This is a post about life in Shanghai.

So how's everybody enjoying the weather? Freezing one day, temperate the next and then back to freezing again. I've broken out the long underwear already, though I think that a comfie pair of sweatpants worn under the jeans beats longjohns any day.

I've been meaning to write about the following topic for a couple of weeks now. If you ride the metro a lot like I do, you maybe have noticed some strange balances on your stored value card. For example, right now I have RMB 107.1 left with which to charge bus, metro and taxi rides. Huh? How did that one mao get onto there? Well, I figured it's the "frequent user discount" that I wrote about back in September, the one where you get 10% off metro tickets when you spend more than RMB 70 in a month. A few more rides at discounted prices confirmed that hypothesis.

I checked out the Live Bar for the noise concert on Sunday night. Man, that venue is truly "underground" if there ever was an underground venue in Shanghai. It's too bad that getting there is such a pain; tucked down in the southern corner of Yangpu District, it's inconvenient to get there from just about anywhere except central Shanghai. It's really the kind of place I'd go just to hang out, if I was into that kind of thing. But since I just found a cute little all-you-can-drink teahouse tucked away in a side alley off North Sichuan Rd...

Oh, and I'm looking forward to the Book Swap this Saturday. I got a couple more good ones.