http://www.cn.united.com/

Location: Second floor of Shanghai Center, or the Ritz Carlton Portman Hotel.

After checking all the airlines, we finally choose United Airlines to fly to U.S. It is interesting that almost all flight booking system used the wizard to check flight information. They ask for a departure date and a return date, the origin and the destination and the system calculate the best route. This is convinient for most passengers, but not for me. China and American are on the two sides of the pacific. The choice to fly across the Pacific is actually very limited. It seems only very few lines connecting the two continent.

Update

shanghai-united-central.jpg

Image in courtesy of Uninted

The new office of United on the 33rd Floor of Central Plaza.

Xiang Yang Market Again

I went to the Xiang Yang market again to buy shoes for the U.S. trip. It is said the temperature of Chicago may drops to -30°C when I arrive there. Oh. I have to be serious for this because I have never been to any place that is so cold. I went around the Xiang Yang market for several rounds before I found a parking lot. It was too crowded and I have to very careful about the cars rushing by and the bikes and passengers. I LOL when I saw a foreigner hide himself behind a large bus and extended his head out to see if it is safe to go, and they jumped out and rushed to the other side of the street. It seemed he was a solider fighting with his enemy in the WWII. He is so funny. Of cause he was scared about going crossing the street. I finally parked my car at 10 RMB for two hours.

The Deal

I never really know bargain in the market. I bought a pair of shoes at 230 RMB. It was labeled Camel. I believe it is fake, but I am not sure.

I have to admit that I don’t know whether the goods in the market are real or not. Maybe they are off similar quality of the real goods, or even from the same manufacture (in case of OEM), but not authorized to use the brands. That is the reason why it is so cheap.

40 Brands Forbidden

At the entrance of the Xiang Yang Market (the entrance near the Huai Hai Road and Xiang Road), there is a notice board. On the boards, the market administration announced according to blah-blah regulation, “selling fake goods of the following 40 brands are forbidden”. Louis Vuitton, and Vacheron Constantin are on the list. In the market, products labeled as Northface, Camel, Nike are displayed everywhere, but non one dare to put on a L.V. bag or Vacheron Constantin watch. I don’t understand why there are differences. Wendy guessed maybe they don’t have a China office yet.

Ironically, when I was reading the notice, as every other minute, the vender approached me and asked me if I am interested in their watches and bags. He was really humorous to open the conversation this way: “Hey. Don’t waste time reading this notice. It is my catalog. Everything that is not forbidden to sell in this market can be found in my store. Why not go and have a look?” Interesting, but why?

Tennis

I had the other two tennis lesson tonight. I completed my fore hand course and started to learn back hand. Mrs. Liu, my tutor is a very nice one. I would like to recommend her to new learners.

Hong Qiao (SHA) v.s. Pu Dong (PVG) Airport

I read two travel books these days: one on Boston (by Marie Morris) and the other on New York (by National Geographic Society). Both of them offer a section on transportation, like Entering Boston or Gates to New York. It is very helpful and let understand the locations of LGA or JFK.

This experience reminded me that not many people really know the difference between PVG or SHA. Let me explain it.

Map

Here is the typical Jian Shuo Wang style of map:

map-pudong.vs.hongqiao.png

© Jian Shuo Wang

Wendy rated 7 point out of 10 for this map. I thought she may give a 9. :-(

Differences

As you may guess, neither of the airport is located in the downtown.

Hong Qiao Airport (SHA) is much nearer to the city than Pudong Airport (PVG). SHA is on the west of the city and PVG is at the far-east. A20 is the outter ring of the city. SHA is exactly located at west part of the ring while the PVG connects to the A20 via a highway A1. You get the idea, right? Refer to the map.

Hong Qiao Airport (SHA) is older than Pudong Airport (PVG). SHA was the first airport in Shanghai. PVG was built when the expansion of Hong Qiao Airport became impossible when the city grows and surrounds the airport. The equipment of Hong Qiao Airport became old while PVG is brand new.

