Shanghai Day 1 - Nanjing Road to The Bund

Shanghai Trip Index

Day 1: Nanjing Road to The Bund
Day 2: Jade Buddha Temple (玉佛禅寺) & Yu Yuan (豫园)
Day 2: Xin Tian Di (新天地) & Pudong Along the Huangpu River
Day 3: Longhua Temple (龙华寺) & French Concession Area
Day 4: Shanghai Museum

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This is the first post in a series of posts about a four day trip to Shanghai.

22 Feb 2009

This is the first time in 14 years that I am visiting China. This time however, I am supposed to be there for some research collaboration but ended up with more free time on my hands than I expected. Shanghai is nice modern city. Unfortunately for me, that means less things to see. I woke up early in the morning to catch a 7:30am flight to Pudong International Airport. Thankfully, the meal on board came reasonably quick as I had nothing since awakening.

Branch, some omelette, sausage, bread, coffee and white wine


Touched down at about noon and I immediately walked towards the first highlight -- the Maglev


Off I go, everything outside flashed past, it is really fast and most turns are heavily banked


430km/h, almost half the speed of the plane I just left


Arrived at Longyang Road station, 30km in 7 mins


Right next to the Maglev station is the Longyang Road (龙阳路) metro station, line 2 (green). There are some 9 metro lines and more seem to be in the works


Off I was to Jing'an Temple (静安寺) station from which I will walk to my hotel. The metro is excellent, with announcements in English and Mandarin.


Jing'an Temple, right above the metro station

Arrived at Shanghai Hotel, not a very creative name but a comfortable place. The rest of the day passed with a quick dinner meeting with some of the doctors that I am supposed to meet. It wasn't raining before, but it is now, and it would be like this for the next 4 days. Talk about bad luck. It was pretty cool though, at sub-10 degree celsius. After dinner, I decided to take the metro to the People's Square and walk down Nanjing East Road, one of the more famous major shopping streets.

Back to Jing'an Temple station at night. There's actually a shopping complex next to it. In fact, there are shopping complexes everywhere.


Arrived at People's Square (人民广场), a "New World" shopping complex is right next to it


Walking down the brightly lit street with an umbrella in hand and a camera


Hitch a ride on one of these for CNY 2 to the other end of the street


One of the many neo-classical buildings in Shanghai


After a long walk through the shopping district and beyond, I finally arrived at The Bund (Wai Tan-外滩). Peering across the Huangpu River, the iconic skyline of the rather new Pudong financial district was shrouded in clouds.


The neo-classical buildings that constitutes The Bund. The winds were strong making it hard to balance the camera with a turbulent umbrella


The Bund stretches for a distance and along it are many locations where one can embark on a river cruise.



Some statues that I found rather strange on my way back

Back to the hotel. My feet were tired after the long walk. Shanghai feels generally safe except that some people (probably from outside the city) might try to swindle you, some touting, and the usual possibility of pick pockets. The air is slightly polluted though. Sadly, the people here seem to have a bad habit of spitting on the pavements everywhere. In a city of some 25 million people, the metro is well planned and a very efficient way to get around. After marking out a few other places of interest on the map I obtained from the hotel reception, I drifted off into some much needed sleep.

Read the next related post here.