SHANGHAI, CHINA: Jin Mao Tower

• Address:  Shiji Da Dao 2, Shanghai
• Location:  Pudong (3 blocks southeast of Oriental Pearl TV Tower)
• Phone:  021/5047-5101
• Price:  Admission ¥70 ($10/£5); ¥60 ($8.55/£4.30) seniors over 70
• Website:  www.jinmao88.com
• Transport:  underground rail: Luijazui
  

NEW YORK TIMES:

For a higher-than-a-bird’s-eye view, head to this Art Deco monolith, which on cloudy nights evokes Gotham City. The Grand Hyatt occupies floors 53 to 87, and the lobby offers jaw-dropping panoramas. From the 56th-floor Patio lounge, geared toward the cigar-and-cognac set, gaze up at the dizzying spiral of rooms. An evening trio plays jazz on classical Chinese instruments.

FROMMER’S:

Built in 1998 as a Sino-American joint venture, this 421m-high (1,381 ft.) second-tallest building in China (to its neighbor the Shanghai World Financial Center) is simply sublime. Blending traditional Chinese and modern Western tower designs, the building, which boasts 88 floors (8 being an auspicious Chinese number), consists of 13 distinct tapering segments, with high-tech steel bands binding the glass like an exoskeleton. Offices occupy the first 50 floors, the Grand Hyatt hotel the 51st to the 88th floors, while a public observation deck on the 88th floor ("The Skywalk") offers views to rival those of the nearby Oriental Pearl TV Tower (its admission charge is also lower). High-speed elevators (9m/30 ft. per sec.) whisk visitors from Level B1 to the top in less than 45 seconds. The view from there is almost too high, but exquisite on a clear day. You can also look down at the 152m-high (499-ft.-high) atrium of the Grand Hyatt. Enter the building through entrance 4.

FODOR’S:

Choose between the 1960s Jetsons kitsch of the Pearl Tower or the pagoda-inspired Jin Mao. If you head to the top of either of these two Pudong skyscrapers you'll be in for a bird's-eye view of the city and its surroundings. Try to count the cranes working incessantly on restructuring the city's skyline. Cloud Nine is a bar at the top of the Grand Hyatt in the Jin Mao, so you can sip a cocktail while looking out at the zillions of twinkling lights.

LONELY PLANET:

In a city of dubious contemporary architecture, the colossal Jinmao Tower stands out for its winning design, loosely inspired by a traditional Chinese subject, the pagoda. If you want to see Shanghai in a splendid nutshell, travel in the elevators (moving at 9.1m/second) to the 88th-floor observation deck, accessed from the separate podium building to the side of the main tower. Time your visit at dusk for both day and night views.

It's essentially an office block (owned by the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation) with the high-altitude Grand Hyatt renting space from the 53rd to 87th floors.

While you're there you might as well shoot off a postcard from what is officially the world's highest post office. Alternatively, sample the same view through the carbonated fizz of a gin and tonic at Cloud 9 - the world's highest bar at the time of writing - on the 87th floor of the Grand Hyatt and photograph the hotel's astonishing barrel-vaulted atrium, one of the world's tallest.

A visitor has her picture taken near a window on the 88th floor observation deck of the Jin Mao Tower.  Qilai Shen for The New York Times

SHANGHAI, CHINA: A Weekend in Shanghai Slideshow

Photo: Ariana Lindquist for The New York Times

While the global economic slowdown has had its impact, Beijing's naughty sister, Shanghai, is still up to her tricks: from the flashing neon signs to the light-bedazzled skyscrapers and throbbing clubs.

View Slideshow in The New York Times

OLYMPICS: Street vendor puts on the dog for popular Japanese figure skater

With treats such as the Mao dog, business at Noriki Tamura's Japadog street carts has been so good that he is getting ready to open a storefront operation.  Photograph by: Ward Perrin, PNG, Vancouver Sun

February 8, 2010

By Joanne Lee-Young, Vancouver Sun

Every day, Misa Tamura hand-punches gold and red-coloured maple leaves out of yuba -- membrane-like dried tofu skin -- to sprinkle on Japanese hotdogs celebrating Japan's figure skating Olympic hopeful Mao Asada.

The hotdogs, sold at her husband Noriki Tamura's popular Japadog street stand at Smythe and Burrard, are being snapped up these days by Japanese media in town for the Olympic Games, along with Japanese tourists and the stand's regular customers.

The hotdogs were created after Japanese media, in search of stories for home viewers, visited Tamura's stand and asked whether he offered anything in honour of the nation's skating star.

What emerged was the Mao dog, an almost $10 delicacy complete with a Kobe beef dog and tongkatsu sauce. But the crowning feature is definitely the sprinkle of colourful maple leaves.

"Why?" said Tamura with a laugh. "Because I am Japanese. We hope she will get the gold medal."

Japadog is not the only Japanese eatery doing good business by offering diners a chance to celebrate the skating star.

Kamei Royale, a popular business lunch spot at the corner of Georgia and Burrard, has been offering the Mao roll ever since last February, when Asada was in town to compete at the International Skating Union's Four Continents competition.

The roll -- which features wild salmon, raw shrimp, shiitake mushrooms, crabmeat, asparagus and thinly sliced baked egg -- was designed with the help of the skater herself.

"We came up with some samples, but she didn't like avocado," said Kamei store manager Hitomi Ishikura.