Hong Qiao Airport is for domestic flights only. Pudong Airport serve both international and domestic flights.

Pu Dong Airport is bigger than Hong Qiao. With the second run way constructed, it aims to be an international aviation hub like Tokyo or Hong Kong.

Pu Dong airport has MagLev connected to the Metro Line #2. There is no Metro or Maglev for SHA.

Similiarity

No Metro (subway) access at both airport.

There are airport buses for both airport, and Airport Bus #1 connects the two airports.

Avis serves at both airports.

How to Choose

Unless you are flying between Shanghai and large cities in China, like Beijing or Guangzhou, you often have no choices. For international flights, the only airport to depart and arrive is PVG. For many small cities, there are only very few flights every week and there is only one possible airport, SHA or PVG.

If you do have choices, you can consider the following factors:

  • Price. The construction fee for both airports are the same (50 RMB for domestic, 90 RMB for international flights and 10 RMB for short distance branch flights), but the transportation from the airport to other places are of big difference. It takes at least 100 RMB to get to downtown from PVG, while the price is about 60 – 90 RMB for SHA.
  • Are you an Airport fan? If you’d like to see a modern and beautiful airport, definitely go to PVG. PVG has great architecture and great facility. Beside that, you can also take a ride of Maglev and experience a train running at 430 km/hour. For business travelers who fly between Shanghai and Beijing so many times a year, they often choose SHA because it is nearer to the city and smaller, which means less money, less time and less walking distance.
  • Arrival time. If you arrive late, SHA may be better since the Maglev closes at 5:30 PM now and you only have two choices to leave the airport – bus or taxi.

Edward’s New Satellite TV

Edward sent me something new today, his new Satellite TV. He did it by himself. What impressed me a lot is:

  • The total cost is only 880 RMB or 106 USD.
  • He mentioned interesting technical details about satellite.
  • He also mentioned the legal risk he takes to install a satellite TV receiving in China. I covered it in this article: Satellite Dishes Still Forbidden in China.
  • He can receive 100 channels from 2 satellites now.

screen-satellite.tv-outside.jpg

© Edward Wang. Used with permission.

Read on for more details in his blog.

Area Around Xin Tian Di (Xintiandi)

Bricks of Xintiandi:

shanghai-bricks-xintiandi.jpg

© Jian Shuo Wang

On the Zi Zhong Road, there are three newly opened shops. Very interesting shops!

shanghai-movie365.jpg

© Jian Shuo Wang

shanghai-high.note.jpg

© Jian Shuo Wang

Highnote only sells DJ music. There is a nice audio room inside.

shanghai-pointtolife.jpg

© Jian Shuo Wang

Pointtolife was opened by a Hong Kong architect. It sells design books only and serves coffee. Nice place to visit. I don’t see many customers there and I believe the owner doesn’t care about revenue. It seems the shop only opens for fun.

Temperature Drops in Shanghai

The easist way to get an idea of the weather of a city is to check the picture of what people wear outdoors. Here you are. The picture was taken before the Pacific Department Store in Hai Hai Road. Taken from the north toward south.

shanghai-pacific.store-night.jpg

© Jian Shuo Wang

Sleeping Cats

The happy (and lucky) cats sleep in the Sun. I cannot help posting it here. Sweet little thing!

shanghai-two.cats-sleeping.under.sun.jpg

© Jian Shuo Wang

© Jian Shuo Wang

I read a slogan at Ichiban Ra-Mei, “Your happiness of eating our Ra-Mei makes us happy”. I guess they are happy not only because customers enjoy their food, they enjoy getting paid for it better.

The slogan works better for me. The happiness of the two cats for eating what I feed them makes me happy – no matter they pay or not.

P.S. One Year for run2me.com

Run issued the one year memorial stamps for his group blog site run2me.com.

screen-run2me-one.year.jpg

Image in courtesy of Run Liu

Congrats Run, Linda, Bw, Vivian, Angela, Kevin, Charles and Bear

Casual Talk on SJTU Min Hang Campus

Just delivered an one hour short casual talk on the Shanghai Jiao Tong University Min Hang Campus. I left the home page URL to them and I guess some of the 20 participants will visit this page and I’d like to provide some pointer to the fun stuff I mentioned.

