Wondering with Wind

The new Shanghai landmark is going to be completed:

A closed look at the top. it is going to be completed.

Take a look at it in last Dec. here.

China’s No. 1 search engine Baidu.com has a datacenter providing searching related data for a dozen of major industries, such as real estate, travel, auto, online games, finance, etc. In a report released in April 2008 about travel industry, there are some very interesting data.

For example, what are the most searched hotel brands in by Chinese netizens? Here are the original data in Chinese. Top 3 are: Shanghai Jinjiang Hotels, Beijing Tourism Group (BTG) Hotels and Shangri-La Hotels. Interesting enough, ony the the first and second are China local brands. The rest are international brands.

1	上海锦江酒店
2	首都旅游国际酒店
3	香格里拉酒店
4	喜达屋酒店
5	雅高酒店
6	万豪国际酒店
7	洲际酒店
8	凯悦酒店
9	凯宾斯基
10	希尔顿酒店

Shanghai Jinjiang Hotel is a HongKong stock exchange listed company (ticket “2006“). It is the largest hotel group in China with 270 hotel properties and 54,000 hotel rooms, including luxury 5 star hotels (Jinjiang Hotel) and budget hotels (Jinjiang Star). Beijing Toruism Group is listed in Shanghai stock exchange (ticket ”600258）and owns more than 200 hotel properties across China.

No. 5 is the top hotel operator Accor (brands: Ibis and Novotel) from Australia. According to Lang LaSalle Hotels’ annual Top Operator Survey, “In 2007, Australia’s largest hotel operators, Accor Asia Pacific Corporation (AAPC) and Stella Hospitality Group both increased rooms under management by concentrating on the serviced apartment sector - both primarily in the 4-star arena.” While according to Cheaperthanhotel.com.au, an Autstralia hotel booking site, Quest Apartment is Australasia’s largest operator in the serviced apartment sector, with over 110 complexes for unique Australia, New Zealand and Fiji accommodation.

No. 6 to 10 are JW Marriot (万豪), InterContinental (洲际), Hyatt (凯悦), Kempinski (凯宾斯基) and Hilton (希尔顿).

Brands like Radisson and Regal didn’t make to the top 10 list in China.

A sign in Ridisson Plaza (and Garden) in Shanghai closed to my place. It s a very nice garden with villas.

Building No.1 in Radisson Plaza Garden , a historical building constructed in 1930s.

More data about this travel industry report in English language can be found here.

May 1st is a public holiday in China, as it is International Labor’s Day which is originated from a labor dispute in the United States (although it is not a public holiday in the States today). lol. We had a rough plan to visit a nearby city in the three-day long weekend. However, when we were on elong and ctrip (the two major travel booking sites in China), almost all the hotels under 400 RMB in the downtown area were fully booked, even through May 8. Obviously, there are quite some tourists around the country taking vacations during this long weekend.

The weather in May is so beautiful - warm enough to walk outside without wearing layers of clothes, but not to hot to get sweaty easily. So, it is a good time to visit East China cities: Shanghai, Hangzhou, Suzhou, Wuxi, Yangzhou, and other tourism destinations such as Thousand Islands Lake(qiandao hu, 千岛湖), Putuo Mountain (putuo shan, 普陀山). This beautiful weather will continue until the last week of June - a tip to plan your trip to East China.

So, I want to get out, but don’t want to over-spend for our outing. My last minute holiday trip plan starts from cutting the trip length. Suzhou is only 50 miles away from Shanghai and it takes 37 minutes by train. So we cut the 3-day trip to 1 day long hour trip. The last train from Suzhou to Shanghai is 10pm. We can be home before midnight.

My plan is to visit a 2000+ year old historical site called Huqiu (虎丘, means Tiger Hill) + Suzhou Museum which has a new wing designed by Chinese American architect, Pritzker Architecture Prize winner,  Ieoh Ming Pei (贝聿铭), + one of the gardens. The other important “mission” is to try the local Su style food. The restaurants can be old style, the service can be bad, but as long as the food are good, we won’t complaint!

It will be a cheap holiday trip. My secret of a bargain holiday is to think about what are the most desired things to do in your vacation. Then plan around the objective/goal, the earlier the better, the more flexible, the cheaper.  I will share my photo trip when we are back.

Majestic Theater (美琪大戏院）is one of the oldes theaters in Shanghai. It offers a diverse range of regular performances such as opera, ballet, concerts, local/regional dance performances and gala. Sit in downtown Jing An district, a block away from Plaza 66 and Citic Plaza, it is on a very good location where you don’t need to worry about transportation after a performance ends late at night. Why does it matter? A friend told me that she hasn’t been to a concert for a long time because it is too hard to get a taxi after the show. The closest metro station for Majestic Theater is West Nanjing Rd. Station of Line 2 (Nanjing Xi Rd. 南京西路).

I went to see a Chinese opera “Madame Bovary, IS ME” directed by Edward Lam (Hong Kong) and performed by students from Taipei National University of Art (台北国立艺术大学) last week.

