We went to the Shanghai Circus World today for the circus show. It is the first time I go there. It was wonderful experience for me. I’d like to suggest everyone to go there to see the acrobats, the animals, and the motos…. The good thing is, they allow cameras and photographing during the show, so I captured some pictures during the 2-hour performance.

© Jian Shuo Wang. Image in courtesy of Shanghai Circus

© Jian Shuo Wang. Image in courtesy of Shanghai Circus

© Jian Shuo Wang. Image in courtesy of Shanghai Circus

© Jian Shuo Wang. Image in courtesy of Shanghai Circus

© Jian Shuo Wang. Image in courtesy of Shanghai Circus

© Jian Shuo Wang. Image in courtesy of Shanghai Circus

© Jian Shuo Wang. Image in courtesy of Shanghai Circus

Many of the shows are breath-taking.

Where is the Circus

You can reach there by Metro. It is at the Shanghai Circus station of Metro Line #1 (north extension). If you drive, go along the Chengdu Elevated Road, heading north. After passing the Inner Ring, leave the elevated highway at Yan Chang Road 延长路 and take U-turn at Guangzhong Road 广中路. Their telephone is +86-21-66527750, +86-21-66522395.

P.S. Google already changed its logo for Chinese interface site to celebrate the Chinese new year!

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.

Bricks of Xintiandi:

© Jian Shuo Wang

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

© Jian Shuo Wang

© Jian Shuo Wang

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

© 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.

© Jian Shuo Wang

A new tunnel East Fuxing Road Tunnel opens today. It is another good news after the successful F1 circuit.

The tunnel is just besides the Nanpu Bridge, which is on my daily routine to work and home. I expect the tunnel will off load some traffic on Nanpu Bridge. :-D

Didn’t have time to drive through the tunnel yet, but I guess I will have a try in the long Natinoal Holiday.

I finally got the F1 Grand Prix. I was not interested in F1, as most of people in Shanghai, maybe in China. No suprise. This is the time time F1 comes to this country. I never saw real F1 before. However, when the big, nice, red ticket is on my hand, I became a little bit excited. I never saw F1 before. At the time I bought it, there are only GRASS STAND TICKET for Sunday, Sept 26, 2004.

F1 Ticket for Shanghai Grand Prix 2004. © Jian Shuo Wang.

On the official Shanghai International Circuit website, there are some very cool photos of the venue. Go there and have a look. I will bring my camera with me and record the event.

The venue is not very far from Shanghai downtown – if and only if you have a car. Here is a map, somewhere at the north-west part of the city. It is 30 minutes car ride to Hong Qiao Airport, 50 minutes to the Pudong Airport.

I considered to driver there – to drive to see F1 is exciting. However, I learnt parking area is not planned at the F1 Circuit. How can it be possible! Since there are 150,000 visiters to the event, private cars (without special pass certificate) have to park at the streets nearby. It is about 4-5 km away from the circuit and takes at least 1 hour to walk there. En…. Let me think twice – to stand whole day on the grass to watch F1 and walk up to 3 hours a day may be too tiring. So I decided to join the group to take shuttle bus from downtown there. There are 4 lines from four big stadiums in Shanghai to F1…..

I guess it will be an exciting day for me. I went to karting for some times, but I know F1 is totally another thing.

If I were a visitor to Shanghai, who has never been to this land, I would choose to land at Pudong Airport. Actually, I don’t have other choice since all international flights arrive at Pudong Airport (PVG) only.

If I were a visitor, I will stay either in a nice five star hotel that is at the central of the city, like JW Marriot or JC Mandarin, because it is cheaper than the same standard of hotel in other countries, or stay at Youth Hotel for 40 RMB per night only but also enjoy the convenience of sleep at the heart o the city.

If I were a visitor, I will visit the Huaihai Road. Unlike those roads in Hong Kong, the Huai Hai Road is a strait road that I can go from the east to the west and all the big shopping malls line up on both sides. The only branch I need to go is the Xin Tian Di – to have a cup of wine there at night.

If I were a visitor, I will spend half hour at night on outside platform of the New Height Bar of Three on the Bund. It is the best view of the Bund and the Pudong skyscrapers I have ever found.

If I were a visitor, I will go to the Yu Yuan Garden. It may not be so attractive to local residents, but I never saw a foreigner who was not excited about the Chinese traditions on he market.

If I were a visitor, I will go to the top of the Pearl TV Station before sun set and wait until the whole city was lit up. The view of Puxi from the tower is fabulous.

