Citic Square mall shops are either targeted for those of us with thick wallet or desire for youngful attires. The bottom floors have several upscale boutiques to get rid of all your money, such as Bally, Kenzo, MaxMara, Trussardi and Armani Exchange.

On the upper levels, you can find several stores specialising in young fashion. Miss Sixty is one example, and there are several Chinese and Asian brands, too. Victorinox has a small outlet here as well, and it can come handy if you’d need to purchase a multipurpose tool or excellent luggage. There are a few restaurants in the mall, too.

Citic Square, 1168 Nanjing Xilu, Shanghai, China

The Western end of the Nanjing Road has a few more Western oriented malls; West Gate is the first west from the Shimen Yilu metro station. The mall itself is quite small, only a few shops per floor, but there is also an Isetan department store, so the selection is good.

The department store has mostly upscale Asian brands — that have, funnily, very European names — and some Western brands, too. The mall hosts, for example, shops of Burberry, Versace and Givenchy (smallish) from the luxury end of the spectrum, and Mango for more affordable garments. There is also Watson’s pharmacy on the ground floor.

Westgate Mall, 1038 Nanjing Xilu, Shanghai, China

I just uploaded five artsy photos from our recent trip to Asia to photogallery. Two of the photos are in Nature and the rest are in Humankind section (these links take you directly to the new photos).

The Bund is the tourist centerpiece of the town. The name is derived from a Hindi word “Band”, meaning an embankment. It was built to protect the city from flooding of the river, and later converted to a place for pleasant strolling.

There are several attractions along the Bund, including the Bund Museum, the Monument to People’s Heroes, vista to Pudong and historical buildings along the Bund itself. Surprisingly, there are not many cafes around, but you can buy drinks from the stalls.

The statue in the middle of the Bund is not Mao, but the first mayor of Shanghai, Chen Yi. The resemblance is striking.

To reach the Bund, take metro line 2 to Central He Nan Road station and walk Nanjing Road to east or take a taxi.

The Bund, Zhiongshan No. 1 Road (East), Shanghai, China

The most well hidden cafe that I have encountered so far is located near the Bund in Shanghai. Café Bonomi is on the second floor in a building hosting a bank and Virgin Airlines office. There is a small advert on the door, and you can easily walk past it, if you are not paying attention. Hint: the building looks like Whitehall.

To get to the cafe, climb up to the second floor and follow the signs to navigate the corridors. Remember that you need to climb one set of stairs to get to the ground floor and then still two sets for the second floor — somebody could rightly say that it’s the fourth floor, but let’s follow the floor numbers of the building.

The cafe itself is Italian, and you can expect excellent coffee and sandwiches. If the weather is nice, go to the terrace to avoid the constant smoking of Chinese bureacrats killing some time in the cafe. The prices are comparable to the rest of the cafes around the town.

Bonomi Cafe, Room 226, 12 Zhongshan Dongyilu, Shanghai, China, +86 21 6329 7506

The Finnish keyboard in Mac has some odd bindings compared to normal PC keyboard. As a programmer, I really hate the placement of ‘{’ and ‘}’ — you have to press Shift+Alt+8 and Shift+Alt+9, instead of Alt+7 and Alt+0. Also pipe and backslash are on wrong and cumbersome place. Using an external keyboard (PC, not Mac) creates another annoyance; the keys left to 1 and z have been interchanged. Coding HTML is real pain, as ‘<’ and ‘>’ are on wrong place.

Fortunately Mac OS X is a modern operating system and the keyboard mappings can be changed easily. You can write your own mapping in an XML file and just put that file to the /Library/Keyboard Layouts/ for everybody or to ~/Library/Keyboard Layouts/ for yourself.

Apple has provided a technical document how to write the XML files. The task is not an easy one, so if you’re interested in your own mappings, download Ukelele (no, it’s not misspelled) and copy of the XML mappings provided in the archive as the base of your work.

I got my problems solved quite fast. I first remapped ‘|’ and ” to the correct places and then followed mapping ‘{’ and ‘}’. Finally, I copied the ‘<’ and ‘>’ key to be left of both ‘1′ and ‘z’. All problems solved. Just log off, log in and new keyboard can be selected from the International in the System Preferences.

The last touch was to install DoubleCommand to change the useless Enter key next to the right Command key to Alt.

If you’re interested in the improved Finnish keyboard mapping, write a comment or send me an e-mail and I’ll provide it to you by email.

Shanghai was shared between Western powers on 19th century, and the former French part, known as French Concession, contains still some French charm and is a nice area to stroll around in general.

Cafe Montmartre could be located anywhere in French, and you wouldn’t spot much difference — except that the staff is Chinese. The cafe is conveniently located next to the Xiangyang Market, and it sells European coffees, sandwiches, cakes and also some bigger meals.

The prices are somewhat higher than in local cafes in Shanghai, but from the Western European point of view this place is still decently priced. Cafe au lait, soda and a sandwich costed approximately seven euros. The patrons seemed to consists mostly tourists, as these prices will keep locals out.

Cafe Montmartre, 55 Xiangyang Road x Central HuaiHai Road, Shanghai, China, +86 21 5404 7658

Xiangyang Market is the place to get brands for less. Sometimes you get even three of more designer labels on the same garment, and as the service is not with the par of designer boutiques, you may already guess that the items sold here are fake.

There are more than a hundred stalls selling bags, garments, watches, movies, CDs and other items worth replicating. If you’re going to buy something, check the item carefully, as you don’t have any rights for claims. Note that your home country may have a strict rule for pirated items, and the customs may take them away and give a fine instead.

The police raids the place from time to time, so the selection may be limited. Come again in a few days and the stalls have been supplied new items. Prepare for heavy pestering for watches, DVDs, bags and scarfs. Remember to smile while saying no, so nobody looses face. I smiled so much that my jaws were hurting still in the evening.

Xiangyang Market, Central HuaiHai Road x Xiangyang Road, Shanghai, China