Here is my photo tour:

I live around Jiangsu Rd. (江苏路) Station, Nanjing Xi Rd (南京西路) station is 2 stops towards west direction. Once you are off the metro, take Exit 1 and walk towards east on Nanjing Xi Rd. and then turn north on Jiangning Rd. (江宁路).

When you see this sign, you know you will be there. (max. 10 minutes walk from the Metro station.)

If you pass this sign, you are walking too far away. Turn back to the corner where the entrance is.

We headed to the theater directly from work and this was my dinner. It is called Guilin Rice Noodle Soup with Soured Cowpea (酸豆角桂林米粉). Not bad for 7RMB.

Very nice!

The theater is well kept: clean and spacy. There are around 700 seats on ground and 300+ on the second floor.

Meeting the director and the performers!

Ok. here are some detailed information about how to get there:

• Address: Jiangning Rd. 66, Shanghai (上海江宁路66号)
• Phone: 021/6217-4409 (call before you go)
• Online schedule: check the schedule here
  
• Ticket:Buy in advanced, or just show up the theather before the show, “dealers” will gather around you. 30% off is a possible deal.

upcoming: The Best ABBA Show by Waterloo May 20, 2008

As my Hangzhou vacation plan, we spent three days in this beautiful city. We didn’t go through a typical tour-guided trip in which you will be shown around many attractions, of course including many factories visits, within one or two days, but randomly walked around and saw things as we planned.

Day 1: Longjing Tea Leaf Shopping

We had a pleasant train riding experience from Shanghai to Hangzhou. Check  Shanghai South Railway Station: the start of a most environmental friendly travel option   for tips on how to take trains from Shanghai to Hangzhou.

The weather wasn’t perfect, so we went to Long Jin Village to shop LongJin green tea leaf.  Spring tea season usually lasts for 5 to 6 weeks: 3 weeks before Qing Ming (April. 5) and 3 weeks after Qing Ming. Qing Ming is a traditional holiday for Chinese to “sweep” the tombs of their ancestors to show the respect ion and worship of the passed family members. Because of the snow storm disaster happened early this year in South China, the season started about 2 weeks later than usual and we were very lucky to buy the 3-day old fresh tea leafs from the farmers at very good price - more than 50 % less than the prices  in the tea stores in the cities. 

Day 2: West Lake (Xihu, 西湖）

Hangzhou is famous for its West Lake, and West Lake is famous for a lot of Chinese historical events and people, of course also its scenery. I was surprised at myself that I don’t know how the West Lake came from even though I know its big name when I was little. In this trip, I found some description on the attractions implying that West Lake is a volcanic lake, but when i researched on line later resources  say that there are two explanations on the cause of West Lake: 1. volcano eruption, 2. it was a bay connecting with Qiantang River and East Sea in about 12,000 years’ ago and was blocked and separated by sediment later and became a lake.  I don’t know  which to trust.

Anyway, because West Lake is a “money making” lake, the government of Hangzhou City obviously invests a lot in maintaining its surrounding environments  so that it is very beautiful around the lake — a lot of greens and flowers. The roads are clean and the air condition is much better than that in Shanghai.

But if you are not familiar with / interested in the Chinese classical literature and histories, you probably don’t want to spend more than half day around the lake, and I also won’t recommend you to take any paid tour around the lake.

Day 3: Silk Museum

There are two kinds of gifts you want to buy when you visit Hangzhou: 1. green tea leaf, 2. silk.  I didn’t buy any silk as I am not confident enough that I can tell the high quality silk products from the bad. Instead, we decided to visit the silk museum to get some education. The museum is free and I didn’t see more than 10 people during our visits. It is very nice and quiet. But if you go with your family, your kids and/or husband might find it a little boring.　But I enjoyed a lot especially watching skilled workers to make the complicated patterned silk fabric from the threads.

I am shopping for office space in Shanghai recently. My assitant helped me to search on classifieds online and call the real estate agents. The results I got were very much matched what I have learned about the market.

This is an very famous and popular map about Shanghai real estate buying price by Metro station. The office rental price is quite match to the price range of the residental real esate price.

(Thanks MadaboutShangai for the image, click for larger view)

For example, we are looking for a 25 sqr meter room for 4 people, the prices of buying in different districts are:

• Huangpu (pink area in the center of the map): RMB 5,500/month
• Luwan ( light blue area in the center of the map, next to Huangpu): > RMB 6,000/month
• JingAn (yellow area in the center of the map): RMB 5,500/month
• Pudong Center Park (the middle of Pudong alone Metro Line 2): RMB 2,000/month

So, what about the number in residentail rental? Take my apartment as an example: 60 sqr meter in Changning disctict which is to the west of JingAn disctrict; 15 mins walk to a Metro station.

• Renting: 3000 RMB/month;
• Buying: 20,000RMB/sqr meter (living area)

According to the government data, the average monthly salary in Shanghai in 2006 is RMB 2464.

