life in Shanghai China

We stroll behind the Peninsula Hotel along the new Rockbund development and back into the still existing old Shanghai neighborhoods.

The Chinese New Year is nearly upon us - we visit Shanghai main railway station and wade into the crowds. We visit a busy shopping mall to check out the buying mood.

The Rockbund Art Museum provides interesting contemporary art exhibitions. We visit the current exhibition titled Q CONFUCIUS that takes a modern look at an ancient Chinese cultural icon.

We take advantage of the mildest November in over a decade and the recently reopened Huangpu ferry decks to boat over to the Bund to observe the crowds.

We visit a Shanghai exhibition of recreations from the Buddhist wall paintings and sculptures found in the fantastic caves of Gansu along the Silk Road.

We visit an authentic Shikumen private home in Shanghai that the owner Da Shiping has transformed into a private museum.

The latest news about Shanghai Expo; luxury shopping trends; and hotels and the post Expo slump that wasn't.

Follow ups on the new Shanghai Apple store; last week's ship emergency on the Huangpu river; the Shanghai Auto Museum; a new French restaurant Cuivre; and the news of the day - a subway crash on Metro line 10.

The composer Tan Dun created a Bauhaus inspired stage in the nearby Shanghai historic water town of Zhujiajiao for his water soaked fusion musical performance titled Water Heavens. This pas weekend we took an enjoyable plunge, and now provide about 11 minutes of musical highlights from last Saturday's stimulating performance.

Visit to the new Apple store site and it's mall. Then we head to the dark side, the Century fake market.

The ChinJif ferry connecting Shanghai and Osaka Japan appears stranded for over an hour on the Huangpu river on the Bund riverfront. We watch as the Chinese coast guard and ship's crew perform numerous maneuvers to free the ship.

We take advantage of the 3-day Mid Autumn festival weekend and visit Taipei in Taiwan. Suggestions on a place to stay, sights to see, shopping tips and some fine dining with a view.

Not your typical visit to Suzhou with gardens and humble admins, we visit the industrial park! But it's not your Dad's industrial park - we discover why. IKEA plans to invest a boat load of Krona into China selling white furniture. We look into what the middle aged Chines singles find so attractive about IKEA.

Shanghai Expo 2010 returns, or did it really ever go completely away? The two most popular pavilions survive and thrive with a couple more planned to reopen. Two other corporate pavilions will reopen with new tenants, while plans are announced for redeveloping large areas of the Expo site. We review it all.

We dodge the big one as the typhoon stays out in the China sea, but the heat continues. Tall buildings and big fakes on a hot, summer day.