Facts

  • Date: November 25, 2004
  • Venue: Room 302, Yi Fu Building
  • Time: 7:30 – 8:30 PM
  • Host: Shanghai Jiai Tong University Microsoft Technical Club

Min Hang Campus Became Big

I was so amazed on how big the campus became. It seems triple its territory in the last several years.

Road Report between Home and Xujiahui

I wake up in my Pudong home. The clock was 8:15 am. We had 45 minutes to drive 13 km to our office at Xujiahui

I don’t know when others get up in other countires of this planet; 8:15 is obviously too early for me. My friend in U.S. commented: “I don’t believe life in Shanghai is more busier than in U.S.” Well. You bet. Shanghai’s life is at least busier than Seattle. New York? I know it is much busier, but I have to see by my own eyes next month to judge.

Around 8:25, Wendy and I appeared in the car. Booted and warmed, the car turned right and run onto the Jin Xiu Road in Pudong. Ten minutes later, we were on the Nanpu bridge. I studied New York map today and found Nanpu seems to be at the simliar location of Brooklyn Bridge.

After the Fu Xing tunnel opened, Nan Pu changed a lot. Before, it was very crowded at rush hours and cars moved very slowly (5 km/hour???) although never stopped for more than 30 seconds. It is no longer the Nan Pu in my definition. When I drove my car onto the bridge and ran at speed of 70 km/hour, I asked Wendy: “Are we really on the Nan Pu Bridge?” I I said it almost every morning.

The Pu Xi side of the Nan Pu Bridge is funny – the road goes along a large circle to slowly goes down. Before I entered the Lu Jia Bang Road, my car had turned 500 degree already – one and a half full circle. Because the Nan Pu Bridge is too high (it has too accommendate large ships on the Huang Pu River), the distance I have to go on the bridge is almost five km. It is safe to claim about 40% of the distance I cover every morning is spent on a bridge.

Unlike the positive change of the Nan Pu bridge, the other part of the roads became crowded everyday. The portion I spent on the bridge and off the bridge changes everyday. I spent more and more time on the road between Nan Pu and Xujiahui.

My driving skill improves dramatically during the last year. I have completed the internship (one year after getting driver’s license). As a (some-what) experienced driver, I started to feel Road Rage. I hate driver behind me to horn and flash front light pointlessly. I always wanted to step on the brake when I found these rude drivers…

Pull the car into the undergrand parking area, It was almost 9:00 AM. Basically, it is still a fantastic idea to have a car in this city. It feels like stepping into one’s office directly from the breakfast table.

P.S. I will visit Shanghai Jiao Tong University Min Hang Campus to speak at a Microsoft Technical Club event at 7:30 PM, Nov 25, 2004.

Shanghai International Tennis Center

I went to Shanghai International Tennis Center on Hengshan Road for my tennis class today. I started to learn tennis and found it a very decent sports: Nice place, nice dress and nice people.

The Shanghai International Tennis Center is among the best tennis facilities in Shanghai. The indoor courts were wonderful. It was built many years before (when I was in university) but still remains very new.

I bought my whole set of tennis equipment weeks ago – the shoes, the socks, the pants, the shirt and the rack. I look very professional after I dress everything up, although I still cannot handle the balls yet.

Rates

Two indoor courts: 150 RMB per hour if it is reserved by the mentor or 300 RMB per hour for hotel guests.

Outdoor courts: 60 RMB per hour. At spring and autumn, it is wonderful to play tennis in the outdoor courts – it is in the Xujiahui area, with many trees, flowers and nice villa nearby, which make it one of the most expensive area to live in Shanghai.

Reservation in advance is required since many people go there.

