Shanghai is the biggest City in China with a population of 24,256,800 and is filled in part with neck-breaking, sky-scrapers that soar up high towards the clouds. If you want a vision of how fast an economy can grow in 30 years, then look no further than the Bund! What used to be woods now has the Shanghai Tower which, at 632m, is the 2nd tallest skyscraper in the world.
Highly influential for economic and financial trade, Shanghai is famous for its tall buildings, quality cuisine and is known by shopaholics as the “Oriental Paris”, but how would you choose to spend two days in this international metropolis?
Highly influential for economic and financial trade, Shanghai is famous for its tall buildings, quality cuisine and is known by shopaholics as the “Oriental Paris”, but how would you choose to spend two days in this international metropolis?
For our stay in Shanghai, we were at the Lantian Hotel, a very grand place and possibly the best we had stayed in during our 18 day tour of China. We slept soundly wrapped in our silk duvet, silk duvet cover, silk pillows and silk pillow cover! My oh my, didn’t we feel pampered!
The grand foyer of The Lantian Hotel
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Our hotel room - check out the silk bedding!
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Speaking of silk ...
Silk is huge in Shanghai, it’s so popular, our hotel used it in all their bedrooms. We had the opportunity to visit a silk museum and shop to see the different stages of the 50-60 day life cycle of a silk worm and how the silk is extracted and made.
Single cocoons are used to make clothing, scarfs and many of the finer type material whereas the double cocoons are separated and stretched by hand to make blankets and pillows. Silk is thin but very strong but by jove, it’s gorgeously soft. 8 single cocoons make 1 scarf but to make a double duvet it will take 6,000 double cocoons. 2,500g = 12 tog duvet and cost 2,500RMB (approx £280/$375 US for a king size).
A silk worm
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A silk spinning machine
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City guided tour
Whilst in Shanghai, you should take the time to check out Yu Garden. This 400-year old Ming-Dynasty garden has beautiful rock formations, lakes, amazingly ornate doorways, Chinese pagodas, and koi carp filled ponds. It’s not a place you will stumble upon as it’s in the middle of a market place off the old shanghai street but it’s well worth a visit. It’s a peaceful oasis and a contrast to the busy streets outside, a lovely place to meander around.
Whilst in Shanghai, you should take the time to check out Yu Garden. This 400-year old Ming-Dynasty garden has beautiful rock formations, lakes, amazingly ornate doorways, Chinese pagodas, and koi carp filled ponds. It’s not a place you will stumble upon as it’s in the middle of a market place off the old shanghai street but it’s well worth a visit. It’s a peaceful oasis and a contrast to the busy streets outside, a lovely place to meander around.
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Our guide took us to the former colonial French quarter known locally as “heaven on Earth” but it didn’t feel like China so we didn’t want to spend any time there, it just felt too European and we wanted to continue our Chinese adventure. Instead we went to Nanjing Road referred to as “Shopping Street”. We have never felt more like tourists in China than we did here, walking around wearing shorts and our cameras hanging around our necks whilst smartly dressed business people and shoppers walked passed us. We looked like backpackers who had taken a wrong turn and ended up walking onto a catwalk!
Back home, we aren’t shoppers so this area didn’t hold our interest at all but sometimes in life you have to suffer the little things for good timing ... and that is exactly what happened to us!
Back home, we aren’t shoppers so this area didn’t hold our interest at all but sometimes in life you have to suffer the little things for good timing ... and that is exactly what happened to us!
Looking into the sky from Nanjing Road
We walked from Nanjing Road into the Bund, a waterfront area the East Side of the Huang Pu River. Now this was the Shanghai we were waiting for! The concentration of ridiculously high sky-scrapers on a little island looked almost pretty, mainly because of the variety.
The sun was just setting, leaving a beautiful orange and pink hue in the sky whilst shining onto the buildings… we were able to marvel at the iconic skyscraper landscape close to its best. The light reflected onto the river as we watched the large ships pass by – it was wonderful!
Setting sun on the Shanghai skyline from The Bund
We ate dinner just around the corner so when we finished, we were able to come back and view the skyline once more, only this time, it was at its most iconic! All the buildings were lit up which created an even more beautiful skyline.
