1019 KangDing Road, near YanPing Road. If you walk from west Yan-Ping,
you can't miss it!

Facade of the restaurant

Native Thai cuisine prevails at this restaurant. For those who love Thai food, there’s a new Thai restuarant  along Kang Ding road, just few minutes walk from west Yen-Ping road.

The Interior.

Nicely printed menu in English with photos.

Chiang Mai Thai cuisine mainly offers native Thailand food. The selection of seafood dishes is fantastic. It has a quiet and warm environment and the lighting was comfortable.

We got there pretty early, at about 11 noon and we were the first customers. We ordered fried rice with shrimp paste and tom yam soup. For me, tom yam soup is a absolute must when trying thai food. To top it off, we ordered fried prawn cakes as appetiziers. It was a pity they did not have appetiziers combination, which is available at Thai House . But the prawn cakes were not available and we ordered fish cakes instead.

The service was actuallly quite good which is rare in Shanghai. They were very accomodating and polite. The food was good although we would have preferred it to be more spicy. While waiting for the final dish (fried fish cakes), we were served Satay instead. We though it was a mistake.  The Thai Chef explained that the fish cakes were not up to his usual standards and could not be served. The Satay was on the house.

All in all, the experience was pleasant and we would be back for more thai cuisine.

Thai fried rice with shrimp paste, sweat pork, fried egg and prawn.

Thai Satay

Thai Seafood Tom Yam Soup

Contact informations:

1019 Kangding Lu, Jing An District near Yanping Lu.

Tel: 5228-1588

URL: http://www.chiang-mai.com.cn/

caijiquan918@yahoo.com.cn

Open 11am-11pm

Delivery available within 3km.

Popularity: 2% [?]

The clocks across China are counting down to the day in the evening of August 8th, the moment when Beijing will launch the games of the 29th Olympiad. In preparation for its moment in the centre of the world stage, the city has transformed itself from the downager of old to a dazzling young star decked out in a stunning display of architecture haute couture!

Beijing National Stadium aka The Bird Nest is a stadium finished for the Olympic Green will be an icon and new landmark for Beijing.

The stadium will host the opening and closing ceremonies, track and field as well as soccer events. It has a total capacity of 91,000 and 11,000 temporary seating will be removed after the Game, leaving a permanent capacity of 80,000.

Pritzker¹ Prize -winning architects - Herzog & de Meuron Architekten , a Swiss architecture firm founded and headquartered in Basel lead the design.

The structural form of the roof is decsribe as a "nest", an interwoven structural elements of the facade produce a single surface, upon which further elements are arranged in a chaotic manner to blurr the distinction between the primary and secondary structure. The roof is saddle in shaped, and the geomatry is developed from an ellips based. The steel roof, a single 330m long by 220m wide structure weighting 45,000 tonnes is clad with a series of ETFE (Ethylene Tetrafluoroethylene) panels on the structure to make the Nest one of the most ingeniously designed "green" buildings in the world. This layer reflects and absorbs sound to maintain the atmosphere in the stadium.

An interwoven structure elements arranged in a chaotic manner.

ETFE
ETFE, a transparent plastic related to Teflon is taking the place of glass and other plastics in many of the most innovatibe buildings being constructed today. It is also known as the material of the future. Compare to glass, it’s 1% the weight, transmit more light, is a better insulator, and cost far less to install. It’s also recycleable, self-cleaning and far tougher, with an estimated 50 years life span.

The nest was build using a polymer called ETFE.

This amazing Nest didn’t come cheaply but still, Beijingers love this building!

Viewing from Google map when it was in construction.

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¹ One of the world’s premier Architecture prizes awarded "irrespective of nationality, race, creed, or ideology. Some of the Laureates are: I.M Pei, Richard Meier, Kenzo tange, Frank Gehry, Tadao Ando, Renzo Piano, Sir Norman Foster, Zaha Hadid…

Popularity: 5% [?]

If you travel using subway in Beijing today, you will face a security check. It started from today June 29th, 2008 and will be carried out until September 20th, 2008, to ensure a safe Olympic Games. Those passengers that refuse to be check, will be banned to enter or exit from the station and might be punished by law. Scanning will target passengers carrying huge bags or liduid bottles. You would have to drink your beverage in front of the police officers if the scanner or police dog cannot identified them.

And here in Shanghai…

Security check in Shanghai is not as strict as in Beijing, but they might want to have a look if you carry a bigger bag.

Popularity: 8% [?]