Location

Contacts

516 Hengshan Rd., Shanghai China

phone: 86-21-64155588 86-21-64155588 (thanks Claire)

fax: 86-21-64373554

post code: 200030

P.S. Metro Train Beeping

Greg Black asked “Does anybody else find that beeping noise alerting of closing subway train doors to be almost painful in pitch and volume?”. The beeping is loud and the pitch is not comfortable. But I believe the Metro station have to keep it. Does anyone has any impression of the previous version of the beeping? I guess that version comes from the original German made train. It was soft and not as loud as the current one. It didn’t work well because people seldom pay attention to it. They entered the train when the beeping started only to find the door close with one leg or one arm outside the train. The doors have to re-open to release the passenger. It happened very often. Then came the current door-closing beep.

P.S. Nice Weather Today

It was sunny today, nice weather to have a cup of coffee and spend the whole afternoon in the Sun shine. Wendy did it today and was very happy.

Posted by: Greg Black on November 21, 2004 01:34 PM

Top 10 Places to See in New York City

I wrote to my friend Mike in New York and asked him about his top 10 places to see in NYC.

Hi Mike,

I just found out that you are based in NYC. I didn’t notice that before. Yes. I will visit New York soon. The schedule is not fixed, but it should be before the X’mas. I know you must have many tips to share. If I ask you to list the top 10 places to see in NYC, what will you say? :-D

Jian Shuo Wang

Mike replied quickly with his top 10 list of New York City. I found it a very good guide for first time visitors to New York. After checking Mike for permission, I am posting his suggestions here. It may be helpful for other visitors. It may inspire many readers to make their own top 10 list about New York, or their own cities.

(1) Statue of Liberty – most touristy place for out-of-town tourists; a lot of New Yorkers have never visited.

(2) Time Square – crowded, not very far from the MS New York office; there is a place to buy half-priced ticket for Broadway shows for the same night.

(3) The Metropolitan Museum of Art – one of top art museums of the world; takes more than one day to finish; a stroll in the Central Park afterwards is highly recommended.

(4) Rockefeller Center – largest Christmas tree in the world (so claimed); NBC TV studio and store are there.

(5) Chinatown – very crowded, good Cantonese or Sichuan restaurants; next to Little Italy with good Italian food.

(6) The New York Stock Exchange – the center of Capitalism. Wall Street and Ground Zero are nearby too.

(7) The Empire State Building – tallest building after 9/11 with observation deck on top.

(8) Brooklyn Bridge – You can walk on the bridge and have a good view of the East River. The bridge was the tallest structure in the world when it was built late 19 century.

(9) Big Apple Bus Tour – a city-wide bus tour you can hop on and off at many points; good and quick way to see different parts of the city.

(10) Fifth Avenue – Christmas shopping (or just window shopping) for fashion; downtown West Broadway has more upscale fashion boutiques (places where you can shop for your wife but things can be a bit expensive that you will be secretly happy that she does not come along).

I think you should at least go to one good restaurant for Western cuisine and a French bakery for pastry. There are too many good choices to list.

P.S. Mike Wu is a Rapid Response Engineer in Microsoft based on New York City.

Virus Found on this Site Yesterday

Yang Pan and Gordong Wang reported that some pages on this site were infected by a MHTMLRedir.Exploit virus. It is confirmed. How astonishing it was. I built the page from template. The template itself was stored in database and was free of virus. I rebuilt all the pages and everything is OK now. I have complained to the hosting company because I assume it was infected by other threads on the server. Thanks for your report for me to correct the problem quickly.

Shanghai Trail

I learnt a small shop space near Xintiandi only cost around 5000 RMB/month to rent. Not a very bad deal. I dreamed to open an Unofficial Shanghai Tourist Center before. I don’t like the so-called Shanghai Official Tourist Center. They are not helpful as the worst travel company because they have no incentive to attract more visitors to their centers (they are not a profit center so not many people care). In the “unofficial” tourist center, there will be some free articles (printed from this site and other contributing sources) and some volunteers to offer tour guide (in exchange of foreign language practices with native speakers to Shanghai). It may remain a dream until I decide to retire some day. I am serious because retiring early (than age of 40) was my other dream.

