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In late July my husband got sent to Shanghai for work, so I joined him for a week of sightseeing. It was interesting and HOT, and I saw a lot, so I'm just going to hit the highlights here. In a bittersweet turn of events, I only have a few good photos—turns out I don't really know how to use the good camera I lugged around all week. The sweet part is that it didn't take long to curate the photos for this post...well played, if I do say so myself.

The Huangpu River in smog, featuring the Shanghai Tower on the far left.

First, a little about Shanghai. It's about 750 miles south of Beijing, on the coast where the Yangtze River meets the ocean, and its name literally translates to “on the sea.” The smaller Huangpu River runs through it, and the city has a massive population of 24 million peeps and counting. While Beijing is the seat of government and ancient history, Shanghai has a rep for being new and fashionable (a.k.a. the Paris of the East), and just a little bit snobby. It's also tall, with several shiny skyscrapers that have sprouted in the last 20 years and can be seen reflecting sun during the day and blinking/shimmering/generally showing off during the night. Most noteworthy among these buildings is the Shanghai Tower, which was just completed in 2015 and is the second tallest building in the world behind the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. Unlike Beijing, Shanghai's past is riddled with debauchery—think gangsters and opium dens—as well as a lot of international visitors. Believe it or not, in the 1930s/40s, a contingent of Jews fleeing Europe ended up Shanghai, some making a permanent home there.

Looking down an alley in downtown Shanghai.

The European fingerprint is more visible in Shanghai than anywhere else I’ve been in China, mostly in the architecture, but also in hundreds of American and European brandnames lining the streets (Carl’s Jr! Subway! Dunkin Donuts! H&M! Taco Bell! to name an illustrious few). Before Mao Zedong came to power, Shanghai marched to the beat of its own drum and didn't do much bending to national rules, but that all changed after 1949. As for the Shanghai of today, sure, it has some European flair and lacks the looming government presence of Beijing, but it’s still unmistakably China.

Train snacking: peanuts with Sichuan peppercorns. Yeah, they make your mouth numb.

I took the high speed train down to Shanghai from Beijing, which is (you guessed it) fast, and also efficient and comfortable. Bye bye Amtrak, I'm covering 750 miles in 4.5 hours. After talking with other expats who’d already been to Shanghai, I was prepared for European refinement, personal space, and croissants. I was therefore unprepped for the seething hordes of travelers at Shanghai's Hongqiao train station. I was hell bent on taking the subway to our hotel (like a native), so I stood in the long, sweaty line for the subway ticket kiosks and tried not to lose my mind.

It took me forty minutes to get a ticket—all time spent being jostled, screamed at (not with malice, I just happened to be standing between the screamer and the person they were addressing), and totally baffled by the collective lack of logistical thought (why must the entire family of 5 stand in line for train tickets, when one person could do the purchasing? Why decide to take your crying baby for a stroll through a massive crowd of people standing in line, rather than around it?). I was in survival mode by the time I boarded the subway, and therefore a bit aggressive when I tried to get off the train—meaning I tapped some people on the shoulder and said “excuse me” in Chinese (in Beijing it's sometimes necessary to use your body as plow to fight your way to the door). This behavior was met with cold, offended stares which was totally mystifying after I’d been robbed of my humanity and personal space at the train station. Whaat? Hatred for Shanghai was brewing inside me.

BUT that all changed when I emerged from the subway. Sure, a wave of thick, wet heat rolled over me, but I was immediately charmed by the relatively narrow, tree-lined streets, clean-swept sidewalks, and cold beverage vendors at every turn. Better yet, the honking in Shanghai is probably 75% as frequent as in Beijing. Basically peace and quiet.

The clean, shining, beautiful bathrooms at Disney Shanghai.

On my first full day in Shanghai my husband and I went to Disney. It was murderously hot and we got there around noon-thirty—that’s right, the hottest part of the day. The first 100 yards of the park were magical—clean, well-maintained, and reminiscent of the real deal. We jumped right into the line for the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, unfazed by the 60 minute wait (this is what Disney is all about y’all). But things took a bad turn when my shins and temples started dripping sweat and we were suddenly in the center of a tightly-knotted, optical-illusion of a line (we’re almost there! Oh wait, there are two more miles of line). This will be fine, I thought, as we rounded a kink in the line and saw a huge, organically grown pile of trash in the corner. A janitor inched his way through the line picking up garbage, but his pace was no match for the masses of people snacking, sipping water, and discarding their trash on the floor. The discomfort of heat and overwhelming body odor was compounded by our otherness, which attracted much mute staring, pointing, some verbal identification of us as laowai etc. We are used to this of course, but the close quarters made it less endearing.

