Shanghai Shenanigans

Now that I've finally finished moving all my old posts over to this new blog, I can finally get around to blogging about my latest trip to Shanghai.

Going to Shanghai has long been a dream of mine, so this was an awesome opportunity! I love visiting huge metropolis cities like Beijing, Shanghai, or NYC (still really want to visit Tokyo and Hong Kong). This time it was just Ludwig, Julian, and myself that went (it was kind of a spur-of-the-moment decision to go). This time we decided to fly instead of taking a night train to give us more time to spend in Shanghai. Ludwig and Julian arrived in Shanghai on Monday, and I joined them on Wednesday. I ended up getting a great deal on tickets over at ctrip.com and round trip from Beijing to Shanghai was less than 800 RMB (which is pretty good considering it was during Spring Festival). We ended up staying at the Blue Mountain Hostel (which we found on hostelworld.com). This was an amazing hostel! It was located in a great place (close to most of the attractions we wanted to see, and right across the street from a subway station), it was cheap (40RMB per night for an 8 person dorm-style room), and it is one of the nicer hostels I've stayed in. I highly recommend that hostel for anyone planning a trip to Shanghai.
After I checked into the hostel on Wednesday, we went and grabbed some lunch at a nearby restaurant and grabbed some donuts for dessert (They have donuts in Shanghai!!!). I was shocked to find a Dunkin Donuts in Shanghai (which I guess they just opened up)! I wish they'd open one up in Beijing! After lunch we took the subway to visit the Oriental Pearl TV tower to get a nice view of the city from up top (the building furthest to the left in the picture at the top of the post). We ended up going to the JinMao building instead because it looked like we might get a better view from the 88th floor observatory. After paying the entrance fee (88 RMB or 60RMB with a student ID) we made our way to the top. The view from up top was absolutely stunning! It was really cool to get a view of the city from one of the tallest buildings in the city!
After our trip to the top of the JinMao building we decided to pay "Old Shanghai"a visit. On the way we stopped in this really cool older neighborhood. It was like what I imagined china looking like in the 80's and early 90's. It was dirty, crowded, smelled like fish, and filled with narrow alleyways (see pic below).
We wondered around this place for a bit, people staring at us the entire time (I don't think they see too many white people in this area). We even found this really funny PSA board that had illustrations warning people of the danger of fireworks (see below pic).It was a really cool experience and I'm glad we did it because we were able to find this small Buddhist temple on the outskirts of this little neighborhood. We managed to get in just before closing time (entrance fee was 10RMB), which was cool because we were pretty much the only ones there.
After spending some time to enjoy the ambiance of the temple we made our way to "Old Shanghai" (just a short 5 minute walk away). This place was incredible! It is set up to look like Shanghai did in the 1930's (I believe the buildings are original, just restored). It is filled with markets, tiny shops, and restaurants. It even has another, bigger Buddhist temple (entrance fee is 20RMB), as well as a beautiful park (Yu yuan) located inside of it. I recommend setting aside several hours for this place. There is plenty of great places to shop and a lot of really cool places to see.
We spent quite some time here shopping and looking at the sights. We got some nice souvenirs (jade carvings, t-shirts, etc) and ended up eating dinner there. I'm glad we spent so much time there because we were also able to see what "Old Shanghai" looks like at night. It almost seems like an entirely different place.
If you wonder around the outskirts you can find some really small streets (a little bit dirtier than the main area) with small street-side restaurants and shops. This also has a very disctinctive Chinese feel to it. I highly recommend visiting it. After eating dinner in "Old Shanghai" we took a cab to the river on the opposite side of the Pudong to get a chance to see the famous view of the city at night (see top pic). This was such an incredible view!
I prefer visiting this place at night (if you only have time to visit this place once) because the city looks absolutely stunning at night! It's really cool to see the reflections of the buildings and many tourist boats in the river. If you have time there are plenty of tourist boats that you can take (ranging from 100-150RMB) to get a tour of the Huangpu river. Our last stop of the evening was the nearby Club Rouge. Club Rouge has a deck with an amazing view of the Shanghai skyline, making the high prices for the drinks worth it. Club Rouge has a wide variety of both non-alcoholic and alcoholic drinks, and you can even custom order pretty much any drink you can think of. That pretty much wraps up my day in Shanghai. Stay tuned for my next post about Zhouzhuang, the Venice of China!