2)Food and Entertainment

The food is pretty nice but heavy on salt, oil, sugar and spice ... drink plenty of water or tea (if you're not just)

Warning against expecting too much of famous brandname restaurants - the reputation outpaces the food

(Specially for jeanie - many of the upclass restaurants are around Xizang Road and the shopping districts near nanjing xi lu and dong lu and if you're ever homesick for cantonese food - there's a "tea cafe" at the basement of the shopping mall next to Jing An temple that's rather economical and authentic)

Entertainment wise - hmm, the standards of concerts, theatre performances vary, telly isn't very interesting even with cable . 2 funny exceptions - the repeat telecast of the tony leung version of "duke of mount deer" on cctv and "shuang xiang pao" starring china's model turned actor hu bin (it's hilarious watching this guy acting as a wimpy hair stylist and "guai lao tou" - the language jokes are rather spot-on)

And thanks to the concern of certain friends - nope, not back to the days when smirnoff was a friend or when yours truly could outdrink the guys. What was hilarious was the way rum and coke was served - glad that yours truly didn't ask for screwdriver