Shanghai (上海), China 9/23/2024 -- 9/26/2024 [Shanghai Gallery] [Back to Photo Page]

Shanghai is a direct-administered municipality and the most populous urban area in China with 29.87 million residents in 2023.  Originally a fishing village and market town, Shanghai grew in importance in the 19th century due to both domestic and foreign trade and its favorable port location.  The city was one of five treaty ports forced to open to European trade after the First Opium War (1839-1842), and the Foreign Concessions (租界) were subsequently established in Shanghai.  The city then flourished, becoming a primary commercial and financial hub of Asia in the 1930s.  Major changes of fortune for the city would occur when economic reforms initiated by paramount leader Deng Xiaoping during the 1980s resulted in an intense redevelopment and revitalization of the city by the 1990s, especially the Pudong New Area.   Shanghai has been described as the "showpiece" of the economy of China. Featuring several architectural styles such as Art Deco and shikumen, the city is renowned for its Lujiazui (陸家嘴) skyline, museums and historic buildings including the City God Temple, Yu Garden, the China Pavilion and buildings along the Bund (外灘).

Getting there ...

9/23 (Day 1) ...

• Maglev
  We took the maglev train (磁浮車) from Shanghai Pudong International Airport (PVG) to Longyang Road Station (in the outskirts of central Pudong).   The journey takes 8 minutes and 10 seconds to complete the distance of 30 km (18.6 mi). A train can reach 300 km/h (186 mph) in 2 minutes and 15 seconds, while the historical maximum operational speed of 431 km/h (268 mph) could be reached after 4 minutes (after a serious maglev accident in Germany, the top operational speed was reduced to 300km/h).  The Shanghai maglev is the world's first commercial high-speed maglev (opened in 2002). 

When we got to the Longyang Road station, a private bus was waiting for us to take us to the Fairmont Peace Hotel (上海和平饭店), our home for the next 3 days.

• The Bund (外灘)
  After checked in to the hotel, Woanyu and I walked to the waterfront to enjoy the iconic view of Pudong, Shanghai.  The Bund centers on a section of Zhongshan Road (East Zhongshan Road No.1) within the former Shanghai International Settlement (上海公共租界), which runs along the western bank of the Huangpu River.   The Shanghai Bund has dozens of historical buildings, lining the Huangpu River, that once housed numerous banks and trading houses from the United Kingdom, France, the United States, Italy, Russia, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, and Belgium, as well as the consulates of Russia and Britain, etc.

• Fairmont Peace Hotel (上海和平饭店)
  Fairmont Peace Hotel is a 'luxurious Art-Deco masterpiece’, brilliantly reinvented for the 21st century where old fashioned glamour sparkles with a new luster.  The hotel has two different buildings. The Sassoon House (North Building), completed in 1929 and originally housed the Cathay Hotel (華懋饭店), is today the Fairmont Peace Hotel since 2010. The South Building was built as the Palace Hotel and is today a residence and studio for artists, known as The Swatch Art Peace Hotel. 

• Waibaidu Bridge (外白渡橋) & The Bund
  After some rest for my parents, the guide led us to walk to the Waibaidu Bridge and around the Bund.  Waibaidu Bridge is the first all-steel bridge built in 1908 and the only surviving example of a camelback truss bridge in China.  With its rich history and unique design the Waibaidu Bridge is one of the symbols of Shanghai.

• Dinner & Jazz Band
  We had an authentic and quintessential Shanghainese cuisine at the Dragon Phoenix Restaurant inside the Peace Hotel.  After dinner, we went downstairs to the Jazz Bar, featuring the renowned oldest Jazz Band in the world with an average age of over 80 years old.  They are still playing nightly at the Jazz Bar, taking you back to the 20's and 30's of Old Shanghai.

• Bund at Night

9/24 (Day 2) ...

• Xintiandi (新天地)
  Xintiandi "New Heaven and Earth" is an affluent car-free shopping, eating and entertainment district of Shanghai.  This former neighborhood of old Shikumen (石庫門 "stone gate") has been reincarnated into Shanghai’s glitzy and contemporary district featuring fine restaurants, upscale clubs and boutiques.  It is also the most expensive place to live in China, with some apartments costing more than Tokyo, Singapore, New York and London.  Xintiandi is the location of the site of the first congress of the Chinese Communist Party, which is now preserved as a museum.

• Madang Market (馬當市場)
  We went to a traditional local market because my parents wanted to see the real local life (and my father is always interested in every price tag).

• Tianzifang (田子坊)
  Tianzifang is a touristic arts and crafts enclave that has developed from a renovated traditional residential area in the French Concession area (法租界) of Shanghai.  Like Xintiandi, Tianzifang is one of a small number of old Shanghai shikumen buildings dating from 1930's.  Rezoning of Tianzifang into a tourist precinct began in 2005/2006 with nearby art schools and studios, and later small international business owners.

We had a lunch at a food court in a local department store to try some ordinary food people eat everyday here.

