Shanghai, a metropolitan city with 25 million people, is a place where history meets modernization, tradition meets trend, and local cuisine meets western food. As much as I like Beijing with lots of history and my favorite northern Chinese food, Shanghai is the city where you have to go to see modern China. The energy, momentum, and just overall vibe of Shanghai is unique. It’s not unusual to see an ultra-modern mall rubbing shoulders with a small street of food vendors that has been there for a hundred years.
Another reason to visit Shanghai is because of the food. Although Shanghai cuisine is not listed as one of the eight great cuisines in China, it has built up its own fame over time. It is heavily influenced by cuisines from its adjacent provinces Zhejiang and Jiangsu, but still unique to the region. Shanghainese food usually has a good balance of salty and sweet and appears dark in color. The color is caused by dark soy sauce. Taking advantage of its location by the water, Shanghai cuisine has lots of fresh seafood and water plants, such as lotus root and water lily. As an international city, Shanghai also offers over 100 Michelin rated restaurants.
When to Visit
We visited Shanghai in late November, 2018. We were concerned that this would be a very cold and unpleasant visit. However, we were surprised to find that the weather was quite comfortable during this time–mostly sunny, with temperatures in the 10 ºC/50 ºF range. While I’d avoid visiting in late winter or anytime in summer, I think late fall is a very reasonable time to see Shanghai.
Suggested Itinerary
We spent three days in Shanghai. This was about the right amount of time to see all the major sights–and eat some delicious food. Depending on your travel style, I’d recommend a day or two more to check out spots outside of city. We traveled leisurely, assumed we’d be back, and didn’t rush to check out too many places (you could definitely fit in more activities a day than us).
We planned our visit by prioritizing the most popular attractions. Click the links below to jump right to information on each.
- The Bund (外滩 wai tai), with a colonial atmosphere during the day and colorful lights at night.
- Yu Garden (豫园 yu yuan) area, famous for selling traditional Chinese goodies and street food.
- Nanjing Road East (南京东路 nan jing dong lu), full of various stores and shopping malls.
- Tian Zi Fang (田子坊 tian zi fang), an artistic touch on a traditional residential area.
- Shanghai Disneyland–for big kids like us!
There are so many food options in Shanghai, with only so many meals to eat during three days! We had some interesting food, such as pan fried dumplings, a few traditional and modern local restaurants, and some Cantonese food. Please check out the food recommendations below for more information.
We stayed close to the Bund, and would suggest this location to other people as well. It was very lively (with lots of restaurant and bar options), close to the Metro station, and an easy base for touring the Bund and Nanjing Road areas. Our itinerary below either started from or ended at the Bund everyday.
Day 1: The Bund -> Yu Garden -> Xin Tian Di
The Bund is the waterfront area along the Huangpu River in the center of the city. It is the most recognized photographic icon of Shanghai. The Bund is a unique place, with colonial buildings on the west side of the Huangpu river and skyscrapers on the east side. The colonial buildings stand to remind us the history of Shanghai in the last century; the skyscrapers represent the significant changes in this century.
Every night, the colorful neon lights on the skyscrapers illuminate the city and the river.
Yu Garden has a history of around 500 years. Most people came to the Yu Garden area not for the garden itself, but for the bazaars around it. The bazaars in Yu Garden area were built recently using traditional Chinese architecture. They are filled with stores selling everything from chopsticks and Chinese Qipao to tourist souvenirs and delicate glassware. There is also lots of food: street food stalls, a few food courts, and couple of traditional Shanghai food restaurants, like Nan Xiang Steam Bun Restaurant (南翔馒头店), and Lu Bo Lang (绿波廊).
We were surprised to find C-3PO here, showing off his new talent :).
We spent the rest of our first day at Xin Tian Di. This is another famous area for shopping and food. It was more fun and less touristy 10 years ago, when it was frequented by lots of expats and foreigners. Now it appears to be targeted just at tourists, with expensive western food and drinks.
There are lots of shopping malls close to Xin Tian Di. We went to check out K11. It differentiates itself from the other shopping malls by combining art displays with high-end shopping.
While we were there, we found a section displaying a self-contained ecosystem of water, air, soil, plants, and fish. It was pretty unique to see a large space dedicated to aquaculture in a shopping mall. Unfortunately, we didn’t take a photo 🙁
Day 2: Tian Zi Fang -> Nanjing Road East
Tian Zi Fang is another spot where you can spend a whole day getting lost. It is still a residential area for locals, but has also been renovated with boutique stores, food stalls, restaurants and bars with outdoor seatings.
Some of these stalls serve food that you can’t find anywhere else, for example, the “coconut laid an egg” (椰子下蛋). A whole coconut is steamed, after which the shell is removed. Once the whole white inner soft shell is exposed, it looks like a cooked egg. You then use a straw to drink the coconut juice inside.
We also found unique, artistic, and sometimes weird things on every corner.
We found some good bubble tea here at Newly Made Tea (新作之茶) and sipped it while we were resting. Highly recommended!
My dear husband also found himself a new girlfriend here 🙂
After visiting Tian Zi Fang, we continued our shopping on Nanjing Road East.
It is also really easy to spend a whole day wandering around Nanjing Road East. There are shops for everyone, from luxury brands like Gucci, Prada, and Tiffany, to more affordable brands like Gap, H&M, and Forever 21. If you feel tired after shopping, you can enjoy a dinner of any kind of cuisine, such as Shanghai food, spicy Sichuan food, Japanese Sushi, or even Spanish tapas.
The east end of Nanjing Road East is the Bund. We suggest shopping from the west of Nanjing Road East toward the Bund, and then continuing on to see the night view of the Bund.
Our original plan was to go to Zhu Jia Jiao (朱家角), the famous water village of Shanghai. However, from our hotel around the Bund, it would take 2 hours of public transportation (one way) to get there, including Metro and multiple bus rides. Taxi drivers won’t go there unless you rent the car for a whole day, which is around ¥800 round trip from the Bund. So, we two nerds went to Disneyland instead. It was very easy to get to with Metro, and wasn’t busy at all during a weekday. Please find more details of our Shanghai Disneyland trip here.
Food is a big part of our traveling. We tried a lot of food, some good, some… less good. Here are the restaurants we recommend:
- Pan Fried Dumpling – Da Hu Chun, the Bund area
- Traditional Shanghainese food – Lu Bo Lang, Yu Garden area
- Modern Shanghainese food – Fusion & Chic, Xu Jia Hui area
- Cantonese food – Xin Rong Ji, Xin Tian Di area
Travel Tips:
Metro within Shanghai is very convenient, and relatively cheap. For attractions out of the city area, it is not as easy to get to though.
There are a lot of other cities close by that are worth going if you have time. For example, Hang Zhou, Su Zhou, Nanjing, and Yang Zhou, all of which are easy to get to with high speed train.
Should You Go?
In short, yes! Shanghai is well worth a visit. Spend a few days there to get a taste of it, or a week to immerse in it!
We will definitely come back to Shanghai and surrounding cities to explore more local attractions, more food and bars. Thanks for reading, and please leave any questions in the comment section. Safe travels!
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