The Freedom Trail in Boston inspired me a lot. For a visitor to a completely new city, nothing is more helpful than a pre-selected trail so he/she can follow to see some good places. The places do not have to be the most famous places or the landmarkers. A trail connecting some nice book stores, or typical local resident houses are also appreciated.

I talked about the Shanghai Trail idea (name it Wangjianshuo’s Trail? Haha) with some friends before. It was before I started my Starbucks Trail (Reason). When people suggested me to visit other places than a globally consistant coffee shop, I explained that “It is the trail that connects all the Starbucks that attracted me, instead of the shops.” By connencting the Starbucks, you get a well designed trail showing your the morden aspect of the city – the Starbucks were all selected to the good office buildings. I will draw the trail and you will find how nice the places along the trail is.

Just like this trail, there should be more trails with different aspects of Shanghai, isn’t it?

Fly to US is Cheap

I didn’t believe newsletters from large companies will contain any interesting information. I always flow the “Subscribe, Receive, Delete, Receive, Delete, …., Bothered, Unsubscribe” pattern. The Northwest Airlines latest promotion was an exception. I learnt it only take 1,880 (230 USD) for round trip from Guangzhou to SFO, and 2,880 RMB (350 USD) for round tip to New York. I monitor the air ticket price closely for the U.S. Trip.

Top Three Innovation that Failed in Shanghai

The complete title of this entry should be:

    Top 3 Failed Innovation in Shanghai that I Supported

Shanghai is a changing city and an international city. The change on transportation system is among the best. I should say I am very happy about the improvement the transportation administration made for Shanghai. Good examples are: Dynamic Traffic Display Board. However, things are not always as good as planned. There are three innovations that follows the international best practices that I strongly supported turned out to be failure.

First, Numbering of Highway with A + Numbers

Shanghai’s highway system was named after the starting city and the destination city. For example, the highway from Shanghai to Nanjing is called Hu-Ning Highway 沪宁高速公路; the high way from Shanghai to Ping Wang (near Suzhou) via Qing Pu is called Hu-Qing-Ping Highway 沪青平高速公路.

This naming convention brought many trouble for international visitors. To follow the international practices, the transportation administration changed the naming to A+number. For example: Shanghai-Nanjing Expressway was named A11 and Shanghai to Hangzhou Expressway was named A8.

Hand made by Jian Shuo Wang. Used in Group Drive to Yang Cheng Lake

Recently, report said it turned to be a big failure because few people can remember the new names. Does A11 go to Hangzhou or Nanjing? Not very sure and it has caused great confusion. Many car accidents happened for this. Now the authority has added the Chinese name and Pin Yin near the A1, A2,…. A11 signs.

Second: Press for Green Light

At some pedestrian, big blue buttons were added so people can press this button for green light.

There are such buttons everywhere in Seattle, but it is not as useful in Shanghai. Sometimes it does not work (refer to Push-for-green-light button section in Traffic Rules in Shanghai). People never use it because in such as a populated city, the button is not necessary at all. It is hard to find a cross-road that lack of passing people. Just assume the button is always pushed.

I don’t mean to complain. I was a strong supporter for this button but the fact educated me that something works in the western countries may not work in Shanghai.

Third: Taxi stops

New taxi stops were constructed across the city. Passengers can press a green button on the equipment and the big display board on the top will show a waving hand and taxi will stop by. It reduces the interference of random call for taxis.

Up to now, no one is using the equipment. When I press the button to call for taxis, no taxi stops because the taxi drivers don’t know what the waving and the beeping mean yet. It may take time for everyone to get used to it, but there is hint that this great innovation may take quite some time to be adopted.

Something in the West? May not work in China

These are vivid example of what works great in the west may not work in China – just as the economy of China has beaten down many of the expectations of western economist.

Boston for Dummies and More.

