Tag: China

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Lonely Planet Shanghai Updates (June 2010)

New

Rockbund Art Museum 上海外滩美术馆 (20 Huqiu Rd; 虎丘路20号; admission Y15; open 10-6, Tue-Sun) New contemporary art museum in the Bund Origin area, housed in the former Royal Asiatic Society building (1932).

Minsheng Art Museum 民生现代美术馆 (570 West Huaihai Rd, Bldg F, Red Town; 淮海西路570号红坊F座; admission Y20; open 10am-9pm, Tue-Sun) New French Concession museum in the Red Town complex, with acclaimed 30-year retrospective of contemporary Chinese art.

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Lonely Planet Shanghai Updates (May 2010)

Opening Night at the Expo

The World Expo officially kicked off on May 1st, and with its opening comes even more changes to the city that can’t sit still. In addition to the official website, you can also check out a few other sites. For an interactive map that includes a pavilion browser, go to http://expo.shanghaidaily.com. The blog Shanghai Expo Insights has regular updates, pictures and videos and is easy to navigate.

Bund Origin Area More of the Bund has reemerged from renovation – the latest area to be unveiled is what is being referred to as the “Bund Origin Area,” at the confluence of Suzhou Creek and Huangpu River. Yuanming Rd, one street back from the Bund, has been pedestrianized. The notable building here is the former British Consulate (the first colonial building built on the Bund), though it is not currently open to the public.

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Lonely Planet Shanghai Updates (April 2010)

Photo courtesy of the Oriental Morning Post 东方早报

New

Of course the big news this month is the reopening of the Bund after some three years of construction dust and jackhammering. Most traffic has been diverted underground, though there are still five lanes in use.

Also new is Hongqiao Airport’s Terminal 2 (where most carriers are now based – primarily domestic flights), and with it the western extension of metro line 2 to Hongqiao, which opened on the same day.  The Pudong extension has not yet opened.

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Lonely Planet Shanghai Updates (February 2010)

The new Shanghai city guide is due out in a few days, which makes it a good time to initiate a “Shanghai Updates” category – if ever there was a guidebook that needed an online updates page somewhere, this would be the one. Feel free to post your own discoveries (good or bad) here. To kick things off, I’ll start with the closures – yes, some listings have already closed before the book was even published, but hey, that’s what this page is for.
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Soundscapes: A Taoist Ceremony in Shanghai

Qinciyang Temple, Pudong
Qinciyang Temple, Pudong

Shanghai, and in particular, Pudong, was the last place I expected to chance upon a traditional Taoist ceremony. But there you go, even China’s financial center is sitting on top of some leftover animist beliefs.

This recording is of a birthday party for the god Dongyue, who presides over Mount Tai (Tai Shan), China’s supreme sacred mountain. So how do Shanghainese Taoists celebrate birthdays? With plenty of liquor, pumpkin seeds, and peanuts, plus over twenty-five large bags of specially folded paper money, which was burned for Dong Yue after the ceremony. Pudong is an expensive place to live, after all, even for a god.

[audio:Taoist1.mp3]