SinoPenn

Latitude/Longitude – 1 yueyang road

Latitude is the restaurant on the first floor, and Longitude is the the bar/restaurant on the 2nd, complete with a patio. Grace and I went there about a week and a half ago for their set lunch. The food was great, and with the outside patio on the 2nd floor, this place is a cool hangout if you want to relax on a warm summer afternoon. Happy hour starts at 6pm though. Rather unfortunate for us early-afternooners.

http://www.latitude-longitude.cn/

Camel Bar – 1 yueyang road (around the corner from L/L).

The Camel Sports bar is a new bar in the neighborhood, only having opened up a little over a month ago. It’s large with tons of tv’s, mostly showing Australian sports. That’s probably due to the time zones, though. Happy hour starts at 4pm. I discovered this last Friday. Come on, Camel! 4pm? Give us early afternooners a break! Overall, this joint will definitely give the old standards, Big Bamboo and Malones a run for their money.

http://camelsportsbar.com

Cheers Wine Cellar – Rm. 201A, 3/F, Lane 3215 Hongmei Lu

Cheers is a bit tough to find, but once you do, you’ll find a rather exquisite place.  Grace and I went there last year, so it was awhile ago.  The restaurant aspect is expensive if you go for the entire several courses.  But for just relaxing with a wine, they have an outside area that’s quite quiet and relaxing.    Overall, great job in decorations.

Cuvee Wine Bar/Kaiba 528 Kangding Road

I have to mention Cuvee as I’m one of the investors.  However, as places with outside areas go, Cuvee and Kaiba are quite nice.  Cuvee sports decent, not too expensive wine, as well as cheaper draft beers and cocktails.  By Cheaper, I mean 38 kuai for a Carlsberg, as opposed to 40 to 50 at other places.  Kaiba sports a vast collection of beer from Belgium as well as other places around the world.  Between the two joints, one could have a pretty damn relaxing afternoon on Kangding Road.  (you hear that, park one and park eight?)

http://www.cuvee.net.cn

As always, there’s still Bubba’s and Bamboo, but I’ve talked about them enough in the past.

The Mobile Styrofoam Army 1st Division

The Mobile Styrofoam Tank Division

Some things just amaze me.  This Post on nikdaum.com reminded me of what a few of us watched going by Big Bamboo downtown last week.  A bike, with a woman on there somewhere, surrounded by styrofoam boxes came rolling down Nanyang road in the early afternoon.  Judging by the boxes in the front, it’s not the same one, but what would be more scary is the frequency of these sightings.

Once again the phone camera doesn’t do it justice.  I’m really going to have to bring my wife’s camera out with me more often.