Stunning Shanghai skyline at night
A trip to the Oriental Pearl Radio & TV Tower is a must. At 468 metres high, it’s the 5th tallest communications tower in the world but we were heading for the sightseeing floor which was “only” 351 metres high, riding in the lift, I felt my ears pop as if I was in an aeroplane!
Security is taken seriously at the Oriental Pearl Tower!
When we reached the top – wow – the view was spectacular! We marvelled at the City all lit up, glowing for miles before us and were able to walk 360° around to see every angle, it was fantastic! It was here we learnt the Chinese word for awesome which is “fi chung how” – note that down for future reference!!
Amazing view from 351 metres high!
At 259 metres there is the transparent observatory where you can skywalk on a glass floor. I gingerly walked backwards ensuring I looked straight ahead, I posed for a few photos but when my feet were back on the hard floor, that was when I felt safe again and braved looking – boy oh boy it was high! One of the buildings was the HSBC, little did we know that this English high street bank actually stands for Hong Kong & Shanghai Banking Corporation.
Glass observatory deck at 259 metres - I'm holding on for dear life .. but why? I'm not going to fall!
This tower isn’t just a place to view the city from up high, there is also a revolving restaurant at 267m and the world’s highest indoor roller coaster is at 98m! Sadly, we didn’t have time to visit either of them but if you do, please let us know what the restaurant is like.
The Oriental Pearl Tower was fantastic experience and without a doubt the highlight of our City tour! The perfect way to end our first day in Shanghai and we went to bed feeling as though we had really had a sense of what Shanghai has to offer.
The Oriental Pearl Tower was fantastic experience and without a doubt the highlight of our City tour! The perfect way to end our first day in Shanghai and we went to bed feeling as though we had really had a sense of what Shanghai has to offer.
Zhu-jia-jiao – “Venice of China”
About an hour out of the City is a lovely water village unspoiled for hundreds of years called Zhu-Jia-Jiao. On the journey, we noticed hundreds of skyscrapers all over Shanghai even though we were no longer in the centre. I noted that at any one time, there were approximately 30 sky scrapers around us, all at least 20+ floors high made up of offices, apartments and shopping malls – they loooooove their shopping here, in fact we had three skyscraper malls by our hotel. They have a football/concert stadium which can hold 80,000 people but it looked so small in amongst all the tall buildings.
The village of Zhu-jia-jiao was lovely and quaint with charming humpbacked bridges not too dissimilar to the Bridge of Sighs in Venice. We wandered through the little shops selling everything from snacks to fans to chopsticks and anything souvenir related – all at cheap prices as well! We enjoyed the slow pace of this village but we wanted to see it from the water so jumped in a boat for a 20-minute trip down the river. It was so beautiful, we loved every second of it – such a contrast to the hectic big city but then again, we are country folk and proud of it!
Maglev Train
The Maglev (magnetic levitation) is the first commercially operated train of its kind in the world and is also the fastest operational train. It is powered by magnets and levitates above the track (hence the name) and reaches speeds of up to 430km during rush hour. It was engineered by the Germans but the Chinese bought it at a cost of 1.3 billion dollars.
We caught this futuristic train from Shanghai centre to the airport and watched the city whizzing smoothly by – it was very exciting, it’s just a shame the journey lasted only eight minutes but that’s how quickly it will cover 18 miles when you are travelling at 301km.
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Lunch was a bit of a highlight, not for the venue but the taste! It was a restaurant for locals which didn’t look anything special, but the pork dipped in sugar then wrapped in bamboo and cooked was delicious! When wandering around the village earlier, we had watched a little old lady hand making and cooking these bundles of yummy-ness which had whet our appetite. I would absolutely recommend a day-trip to this beautiful place and get a feel for the calmer side of Shanghai. |
Shanghai has added a four-hour, 800-mile Maglev train line from Shanghai to Beijing, now this is something I would definitely love to do! Travelling for four hours on this smooth, luxurious mode of transport would be awesome and I would take this over flying any day!
This train sums up Shanghai – fast, futuristic and an experience that should be encountered at least once!
This train sums up Shanghai – fast, futuristic and an experience that should be encountered at least once!
Oh yes ... we were travelling at 301 km an hour!
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If you are travelling around China and Asia, we recommend you check bus, boat and train schedules ahead of time with 12Go Asia. You can also book your tickets in advance online (as we did) to save time and hassle.
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