If I were a visitor, I will try the Maglev when I depart the city. The 8-minute at top speed of 430 km will be the last but most impressive experience in this city.

What else if you were a visitor to Shanghai?

Xintiandi (or Xin Tian Di) is a nice place to go. It is the gather place of bars. What I found last time is the nice small shops with all types of small toys.

These small toys reminded me of the beautiful photo Wendy took in German. It is one of the best photos she took. Let me put it there again.

Photographed by Wendy Fan, in German

Map of Xintiandi

Update Sorry for multi-notification July 28, 2004

Ops. Thanks for Henry’s notification. I discovered a servere problem with my last notification for Nice Toys at Xintiandi. If you are subscribers of Wangjianshuo’s Blog Update, you may receive as many as 10 notification emails for this single entry. I am not sure why this happens but I will look into it. Sorry for bothering you. Please be sure I am a pioneer for anti-spam and your email addresses are safe.

© Jian Shuo Wang. The twin tower of Grand Gateway is under construction. View outside the window of my office

I am lucky to have a wonderful view out of the window of my office in Metro Tower. I am seeing the twin tower of the Grand Gateway growing higher and higher everyday. Now, it is reported that the twin tower will reach its top at the end of this month and will be fully completed in May.

According to what I heard (may not be true), the tower construction was suspendid due to the Asia Finacial Crisis. The Grand Gateway (the large mall under the two tower) has been in business for several years and the tower came late.

I invited my friend Chen and Xia to go with Wendy and me for a weekend drive today. We started at aroudn 2:30 PM and reached the China East Sea at around 3:30 PM.

© Jian Shuo Wang

Saw Supper Stars in Asia

At night, we rushed back to Shanghai Stadium, parked my car in IKEA and went to see the Asia Super Star Anti-Pivacy Show. I saw about 10 super stars in the show. Very cool!

The infrastructure of Shanghai is improving at amazing speed. After the new outer ring tunnel opened in Shanghai last weekend, the 6th bridge on Huangpu river opens today.

When I first came to Shanghai in 1995, the Yang Pu bridge was just completed. There are one tunnel and two bridges over the river. Now, from the north to south, six bridges are ready:

1. Yangpu

   

2. Nanpu

   

3. Lupu

   

4. Xupu

   

5. Fengpu
6. Songpu

Meanwhile, five tunnels are ready (from the north are outer ring tunnel, Yanan Rd tunnel, Tourism tunnel, Metro Line #2 tunnel, Dapuqiao tunnel). Two more (Dalian Road Tunnel and Fuxing Road tunnel) are under construction. By the year 2005, 20 tunnels will connects the Pudong area and the Puxi area.

Express ways

With increasing number of the new express way, I suggent found the new names for the express ways. Here are a list I found on the Internet.

A20 The outer ring

外环线（吴淞区-浦东新区-闵行区-吴淞区）

原路名:环南一大道、环南二大道、环西一大道、环西二大道

A30 The county ring

郊环线（吴淞区-浦东新区-奉贤县-青浦区-吴淞区）

原路名:（规划远东、大亭高速公路）

A1

起讫点:A20公路-浦东机场

原路名:迎宾大道

A2

起讫点:A20公路-芦潮港

原路名:（规划沪芦高速公路）

A3

起讫点:A20公路-A30公路

原路名:（规划5号线）

A4

起讫点:A20公路-浙江省界

原路名:（规划4号线）

A5

起讫点:A12公路-A4公路（嘉定区-淞江区-金山区）

原路名:（规划嘉金高速公路）

A6

起讫点:A30-戚家墩码头

原路名:（规划新卫高速公路）

A7

起讫点:A30-浙江省界（新农镇-枫泾）

原路名:（规划新枫高速公路）

A8 Shanghai-Hangzhou Expressway

起讫点:A20公路-浙江省界

原路名:沪杭高速公路

A9 Huqingping

起讫点:A20公路-江苏省界

原路名:（规划沪青平高速公路）

A11 Shanghai-Nanjing Expressway

起讫点:真北路立交-江苏省界

原路名:沪宁高速公路

A12 Shanghai-Jiading Expressway

起讫点:真北路-江苏省界

原路名:（规划沪嘉浏高速公路，已建成沪嘉高速公路）

A13 Shanghai-Chongming Expressway

起讫点:A20公路-宝山区-崇明县-江苏省界

原路名:（规划三号线、越江西线）

A14

起讫点:A30公路-长兴岛-崇明县-江苏省界

原路名:（规划越江东线、北沿高速公路）