• Bund Sightseeing Tunnel (上海外滩观光隧道)
  We went back to the hotel to have a break for my parents, and Woanyu and I went to visit the Bund Sightseeing Tunnel.  The Bund Sightseeing Tunnel goes under the Huangpu River connecting the Bund and Lujiazui Area of Pudong District. Its length is 646.7 meters.  The project was constructed in 1998-2000 as a tourist attraction. The tunnel provides a light show with special multimedia effects.  There are many tourists (including us) using it to cross the Huangpu River, although it costs more than tenfold the metro ticket :-(

• Sinan Mansions (思南公馆)
  Built in 1920s, Sinan Mansions is today a 50,000-square-meter conservation zone with 51 garden houses located on Sinan Road and Fuxing Middle Road.   Sinan Mansions, a notable recreation block adjoining the neighborhoods of Xintiandi and Tianzifang, is another representation of Shanghai's distinctive city plans and organizations that put sophisticated recreation experiences into well-conserved heritage buildings.   Some of the famous people who have resided in the area include distinguished Chinese diplomat Wei Daoming (魏道明, China's Ambassador to the US during WWII) and his first wife, Zheng Yuxiu (鄭毓秀, first female lawyer and judge in modern Chinese history),  and Mei Lanfang (梅蘭芳), a legendary Peking Opera artist.   Premier Zhou Enlai (周恩来) even had a home here during the days of the Kuomintang.
  Although we enjoyed the history and architecture of this area, we liked the ice cream (with moutai, Chinese famous liquor) the most.

• Yuyuan Old Street (豫园老街)
  Yuyuan Old Street features many antique buildings with national features after the architectural style of the Ming (A.D.1368-1644) and Qing (A.D.1616-1911) Dynasty.  The street is line with a variety of shops, including Jewelry shops, boutique shops, local food restaurants, local specialties shops, and so on.  We came to a restaurant (绿波廊) famous for its crabs (大閘蟹).  It's supposed to be the crab season (Sept to Nov), but  the typhoon in Shanghai a few days ago made the crabs unavailable.  Even without crabs, the food here was too fancy for me :-)

9/25 (Day 3) ...

•  Oriental Pearl Tower (東方明珠) & Lujiazui (陸家嘴)
  Lujiazui is a peninsula in Pudong formed by a bend in the Huangpu River. Since the early 1990s, Lujiazui has been developed specifically as a new financial district of Shanghai.
  The Oriental Pearl Radio & Television Tower is a TV tower. Since its opening in 1995, the tower has become a major tourist attraction and a cultural icon of Shanghai.  The design featured three large spherical platforms and nine smaller observation decks, connected with three pillars and an elevator. The design was inspired by "Pipa xing" (琵琶行) by Tang poet Bai Juyi (白居易) and represented the culture of Shanghai.  The tower is 468 m (1,535 ft) tall with its antenna spire.   The highest observation level (known as the Space Module) is at 351 meters (1,150 ft). The lower levels are at 263 meters (863 ft) (Sightseeing Floor where we visited) and at 90 meters (300 ft) (Space City).  Unfortunately, the weather was too bad and the visibility was really poor.

We walked around and admired the surrounding high skyscrapers, and had a beef noodle lunch (蘭州牛肉面).  My father still likes Taiwan's beef noodle better.

• Peace Museum
  We went back to the hotel after lunch, and visited the Peace Museum in the hotel before we retired to our rooms.  There are many collected items and memorabilia of the hotel : silver table-ware, porcelain, crystal and antiques that decorated the rooms and halls, items of hotel use, Art Deco furnishings, newspapers and photographs of the hotel and its celebrity visitors, brochures and books that tell the tale of the grand heritage hotel in its three periods of The Cathay Hotel of the 1930s and 40s, The Peace Hotel of the 1950s and the Peoples’ Republic of China and now, the beautifully restored Fairmont Peace Hotel which opened in 2010.

• Huangpu River (黄浦江) Cruise
  We originally planned to visit Soong Ching-ling Memorial Residence (宋慶龄故居), but we were too late and missed the last entry time at 4:30PM.  We went to a nice local restaurant, Shanghai No.1 (上海一號), which I think I had the best Shanghai cuisine in this trip (also much cheaper than those big name restaurants...) before headed to Huangpu River for our night river cruise.
  Huangpu River is a 113 km-long (70 mi) river flowing north through Shanghai into Yangtze River (長江).   Huangpu River is on average 400 m (1,312 ft) wide and 9 m (30 ft) deep, and divides the city into two regions: Puxi ("west of Huangpu", 浦西), the traditional city center, and Pudong ("east of Huangpu", 浦東), the new financial district.  We got on the river cruise at 7PM and enjoyed the 45-min cruise with beautiful but distinct night views of Puxi and Pudong. 

9/26 (Day 4) ...

• Sunrise at the Bund

• HSR to Nanjing
  We took the High Speed Railway at the Shanghai Hongqiao Station (上海虹橋) at ~ 9:30AM (in China HSR, business class is better than the first class) to Nanjing.  The ride took about 2 hours (300 km with a few stops) to arrive in Nanjing at 11:30AM to began 2nd part of our journey.

>> Next Destination: Nanjing

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