There are some hugely talented young expats in this city trying out new ideas and business ventures and succeeding in a culture and often times, a language, that is not their own.
Line Fricke and her business partner Nando are two such expats {Line is Danish and Nando is Columbian} and the Shanghai Bloggers app is their brainchild.
It’s free to download from iTunes and on it you’ll find over twenty Shanghai based bloggers covering everything from food, travel & fashion to family life, relationships, street stories and even the environment. It’s a great resource for anyone living here but also if you’re going to be visiting Shanghai you’ll get a great sense of what’s happening here.
The app is incredibly easy and intuitive to use – going straight to the Bloggers tab enables you to scroll through the blogs and a tap on the photo will take you to the blog overview where you have the choice to either read more about the blogger or go to directly to the blog posts.
Easy!
Line already has a huge following with her own blog, Shanghai Habits focusing on living a healthy life in Shanghai so she knew exactly what she was looking for when Nando and herself started the app development.
I was so excited when I first met Line and heard all about the app – I was aware of some of the blogs but there are many that are new to me and it’s great to read other expat perspectives and to learn something new about Shanghai.
Shanghai Street Stories is my favourite Shanghai blog and I’ve linked to Sue Anne’s posts before. She wanders around the laneways talking to residents, documenting how the never ending urbanisation of the city is affecting them. It’s a compelling read so grab a mug of tea and prepare to lose yourself virtually in the backstreets of Shanghai.
Fred Lin is The Shanghai Kid and get this – he’s a food blogger who opened up his own restaurant. Pretty ballsy right?! I’ve eaten there a couple of times and can thoroughly recommend it. He doesn’t beat around the bush with his restaurant reviews so I’m definitely adding that one to the favourites list.
Threads & Ginger has fashion and travel covered, and Shanghai Girl Eats gets invited to eat at all the best places in town.
My favourite new find is fellow Aussie Veronica Darling, who is new to Shanghai but has taken to the fabric markets like a local and is sewing up a storm on her blog. I want to befriend her and take her with me to the markets because I’ve given up getting anything decent made!
Combustion Shanghai was a new one for me – a Chemistry teacher blogs about science, climate change and pollution.
There’s another food blogger, the gorgeous Dani from Expat Cucina who also runs cooking classes here.
There’s plenty more {too many to list here} and it goes without saying that you’ll find Plus Ate Six on the app too so feel free to make me one of your favourites!
Download the app and say Hi to a blogger – it always makes our day I promise you.