There are carts of knock off DVDs all over Shanghai but the best place I've come across is a little store on the east side of Gao'an Lu just below Yongjia Lu.


I heard it was true but we had to go check it out for real. People in Shanghai go to Ikea to hang out on the sofas and sleep in the beds.


We were beginning to think our stuff would never come but at 9.30 last night my materialistic side (80%) was finally appeased. Now we can turn the place into our own.


This morning, full of the joys of going to class on a Saturday, I slipped in the bathroom and stubbed my toes on the wall.


Hengshan Lu, once referred to (by our estate agent!) as the Champs Elysees of Shanghai, is a road of expat bars and tacky western restaurants slicing up the otherwise haute French Concession.


Underneath the elevated metro, next to a busy Hong Qiao intersection and backing onto a park is this half-shed, half-bar, all-intimate music venue. Yuyintang is one of those little Shanghai secrets that everyone knows about; voted Time Out's best live rock bar 2009.