Boston for Dummies is a nice book. I brought it with me these days and really enjoyed reading it. It helped me a lot to plan the Boston trip and also helped Boston to keep two visitors stay in their city one day longer. I only planned to visit Harvard and MIT before. Now, I know much more than that, such as the Freedom Trail and the Big Dig. It inspired me of being a For Dummies series writer. How about I write one book named Shanghai for Dummies? They didn’t have it yet. Emmn. Good idea.

Canadian in Shanghai

Canada China Business Council Shanghai Chapter is preparing its Christmas party and I helped to look for sponsorships. I realized more and more Canadian people came to Shanghai, while the immigration tide to Canadian from China seems to slow down with the high un-employ rate of the new Chinese immigrants in Toronto.

Nice China Shop

Recently, I found some very nice shops in Shanghai. I dropped by a china shop at Panyu road today and went out with a bag full of dishes and cups. It is located 135(A) Panyu Road, Shanghai. (phone: 021-6283 8766) – For Dummies books taught me to always include a phone number and an address with a shop name. If you are interested, the shop didn’t pay me for that. :-D I don’t accept payment of any kind and ask me to write about something or mention some business on this blog.

shanghai-dining.room-cups.jpg

Image in courtesy of Dining Room, Shanghai

shanghai-dining.room-shop.jpg

Image in courtesy of Dining Room, Shanghai

Foreign Shops in Shanghai

The owner of this shop is a foreigner. The store keeper mentioned that.

Many foreigners rent a shop space and open their shops or coffee & bars in Shanghai. There are something in common that you can distinguish them from local shops easily:

1. They tend to choose some street with many phoenix trees. Such roads are Changle Road, Panyu road, Madang Road (near Xintiandi)… These street are quite but not many customers coming in.

2. Many of the owners don’t really care about the revenue. They just wanted to open a shop and have fun.

3. The shops use vivid colors and have good signs.

4. They have their shop’s business card ready for customers to pickup.

5. They print website or email address on business cards.

6. They spend much money on the packaging bags.

When some of the above statements are true, I am pretty sure that the owner is a foreigner. It is the case when I entered this shop – Dining Room. Their goods are nice and I suggest people to pay a visit and bring something back. Tonight, Wendy boiled coffee for me and we enjoyed it very much with the newly bought cups.

I Got Wallop Invitation

George sent me the wallop invitation today. Thanks very much!

Wallop is Microsoft’s answer to blog, social software… It is distributed as GMail way – only those who have the invitation can login to Wallop.

This is my way to distribute the invitation ticket I got (inspired by Run).

Below are quoted from http://bbs.wangjianshuo.com/ShanghaiWiki/Wallop

Wallop is Microsoft’s answer to hot topics like blog, SNS, personal network… To fully leverage the five invitations, we will create a pool. The rule, as Run suggested, looks like this:

  1. Everyone need to accept this rule before requesting an invitation.
  2. In return, everyone should contribute TWO invitation back to the network.
    1. One will be dispatched as the wish of the person who granted the invitation, and
    2. the other one must send to others who registered on this page (the choice is yours)

Steps!!

  1. Sign your name below the horizontal line
  2. Create an order before I distribute the first ticket
  3. When the list is ready, we will distribute the first ticket.
  4. The first one will send the invitation to the one below him/her. Meanwhile, anyone owes one invitation as the wish of the person whose name is immediately above him/her
  5. Now click Edit Page on the top of the page to get started.

Credits

  • George Yan, for the first ticket to Jian Shuo Wang
  • Run Liu, for the idea of the pool
  • Jian Shuo Wang, for creating the tool for everyone to collaborate

Sign Your Name Here


  1. George Yan
  2. Jian Shuo Wang jianshuo@hotmail.com (Sent)
  3. Run Liu
  4. Charles Li
  5. Wei Xu [v-weixu#microsoft.com]
  6. Carsyn Koo CarsynKoo@gmail.com
  7. Wendy Fan
  8. Tian Qiang Chen
  9. John Xu
  10. Jack Koo(Gu) gushaofeng#gmail.com
  11. Zhe Wang

Note

  • Please APPEND your name to the end of the list, NOT insert into the list.
  • If you found anyone changed the order (remember your order number), you can change it back.
  • After you sent the invitation, please add (Sent) behind YOUR name, so others know the progress

Comments


I have logged in, and tried to invite the next one, and got the message:

Wallop has a limited number of invitations available at this time, by request. Unfortunately there are currently no invitations available to you.To request invitations, select ‘Invite More People’ to get additional invitations as they become available.

