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These two picture of the Bund in Shanghai show the growth of that part of the city in just the last twenty years. Yes, although it may remind you of an early 20th-century photograph, the top picture was taken in 1990. The bottom picture was taken in 2010. According to a comment from a Shanghai redditor, this is an accurate depiction of the tremendous construction since then. Link
In the bootleg markets of Shanghai, you can purchase an ePad, a iRobot, or an iPhono. You can even get an MP5 player! But I was really impressed by this guitar peripheral for the Wü game console. See these and more in a gallery of good at Classy Hands. Link -Thanks, Lee!
One doesn’t automatically place homelessness and affluent Shanghai on the same page but they do co-exist. Some low income Shanghai residents are camping out in fast food joints. Recently a homeless refugee stabbed a McDonald’s employee, bringing this problem into sharp relief. The Shanghaist has an article translated from a Ghangzhou weekly newspaper about this phenomena.
In response to questions about people sleeping over at McDonalds, a spokesperson named Mr. Lu said the store “doesn’t explicitly allow it, but doesn’t explicitly disallow it.” But for all the stores in the Tianyaoqiao Lu area, KFC has the most serious McRefugee problem. “Because there’s sofas there, [McDonalds] only has hard stools. In the winter, people will even bring their blankets and bedrolls into the restaurant.”
Every time night falls, 123 Tianyaoqiao Lu becomes like a railway waiting room. Young couples and people returning from a late night of KTV fill the place, most customers have nothing to do with the McRefugees.
This is a loosely connected group. Every night after 10pm, they gradually gather here. All they have is a backpack or a canvas bag, or sometimes nothing at all. They usually sit at the farthest booth from the ordering station, and never order a drink. To entertain themselves, they bring kung fu novels, financial or educational books, and leftover newspapers from other customers. After midnight, they are scattered around every corner of the restaurant. Some in the sofaed partitions, using their books or newspapers as pillows, leaning over tables or even using rows of seats as beds.
State and US Senator, President of the United States, Nobel laureate … What’s next for Barack Obama? How about … a night club owner?
Naw, that’s just some people in Shanghai jumping on the Obamawagon. According to Abby Lavin of CNN GO’s Shanghai:
Our friends over at SmartShanghai tipped us off to the April 26 soft-opening of Obama Entertainment Club, a new nightlife venture that is self-professedly “probably…the biggest club in the city…”
Them’s fightin’ words, and it’s clear from Club Obama’s inspired logo that it will be a force to be reckoned with on the city’s debauched party scene.
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The first building in Savannah, Georgia was a “herb house” for the gardener tending the experimental botanical gardens that were going to make the city a Utopia. Instead, the city became a busy seaport. The garden house was made into a tavern catering to merchant ships’ crews and pirates.
Pirates get a bad rap. They were cut-throat, drunken maniacs, sure, but what they did have was great benefits. Compared to other sailing outfits, pirates often had better food, better pay, better sleeping arrangements (all still horrible of course) than other soldier or merchant vessels. Pirates at least had a democratic decision-making system. Comparatively luxurious, the pirate ships often had plenty of people willing to join them. Not so for your standard military or merchant ships. Sailors regularly jumped ship, and after a few days stay in a port, a ship could be shorthanded by half a dozen men. This is where the “Pirates’ House” came in. Besides beer, food and wenches, the “Pirate House” did a brisk trade in something else; they found new sailors for the ships. Rather than going to all the trouble of convincing people of what a nice life it was at sea (people knew better) they simply kidnapped them.
Curious Expeditions explains how these kidnappings (known as being “shanghaied”) were accomplished, as well as other pirate activities, and you’ll get a look at more of the fascinating history of the city of Savannah. Link
Surely you’ve heard of the Great Wall of China, but how about a Leaning Tower? Turns out, China’s Huzhu Pagoda may just be the most tilted building in the world, beating out the Leaning Tower of Pisa …
The Huzhu pagoda leans over Tianma village in Songjiang suburb, its seven-story structure so lopsided it seems in imminent danger of toppling over altogether.
It was built in 1079 — well before Italy’s famous Leaning Tower of Pisa — by Gen. Zhou Wenda to house five Buddha relics given to him as a reward by Emperor Song Gaozong of the Southern Song dynasty. But from the start, it began to tilt.
“Part of the foundation was built on rock, part of the foundation was built on mud,” explains Yang Kun, who works at the Songjiang Museum and has studied the pagoda’s history.
Link [Update 3/13/09: reader beware: the website (NPR.org of all places) may have trojan in a rogue ad]
From the Upcoming 
ueue, submitted by Geekazoid.
