China Discovery Tour: SHANGHAI

20 March 2026

It was a two hour flight from Xi’an to Shanghai. Unfortunately, we chose the wrong airport to arrive at - Pudong instead of Hong Qiao (which was only two metro stops away from our hotel). So, we had an hour-long journey to cross the huge, sprawling mega city, but at least we did not have to change stations to get there.

The Mercure Hotel was conveniently located between the Hong Song metro station and the Livat Shopping Mall. It was a comfortable business hotel with a great breakfast buffet. Each evening, I looked forward to our ice cubes being delivered to our room by a sweet little robot. It’s already 2050 in China.

The next day, Sunday, we first went to Gucun Park, a massive 430-hectare suburban forest park in the Baoshan District. It is renowned as the city's top destination for cherry blossom viewing and holds an annual Shanghai Cherry Blossom Festival, from March to April, featuring over 16,000 cherry trees of more than 120 varieties. Unfortunately, it seemed that most of the population of Shanghai had decided to join us there! It was very, very busy.

That afternoon, we took the metro downtown and reached the city’s two most famous streets, Nanjing East Road and The Bund. We crossed  the road to see the city’s most iconic view, looking across Huangpu River at a collection of skyscrapers in Pudong. These include the iconic  Oriental Pearl TV Tower and Shanghai Tower, the country’s tallest building.  We took a ferry across  to the other side and strolled along the 1.5-kilometer-long riverside promenade, glimpsing at the splendid colonial-era legacy of this city (it was even more spectacular at night when huge crowds invade The Bund to marvel at the illuminated buildings).

Shanghai served as an international settlement from 1844 until 1943 and the Bund earned the nickname "Wall Street of the East". The whole area is a complete confection of colonial architecture that borrows from Gothic, Greek and Victorian pomp; the chunky Custom House and the old banking, telegraph and railway company HQs squatting either side of it almost made me think I was in Liverpool. Here is where Shanghai’s goods were traded and millions made when foreigners ruled the roost in China’s main entrepôt.

Today, it is China's most cosmopolitan city, with a population of some 25 million people, including more than 160,000 millionaires and a couple of dozen billionaires. It's a town of wheelers and dealers, go-getters and glamour pusses, big business and flash brands, but it's not all about the money.

Beyond the skyscrapers and business-like veneer of Pudong,  we found quiet tree-lined streets, sweet boutiques and artsy cafés in the Former French Concession; Art Deco architecture, Buddhist temples, ancient gardens and a handful of lilong (low-rise, gated) neighbourhoods.

A spell of cold, wet weather hit Shanghai and so we headed off to the museums and malls. Shanghai Museum is a huge treasure trove of ancient Chinese art, especially bronzeware, traditional calligraphy and paintings and porcelain The History Museum was also worth the visit, although we could only absorb a fraction of the information that was on offer. Nevertheless, we gained insights into the city’s history over the past 150 years and learned that the impact of the  West's inroads into China was not only negative. The arrival of Western countries saw the introduction of science and technology, the establishment of factories and even the beginnings of insurance. Like all museums in China, both were free.

Nearby, we found “The Louis", a 30-meter high, ship-shaped, multi-level installation opened by Louis Vuitton in 2025. It acts as a massive pop-up exhibition ("Visionary Journeys"), retail space, and cafe, designed to resemble stacked vintage LV trunks. It was very impressive and tickets have to be pre-booked to gain access.

Beside it, we found a Starbucks Roastery, a café with facilities where they roast and process their coffee beans. Locally roasted beans are sold as the Shanghai blend. It was a pretty cool experience although overall, Starbucks is now struggling to compete with new, hip Chinese coffee brands and stores. At one time, Starbucks opened a store every 15 hours in China. Those days are long gone.  

“Old Shanghai” in Century Avenue is also worth a  mention. It is a collection of old streets, resurrected under a shopping mall and featuring many excellent cafes and restaurants (without the rain).

By Thursday,  the weather had improved and so we headed off on the metro again, this time to the Disney Resort. We took in a show, watched the procession and tried a few amusements. However, the highlight was the wild ride through the Pirates of the Caribbean, it was so realistic you could actually believe you were being whisked  around sunken Spanish galleons laden with gold at the bottom of the ocean.

The next day, we headed off to the Hong Qiao Railway Station and boarded a fast train for the 3 hour journey to Beijing. In terms of punctuality, comfort and service, it was certainly comparable to the bullet trains we had loved in Japan.

Before leaving Shanghai however, a word about their Metro, the world's second-largest rapid transit system, with over 500 stations across 19+ lines and covering over 800 km. It was very easy and cheap to buy tickets (45 Yuan or 6 USD 6 for a three day pass). The stations and trains were spotless. The only difficulty was finding  a free seat (you have to be quick to grab one) and more than once, I had to invoke my seniority to reclaim a priority seat (which invariably worked).

By now we were used to the security checks at the ticket hall entrance of each station. The strictest checks of all however, were in the railway stations. On one occasion, we had to leave behind a 175ml container of shaving gel as the limit was 150ml. More amusing was watching the commuters literally glued to their phones in the mero (where the phone signal still works). Unlike Japan, the phones were not set to silent!