How hard would it be to flee this place?

One thing that struck me is how rare/strange it is to see an expression of genuine WONDERMENT on a person’s face. It’s more strange to be the cause, and it’s a wild, wild feeling to elicit that reaction with your skin color alone. One woman standing about three inches to my left was basically drinking me up with her eyeballs, while whispering to her four-year-old, look at the laowai. As things got hotter and less easy to escape from, I had a panicked moment in which I wondered if I was going to faint or possibly die of heat stroke in this line. Obviously I did neither, and eventually we made it to the ride itself, but not without witnessing family members who had drifted apart in the line suddenly and aggressively attempting to reunite at the last second before boarding the ride. By the time I sat down on the boat that was to carry us down the fake river, I was pooped.

The ride was super cool—very impressive effects and lighting—but short-lived. Half-way down the river our boat stopped, the lights came up, and we were told there was a technical problem. We waited, me smiling at other people in the boat (#diplomacy) for about 15 minutes before we were told to disembark. Then we stepped onto the faux rocky shore and were led through the corridors and stairways that make up “behind the scenes” to the exit. Illusion: shattered. We were given passes to cut the line and ride the boat again, but the ride ended up being closed for the rest of the day. Bummer.

Meanwhile, the lines for the other rides had all stretched to over two hours, so we wandered around watching parades and enjoying the blatant disregard for rules and the dearth of smiles on people’s faces. ARE WE HAVING FUN YET?! Let’s just say that even though we got a special smile and wave from Queen Elsa of Arendelle, Orlando has not been unseated in our hearts.

Not the busiest intersection, but an example nonetheless.

The day after our Disney adventure, I hit the streets in shorts and a tank top, unprepared for just how much sweating was still in my future. I soon discovered that Shanghai’s biking situation is different: there are times when bikes/scooters are barred from the sidewalk, while at other times they’re only allowed on the sidewalk. This meant that silent electric scooters were constantly sneaking up behind me on the sidewalks and giving me micro heart attacks. Also of interest: certain streets are dedicated to bikes and scooters only—I biked down some of these and got a kick out of being one in a street-wide wolf pack of two-wheeled vehicles.

One of my first destinations was the People’s Square, which is more reminiscent of the vastness of Beijing than other parts of the city, and is home to carefully manicured gardens, fountains, and the Shanghai Museum. By the time I reached the entrance to the museum, which is housed in a round, imposing building, I was wiped out by the heat, and could barely manage to lift my camera for a few off-kilter shots, let alone stare at hundreds of bronzes and ceramics. The long line of people withering in the sun outside the entrance killed all my remaining desire to enter. So, I’m embarrassed to say I never checked out the museum. Maybe next time.

Outside the Shanghai Museum. Parasols are huge here.

I visited the French Concession next, which is what foreigners call the area that was home to the city’s French folk from the mid 1800s to the mid 1900s. The French influence is still palpable in the architecture and shady, pleasant streets, and the area is full of shops, restaurants, and boutiques. It's a charming break from the wide deserts that are many of Beijing’s roads.

I hit up Tianzifang first, which is a market made up of vendors, restaurants and art galleries nested in a series of small, winding alleys that basically stole my heart. It helped that the air conditioning leaking into the walkways made Tianzifang bearable while the rest of the city melted.

Crab soup dumplings at Tianzifang (you poke a straw into the top and drink).

Stop lying to yourself, you've always needed a piece of meat made of stone on a string.

In case there's not enough cuteness in your life...

I bought a collection of postcards featuring good-looking women from Shanghai’s early 20th century, when companies discovered that putting foxy models on their advertising materials helped with product sales. The French Concession, along with those well-distributed calendar posters, fed into Shanghai’s legacy reputation as a fashion hub. Beyond great postcards, this ‘hood had several great street-side snacking opportunities, and I sampled some fried pork buns that were 50 cents each and transcendent.