So, can you figure out how much you need to make to buy a real estate in Shanghai? Or how about in Hawaii? Or San Francisco Bay area. Reading the news about Hawaii real estate, the sales volumn of the condos in Big Island has increased from 5.29% to 32.43% in 2007 compared to 2006. I did a search on Maui MSL to check out the price to buy there: the lowest rate it shows is USD 295,000 for 974 sqr feet living area. This could be translated to RMB as 22,000/sqr meter - approximately the same as my apartment. Though you won’t have a big yard in Shanghai.

I don’t celebrate Chritmas. But many of my girl friends and I are looking forward to this holiday, because it is when big ON SALE happens in 99% of the malls in the city.

Last night, we went to shop for my husband some winter outware on Huaihai Rd in French Concession area of Shanghai. Huahai Rd. is the best place for people watching and window shopping. You are expected to see the most fashionable and stylish people on this street. Take a look at these Baidu images for keyword “Shanghai Huaihai Rd“.

We knew Parkson has the “Buy 199 get 100 instant rebate” promotion. So we headed directly to the shop on the intersection of Huanhai Rd. and Shanxi Rd. (Parkson is on the South Shanxi Rd. Metro station Line 1). The mall is much roomy comparing to the crowdness of pre-Xmas, and the CSs are less nicer. I can tell most of them were yawn to go home. Yes, it was 830pm. But it is a perfect moment for us.

Products of some foreign brand names are over-priced in China. Levi’s and the Northface (TNF) are two of them, not to mention other “luxury” brands. The price for a common Levi’s jean is ridiculously marked as RMB 799, which i know I can buy it at around HKD 599 HKD ( app. RMB 560). A GoreTex outware of TNF can be priced as RMB 1999 (app. USD 280), while you can buy a GoreTex of Lafuma at RMB 800. Though the design of Lafuma is a little dull, we bought one and it is a real bargain! And I also found one local brand called Belle is over-priced judging from its design and manufacturing quality. I believe its IPO in Hong Kong Stock Exchange in May 2007 has improved the brand image and prices.

Tips to shop in Shanghai:

• Avoid shopping before X’mas, do it after the holiday;
• Avoid weekends if you can shop at night;
• Avoid buying accessories in the malls since most of the accessories are alwasy not ON SALE, try to shop in the boutique shops where you can bargain;
• Compare before you pay.

We are in search for a new apartment in Shanghai. But the price of real estate in downtown Shanghai is too high for us to affort. So we visited this neighbourhood called “tianshan” last weekend. It is a rebuilt new district.  not many skylines here. All residental apartments are not higher than 15 floors, except of this ugly tower…

Photo courtesy of Shanghaiist 

This is an old image, and stories about Tomson Riviera, the 110,000 RMB/sq. meter apartment in Shanghai have been online since 2005 (read here and here).

Today, an investigation result about Tomson Riviera since June 2007 was released: Shanghai real estate and and department has ordered “Tomson to sell at a reduced listed price or put all its properties out to lease”. This is a strong action in the move to cool down the over-heated real estate marketing in China. What’s the government’s next movement?

One of the best things for me to live in Shanghai is to be able to eat Hairy Crab (毛蟹) from every late Autumn to early Winter, or even to Chinese New Year - Spring. The name “hairy crab” is generated from the outlook of this fresh water grown crab - many small hairy on the crab legs. Its official name is Chinese mitten crab. The better quality of the fresh water, the better the crab. By review and word of mouth, the most famous hairy crab is Yangchenghu (HCH, 阳澄湖) Hairy Crab which is from the name of a lake. Don’t be surprised if you are see all hairy crabs are advertised as “yangchenghu hairy crab” in free markets, in restaurants or in supermakets.

A decoration of fariy crab harvesting scene in Yuyuan Garden, Shanghai

How to find native Yangchenghu hairy crab, but not fake or “immigrated” ones? Here are a few tips I come up which are not 100% guarantee:

1. Go to YangchengHu city. The chance you encounter a native HCH crab in local is at least 50% higher than in non local place.

2. Go to high end restaurants which care for their reputations. There your chance to eat a real HCH crab is very high, if you are not worried about $$$. It is not uncommon that they will sell you a 250g crab for $40. If you are in Hong Kong or Beijing (places that are far away from Shanghai), you might need to pay for the air ticket for the crab.

3. Go to your Chinese friends and ask for their “relationship” (Guangxi). This is my approach. My ancle has some clients who have very close and good relationships with HCH crab growners. I am 99% sure that I eat the REAL HCH crabs. A “guangxi” is likely to cheat you in other stuff, not food!

4. Research and find the certification labels stick onto the crabs in markets. I have to warn you that the cost to make a label can be extremely low in China.

These are well cooked crabs with certification label on it. The best and easiest way to cook crab is to simplily steam them for 15 minutes (8) with source made of soy bean souce, vinegar, suger and minced ginger.

Can you tell the difference between the two crabs on the right image? The upper on is a femail crab and the lower one is a male. Keep the following saying in mind if you are as serious about hairy crab as I am ”September Female，October Male”. The best season to have female crabs is September in Chinese lunar calendar and October for male crab. To keep it simple, 2 weeks after Mid Autumn Festivel is the best season for female crab!

This is a male hairy crab! Now it is the right season for it! YUMMY…

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Update on Dec. 17, 2007: