Shanghaied Weblog

Scott's first day of school

Today Scott has his first day at school. There is a small private kindergarten located in our compound, and now Scott is old enough to join the classes. In total there are 11 kids (all toddlers), with 2 teachers and 2 ayi's.Scott was very happy to go to school, although it was a bit of a disappointment for him that he had to walk instead of going by school bus. Every day all the school buses pick up the kids for the international schools at our compound and he always likes to watch them....

It looks like we'll need a new lawn

This summer it rained a lot more than usual in Shanghai, and it also rained a lot harder. Over the past week it poured every day at least 1-2 hours and these were usually heavy rainstorms, flooding the streets in downtown Shanghai. Every single day our garden now turns into a (very shallow) swimming pool after it rains.This morning I sat in the garden (if it doesn't rain it's often sunny a few hours a day) and noticed that half the grass had already died because of the water. I think we will...

The man who owns the news

During a trip to Indonesia a few months ago I was browsing the bookstore on Jakarta airport before departure, when I saw the book "The Man Who Owns The News: Inside The Secret World of Rupert Murdoch" by Vanity Fair journalist Michael Wolff. Murdoch and the News Corp conglomerate that he built over the past decades fascinate me for quite some time already, so I decided to buy the book. That was a good decision, I enjoyed reading it and learned a lot. If you're interested in media and how the...

Advertising while surfing over 3G

Since I got my 3G USB connector last week I am using it every day while driving to and from work. So far the experience has been great, but there is one small annoyance: China Telecom sometimes serves up ads for its 3G service while you're surfing. Not sure what triggers it and I certainly don't see what the use is. I am already using 3G so why bother to tell me I should use it? It happened to me twice so far when I click a link, the page then redirects to another one owned by Shanghai Telecom....

Shanghai Daily names person who requests anonymity…

Does the Shanghai Daily not have an editor that reads articles before they are printed? Today's paper has a story on page 3 about Shanghai tourists that were killed in a landslide while trying to cross the Luxi Gorge in Zhejiang. At the end of the article one of the victims, Zhang Lin, is described. The article continues:"I know he loves traveling, but we never imagined anything like this happening," said his father, who requested anonymity. (emphasis added)What can I say, you must be a pretty...

No more foreign newspapers allowed in airport lounges

I am sitting in the business lounge at Shanghai Pudong airport waiting to board a flight to Amsterdam. I usually have a drink here and read a US or Dutch newspaper before departure, but it seems I will have to change this ritual: The Chinese government has apparently issued a new regulation saying that foreign newspapers and magazines are not allowed in lounges anymore! This is the first time I hear about this new rule and I seriously wonder what use this is. I guess I will have to read the...

Using 3G to go online in China

I did not hear many positive stories about 3G in China so far, and I therefore hesitated to buy a 3G connector for my laptop. But yesterday I decided to give it a try and bought a Huawei 3G USB connector for my MacBook Pro. So far I am very happy with it. Until now I normally used a GPRS connector to go online at places without wifi, but the speed was so slow that it was hardly workable. 3G makes a huge difference. I did not measure the exact up- and download speeds yet, but it seems quite...

Scott's first 'real' car

Scott loves cars. When he goes outside the first thing he normally does is to run to our car and point that he wants to go for a ride. We never give in to that and I was wondering why he keeps on trying, until I recently found out that our driver sometimes gives him a ride around the compound before he drives me to work!Because he likes cars so much we decided to order him a small 'real' car (he already has several tricycles and other user-powered vehicles). Scott got his car this weekend and...

Carl's Jr. will open its 1st restaurant in Shanghai this month

After among others McDonald's and Burger King, Shanghai will soon get another fast-food hamburger chain: Carl's Jr. The first store will be in the Raffles Shopping Mall on People's Square, a convenient 10 minute walk from my office. The exact location is on the north side of the food court on the B1 floor, and the signs there indicate that the store will open this month already.But I will probably wait a few weeks before trying out whether their first Chinese store is as good as their US...

Shanghai Happy Valley off to a bad start

Yesterday was the first day of operations for Shanghai's latest new amusement park, Happy Valley (warning: terribly designed and very slow flash site). But the first day was not as successful as planned, about everything that could go wrong went wrong. Today's paper version of the Shanghai Daily had an amusing story from a reporter that went to check out the park.Happy Valley is located in Sheshan, close to the only hills and wooded areas in Shanghai (see for example a post here about Sheshan...