I also took note of juices packaged like IV bags. Weird trend.

During a mid-afternoon rain shower I took shelter in a doorway and had a pleasant chat with a Chinese man who spoke excellent English and was also visiting from Beijing. We talked about our careers and thoughts about Shanghai, and parted ways when the rain stopped. What a nice dude!

Before I left the French Concession, I found Sun Yat Sen’s old house. This guy (1866-1925) was one of China’s most cherished revolutionary leaders, and played a big role in the overthrow of the Qing Dynasty in the early 20th Century. He’s one of the founding fathers of the Republic of China (which is not the same as the Peoples Republic of China) and to this day he’s revered both on mainland China and in Taiwan…no small feat. His house is built in pebble-coated Spanish style and is unmistakably western, inside and out. The furniture and appliances all smacked of home, and many of the letters, documents, etc. written in Sun Yat Sen’s hand were in fluent English. More amazing still is the story of his personal life, which involves first an arranged marriage that produced children, followed by a second marriage to a woman who spoke fluent English and attended college in the US. If you’re not a big China person, these facts may seem pretty boring, but I, having never known much about Sun Yat Sen, was bowled over by the western influence in his home and his life—all of the above seem out of sync with some aspects of today’s China.

Sugar to tea ratio: mastered. #bubbletea

The rest of my time in the French Concession was punctuated by bubble teas and fresh-squeezed juices, all in the interest of keeping me vertical in the crushing heat.

Next on my list was Yuyuan Gardens, a carefully planned, once private garden built by the Pan family during the Ming Dynasty over the course of 18 years (1559-1577). On my way there, three Chinese college students asked me to take their photo (in perfect English). After that we chatted about Shanghai, my Chinese, their English, and their education. The two women told me I looked very young, guessing that I was twenty-one. When I told them I was older, the dude they were with blurted out: "Thirty!" Touche, good sir. They then invited me to a tea tasting and kungfu show—how nice is that? I declined, but the convo warmed my heart (age judgement included).

In order to get into Yuyuan gardens I had to gently bushwhack my way through a mob of people wandering around a huge “bazaar”. Almost any kind of tourist swag a person could want was for sale in the bazaar, as were snax, snacks, snax for days. I went for the the xiaolongbao (soup dumplings) being hawked at every turn, but soon realized that any dumpling that’s not a fresh dumpling is a sad, sticky, live-forever-in-your-throat dumpling. Presentation is not everything, it turns out. I did see more of the giant xiaolongbao that require a straw for consumption—drink from the center and then eat the rest? Cool!

More snacking activity at the Yuyuan bazaar.

The last fifty yards of this gauntlet span a pond, which meant I had to use one of several jam-packed walkways to cross. This was an exercise in restraint—get. out. of. the. way. Once inside the gardens, I realized that the park’s layout is labyrinthine in a delightful way. I kept looping back to the same spot without knowing how I’d gotten there and then trying again to find my way to sections of the park that I could see on a map but couldn’t figure out how to get to.

Finally, I saw a stream of people emerging from what looked like a rock (?!) and I found a narrow passageway that led into the rest of the park. The pavilions, ponds, and rock “sculptures” here create an enclosed, sheltered space in the middle of the city that would be an amazing place for summertime introspection under less crowded circumstances. The color scheme—green water, bright orange koi, brown and white buildings and gray rocks—play into the peacefulness of the atmosphere, even with all the people.

After I elbowed my way out of the Yuyuan Bazaar, I walked down the street to a buddhist nunnery/retreat called Chenxiangge. It was quiet and unpopulated so I spent a few minutes soaking up the solitude while regarding a statue of the reclining Guanyin deity. On the way out, I ran into a cluster of young women with British accents trying to wrestle an English word from the ticket seller. “Do you speak English?” one of the women yelled into the ticket window, and then said it again, louder and slower. “DO YOU SPEAK ENGLISH?” I didn’t want to pass judgment too soon, but it seemed like the answer was probably going to be no, so I offered to help in an effort to curb the pending realization of stereotypes. Sigh. I think I’m becoming one of those expats in China who judges all other expats in China.

