Shanghai (14)

A weekend in the city

If you have a weekend to spend in Shanghai, wander down to the Shanghai Museum in People’s Square. It’s not only considered one of the best museums in China, it’s worth visiting simply to check out the building itself.

Constructed in 1994 at a reported cost of 570 million yuan, the museum is shaped to look like a giant bowl with vertical attached handles and is meant to represent an ancient Chinese ding vessel. Inside is an impressive collection of ancient coins, bronze work, ceramics, carved jade, paintings and calligraphy, furniture and regional ethnic clothing.

Next, head over to the old French Concession district, which still retains the feel of a residential neighbourhood with tree-lined streets and old two-storey terraces, although the area is shrinking every year with almost constant demolition and development. Here you can visit the former residence of Sun Yat-Sen (7 Xiangshan Road), the first president of China after the democratic revolution in 1911, who died in 1925. A two-storey European-style building, the house still retains the original furnishings and many possessions such as books and a pair of glasses owned by Sun Yat-Sen and his wife Soong Ching Ling.

While in the area, you can browse the French Concession’s many boutiques and art galleries, such as nearby Feizi Gallery (55 Fuxing Xi Lu) with contemporary painting and sculpture from Chinese artists.

A visit to Shanghai wouldn’t be complete without plentiful food and drink and epicures are spoiled for choice, though you are best to avoid the overpriced and overrated restaurants on the Bund, Shanghai’s famous waterfront. One option for dinner is the Sea Palace (1 Dong Chang Road) sited on an attractive riverboat moored near the Oriental Pearl Tower. The restaurant specialises in all kinds of seafood and though you might not fancy the stewed turtle, there is plenty of mouth-watering fish and shellfish on the menu.

Vegetarians are also catered for in Shanghai – Gongdelin (445 Nanjing West Road) was founded by a Buddhist monk over 50 years ago and still offers fantastic vegetarian food. The imitations of meat, fish and fowl cleverly made from tofu and soy must be seen and tasted to be believed.

If you fancy a nightcap, head to the Cloud 9 bar on the 87th floor of the Grand Hyatt (Jin Mao Tower, 88 Century Boulevard).

The cocktail range is excellent – the peach bellini comes highly recommended – and you can enjoy the spectacular 360-degree view in the most sumptuous of surroundings. Another option is Tou Ming Si Kao, or TMSK, (Unit 2, House 11, North Lane Xintiandi, Lane 181, Tai Lang Lu) with a bar made out of coloured glass and frosted martini and wine glasses in different shapes and colours.

Or in summer, you could head to FACE (Building 4, Ruijin Guest House Gardens, 118 Ruijin Er Lu), a huge country mansion located incongruously in the heart of the city. Here you can sip gin and tonic on the sprawling lawns or recline on the wooden verandas, and there is also a Thai and Indian restaurant inside.


24 hours in the city

China’s growing economic clout has propelled Shanghai into the spotlight as a centre for international business.

The good news for business travellers is that Shanghai is also a place that knows how to play. The city, known in the 1920s and 1930s as the “Paris of the East”, fell into a dreary decline after the Communists took power in 1949 but is now recovering its sense of style and sophistication. The transformation since the early 1990s has been nothing short of astonishing with the skyscraper city on the eastern side of the river springing out of the rice paddies and more construction to come.

Modern Shanghai is a bewitching blend of old and new and anyone who loves eating, shopping and/or culture is practically guaranteed a good time. The best way to enter the city is on the futuristic ‘Mag-Lev’ – or magnetic levitation train – from Shanghai Airport. Your company may offer to send a car but ask it to collect you from the other end – the Mag-Lev is an experience not to be missed and with speeds up to 500kmph it’s also faster.

New Shanghai is all about commerce and if you are in business you will want to take lessons from the masters, so head down to the Yu Gardens Bazaar for a spot of shopping. This is the beating heart of Shanghai’s commercial district and also very typically Chinese, with its peaked roofs, ponds with arched walking bridges and colourful signage. You can buy just about anything, from fake brand name watches to silk pyjamas and pashmina shawls, and unique curios such as an antique go set with jade pieces. You will almost certainly have the chance to hone your negotiation skills as bargaining is expected and, if you don’t speak Mandarin, passing an electronic calculator back and forth, accompanied by plentiful smiles and gestures, works just as well. Generally you can buy objects for less than a quarter of the original price and rest assured, those canny traders will still be making a profit.

If you need a breather, pop into one of the numerous tea houses and dumpling restaurants in the area – you might be lucky enough to get a seat at the Mid-Lake Pavilion Teahouse in the middle of a pond in the bazaar, or you could head out of the market to Xing Hua Lou (343 Fu Zhou Road) near the Foreign Language Bookshop for Cantonese delicacies.

In the afternoon take a cab to the Jade Buddha Temple (170 An Yuan Road), also known as Yufo Si. It’s the perfect antidote to all that materialism - if you ignore the postcard touts and the hefty entry fee.

As you dodge the devotees lighting joss sticks and praying, you can see statues such as Green Tara, the goddess of compassion, or a giant Buddha reclining on a mahogany couch. It costs a little extra to see the Jade Buddha but the statue is well worth a look; it stands two metres high and its milky white body emits a soft glow.


One hour in the city

If you have just one hour free in Shanghai, make like a 1920s 'taipan' and promenade along the Bund, where the glamour and grandeur of old Shanghai meets the 21st century. Rhyming with 'fund' and meaning Embankment, the Bund has a raised marble walkway for pedestrians and runs for over a kilometre. The area served as Shanghai's Wall Street before the Communist era and the strip is lined with classic buildings from the 1920s and 1930s.

Many parts of Shanghai have been transformed beyond recognition but the Bund's collection of art-deco, moderne and Chicago-gothic buildings is protected by building height restrictions and vast sums of money have gone into restoration and renovation.

Start at the south end of the Bund and walk towards the green-peaked roof of the Peace Hotel (20 The Bund), built by opium and weapons trader Vidal Sassoon in 1929 and host to famous guests such as Charlie Chaplin, George Bernard Shaw and Noel Coward. The Peace Hotel is currently closed for renovation, due to reopen in 2009, but you can pop inside the HSBC building (12 The Bund) and admire the stunning ceiling mosaics from the entrance lobby.

Across the river is a very different view - the ultra-modern skyline of new Shanghai, with the space-age styled pink spheres and spire of the Oriental Pearl Tower as the centrepiece.

This skyscraper city is known as Pudong and is where most business visitors will stay and work. Lovers of kitsch could always go home to Pudong via the Bund Tourist Tunnel, inside a capsule-like single-carriage train that whizzes under the river accompanied by psychedelic light and sound effects.

At the northern end of the Bund, a statue of Mao Tse-Tung is perhaps the most potent symbol of how Shanghai has changed; the great revolutionary looms against a city skyline flashing with neon signage for Western capitalist brands such as L'Oreal.