I have requested the invitation permission, and will provide one back to Jian Shuo, another one to Charles Li.

by Run Liu

Update November 21, 2004

Although you can post to either this page or the Wallop Invitation Wiki Page, please note that it is not likely for your to get an invitation this way. As you may know, I only have 5 invitations and the chain idea needs time to complete.

Posted in MSN

The Cats Story

Now the two cats in my garden finally settled down. They have their own place to sleep at day time and play at night. Cats are cats. They always wandering around in the garden at night when I fall asleep and sleep most of the time in early morning. Besides the fresh meats, I went to the nearby Hymall and bought 1.5kg of Whiskas cat food for them. It cost me 23 RMB. I hesitated a little bit when I put it into my shopping cart. Later, I convinced myself that the poor little things deserved something really nice after experiencing the miserable lives.

According to the introduction of the cat food, cat owners should mix the cat food at certain percentage for the cats to get used to the new delicous food and the increase the percentage everyday until 100% of the meal is cat food. Otherwise, the cats may not be interested in the new food at very begining. Forget about these instructions. It is for the well treated lucky cats. They never know what hungry is. For my two little angles fallen in my garden, the cat food is good enough. They rushed to the dish and completed the first dish of Whiskas in 10 minutes. I don’t know whether it is as delicious as the instruction and ads show. At least, it does not smell good for me. The cats SEEMED to like it because they eat it as fast as fresh meat.

BTW, we have named the mother cat Liangliang (or Shining in English) and the baby cat Huahua (or Colorful). They didn’t get used to their new names yet. They didn’t response when I call them with their names…

Some funny story happens the other day. A third cat, a big white male cat entered the garden and drove the two cats away. He attempted to stay in the garden. I was very unhappy about it. Luckily, the next day, Huahua and Liangliang returned and the white cat find a box on the other side of my apartment and settled down. I am fine with this cat as long as he does not bother my two little guests. Sometimes I will also feed him something. Hopefully there is no war between them in the future.

What the magzine in the U.S. Consulate wrote is true:

Pets can help people to keep health because when people worry about pet’s problems, they forget their own

Metro Line 1 Extends Northward

I read from newspaper that Shanghai Metro #1 North Extension will open very soon. Good news! The new operation plan is interesting. It works like this:

After every three trains from Xinzhuang to Shanghai Railway Station and return, the forth train will move on until it reach the new terminal station – Gongfu Xincun and return.

It means, some passengers need to get off the train at Shanghai Railway Station and wait on the platform until the right train (one out of four) arrives and continue their journey. It also means in contrast of 2-3 minutes interval of Metro Line #1, the train intervals for the metro station between Shanghai Railway Station and Gongfu Xincun will be 8-12 minutes.

The Metro System in Shanghai is stepping into a new era – a confusing era. For the first time, the train system became complicated. The trains on the same station may go to different places. It is not as straight forward as get-on-board-and-arrive as before. Don’t get me wrong. I did mean anything bad – it is inevitable for the Metro System to get confusing when more and more stations and lines are added into the system. Let’s wait and see how Shanghai Metro face this new challenge.

Update Wangjianshuo’s Blog Update notification service resumed

Due to a bug in the system, I sent out multiple identical emails to Wangjianshuo’s Blog Update distribution list before. I have paused the service for two months to fix it. Now, with the new code I wrote on top of Feedonfeeds, it is back again. You may find daily update to your mailbox again. Thanks for your patience.