"Eventually, we settled on two rolls combined into the shape of a heart. She likes hearts and autographs her name with a heart."

It has gained such a buzz with Japanese tourists that Kamei is now selling four more skater rolls to cheer on Japan's other Olympic hopefuls: the Kozuka, the Akiko and the Oda for Takahiko Kozuka, Akiko Suzuki and Nobunori Oda, respectively.

Over at Japadog on a recent weekday, a group of TBS -- Tokyo Broadcasting System -- journalists were camped out in front of the Sutton Place Hotel on Burrard Street at Smythe.

Noriki Tamura proudly pointed out the thoughtful design of the Mao dog. "We cut the sausage three times to symbolize her triple axels."

Last year, Asada cleanly landed two triple axels, a first by a female skater in an ISU event.

Because the maple leaves on the Mao dogs have to be so painstakingly crafted, Japadog only offers the delicacy at its Burrard-Smythe location.

There are only 20 available each day and they're usually sold out at lunch, even though the sign on the cart, with a tiny photo of Asada, is only in Japanese.

"We have already been contacted by a lot of Japanese media," Tamura said.

Since he is set to launch a much-anticipated first storefront location for his hotdog business, the ex-Tokyo ad salesman who moved to Vancouver in 2005 welcomes the Olympics-related publicity.

He regularly counts a swarm of 20 to 30 people lining up at each of his two hotdog stands, which have become a Vancouver must-have for nori, daiko, ume and edamame-topped and teriyaki sauce plus Japanese mayo-smeared hotdogs.

The store, which he hopes to open during the Olympics, will be 700 square feet with 16 seats right in a cluster of new Japanese businesses on Robson Street between Richards and Seymour. It will allow him to offer a much wider selection of Japanized hotdogs.

"You can only do so much at a stall," he said. Some months ago, for example, health inspectors forced him to adapt his popular cheese terimayo hotdog, replacing the gooey, smoky melted cheese with a tidier cheese-filled sausage.

"With a restaurant and kitchen, we can do much more. We'll have lots of tongkatsu dogs, fry them. We can do rice dogs, sausages wrapped in rice."

Despite this, Tamura won't be getting rid of his stalls any time soon. "I'll keep them. I like them."

Meanwhile, the Asada-inspired culinary treats in Vancouver raise a question: With just as many, if not more Korean expats, especially international students, in Vancouver, what's out there for Korean Olympic skating star and Asada's chief rival, Yu-Na Kim?

Kim is from Korea, but since 2007 has trained in Toronto with Brian Orser and has a huge local following.

A quick round of calls doesn't turn up much. At the Korean Consulate in Vancouver, consul Tong-Op Kim said after he heard about the Mao roll and dog, he started searching around for Yu-Na Kim equivalents. He even urged a few businesses to "think of some Yuna dishes. But so far, I haven't seen any."

Like Asada, Kim counts large corporate sponsors such as Nike and Hyundai Motor Co. among her backers.

Said Kim, the Korean consul: "We will just support Yu-Na Kim. We know that she and Mao Asada are rivals. They are very talented and we expect a good match."

View Article in the Vancouver Sun

RUSSIA: On this day: 8 February

Image from german242.com

On February 8, 1919, the USSR adopted the standard zone time and the government’s order divided the Soviet Union into 11 time zones.

Before the October Revolution, the solar time, based on the exact latitude of each place, was adopted in Russia. It was inconvenient, because even the neighboring regions could not synchronize their clocks and, for example, start the working day simultaneously. In addition, the railroad stations all over the country had been using St. Petersburg time, even though some of them were situated in Siberia or the Far East.

Standard time is based on the division of the globe at 24 time zones longitudinally. The local time in two adjoining zones differs by one hour. The borders of the zones coincide not with the meridians, but with the borders of regions, so the width of the time zones differs from country to country. For example, China is considered one time zone, though it actually lies in five of them. Because Russia lies in 11 time zones, Russians celebrate the New Year 11 times – the Far East celebrates first, while Kaliningrad is last.

In 1919, only the Soviet Navy used the time zones, but because of technical difficulties, the whole country started to use it in 1924.

In 1930, the clocks all over the country were set forward for an hour. This new change was made to working hours to the daylight time and to save electricity. In addition, in 1981, daylight saving time – or summer time – was adopted for the same purpose. Russian people started to set the clocks forward for one hour in summer and set them back in the autumn. From that year on, in winter, Russian time is one hour different from standard, and in summer – two hours different.

Some scientists say that daylight saving causes more harm than good. Twice a year people have to get used to a new daily routine, and this change affects their health, attention span and working capacity. In these periods of the year, the number of car crashes grows, as does the number of train crashes. Moreover, the number of suicides increases by 66% and the number of heart attacks increases by 1.5 times. Some farmers refuse to set their clock back and forth, because the change in time is stressful on the cattle.

In the tropical regions, day and night have the same length, so summer time is not necessary. In the Polar Regions, days and nights are half-a-year long.

Some militaries object, and Mission Control Centers do not use summer time – the changes in schedule can cause problems with their equipment. Space stations use standard zone time, and the navigation satellites work according to their own schedule.

In 2008, measurements were taken, and the percentage of electricity saved by summer time appears to be not as big as expected. Nowadays, the necessity of daylight saving time is considered questionable, but the government has no plans of abolishing it.

View Article on RT