Old Street, a shopping area outside Yuyuan bazaar. Check out the Shanghai Tower in the distance. #juxtaposition

Having already hit a major tourist spot, I took a long walk to the flower, bird, fish, and insect market for a taste of the old school. When I walked in, the sound of crickets chirping filled the air and I spotted clumps of tiny cages, each one home to one giant cricket. I’ve seen these before in Beijing, but the cricket biz was booming here in a way that was new to me.

The sound of crickets!

A group of people crowded around hundreds of ceramic jars on the floor in the center of the market, each jar containing one cricket and undergoing some kind of inspection that I didn’t fully understand. An older, native gent said hello to me in English and we chatted superficially about how interesting this place was. I tried to ask him about the cricket activities, but his English vocab didn’t take him very far and I didn’t know the keywords necessary to carry on the convo in Chinese. The most he got out was “crickets,” while pointing at the jars. He also said he thought visiting this market was “very good” for me. I’m still not entirely sure why crickets are such a popular pet here, but apparently cricket fighting was big during the Qing dynasty, and crickets are otherwise loved for their “song.”

The crickets, fish, and turtles were one thing, but I saw a handful of miserable kittens languishing in cages, dirty and totally inactive. A sad-eyed, caged puppy was the last straw for me, and I had to get out. Let’s just say that the treatment of animals here is hard on the American sensibilities.

Moving on. The photos you’ve seen of Shanghai probably feature the skyline visible from the Bund, which is a long, gorgeous promenade that follows the Huangpu River. The “downtown” side of the river is lined with historic European-style buildings flying the Chinese flag (whoa! juxtaposition!) while the opposite side of the river is a towering skyline of flashy new buildings—including the Oriental Pearl TV Tower, which has two distinctive ball-shaped sections.

Famous view of the Pudong district from the Bund.

The same view at night. Photo cred: my husband.

Because this view is so well-known, lots of tourists think Shanghai is only about these spanking new skyscrapers—hip, modern, sleek, bachelor pad! In fact, most of the city doesn’t look that way, and all the aforementioned cool stuff is in other neighborhoods. That said, my husband and I went to the top of the Shanghai Tower at night, and even though the air was not at its finest, the view was amazing.

Looking down on the Huangpu River from the top of the Shanghai Tower. Photo cred: my husband. — Looking down on the Huangpu River from the top of the Shanghai Tower. Photo cred: my husband.

Looking down on the Shanghai World Financial Center. Photo cred: my husband. — Looking down on the Shanghai World Financial Center. Photo cred: my husband.

I also took the “ride” that runs under the river from one side to the other and is notoriously weird. My particular experience involved flashing lights and a throaty male voice saying slow English phrases like “All the fishes in the sea…beautiful shining stars...” This took a bizarre turn when the voice suddenly said “Paradise AND hell,” followed by maniacal laughter. I rode the thing back across the river right away just to make sure I’d heard that particular phrase correctly (I had). There is no explanation, if you’re looking for one.

Inside the nightmare tunnel beneath the Huangpu River.

The last two major sights I'll mention are Qibao and the Jade Buddha Temple. Qibao is an ancient village in West Shanghai that's been preserved and kitschified, and is yet another place to shop for China trinkets and sample street foods. In my humble opinion, it was overhyped in the guidebooks, but that could just be my heat-induced crankiness talking. The Jade Buddha Temple is closer to downtown, and is a nice, quiet spot of worship and reflection amongst the tall buildings of modern Shanghai. It was rebuilt in the 1920s after being destroyed during the revolution. Without further ado, some photos

Topical bookshelf at the trinket shop in Qibao.

Cool wall outside the Jade Buddha Temple.

The courtyard at the Jade Buddha Temple.

A peek at the reclining buddha at the Jade Buddha Temple.

Ceiling lanterns at the Jade Buddha Temple.

Shining deity at the Jade Buddha Temple.

In summation, Shanghai would be a fun place to live, and the population seems slightly more westernized and open to foreigners than good ol’ Beijing. It’s not often in Beijing that people approach me to have a friendly chat, so I enjoyed that aspect of wandering around the city, but I have a soft spot for the rougher, wilder, more diverse (in terms of economic standing) environment of Beijing. Thanks for reading, and stay tuned for another post soon about my mini-trip to Taiyuan in Shanxi Province.

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