Reply To: Shanghai for 4 days

[JDB]

@zapato1060 – when you mention Yu garden, I trust you mean the actual Yu Yuan garden as opposed to the adjacent shopping area of the same name.

The upper floors of the Hyatt – either the lobby bar or the restaurant on a different level do offer spectacular wide views, but in some ways it’s too high and set back to see the Bund that well – you also don’t see Pudong so well. On the lobby level there is a Cantonese restaurant with a very good value quite extraordinary set lunch but the view is in the opposite direction.

To see the Bund, you will get a better view from the bar of the Peninsula on 14F, particularly if sitting at the small bar counter. Although the hotel is on the Bund, the angle means you can see right down the Bund, the river and all of Pudong including the Pearl Tower. Cocktails are about 110RMB. You can in fact also get almost as good a view from the People’s Monument more or less opposite the hotel.

You will discover that there are no bridges across the Huangpu in the centre of them. The small number of ferry crossings at Dongchang Road and Taigong (just by the Kempinski) are a great viewing point/nice albeit brief boat ride for 2RMB. There is a new riverside walk all the way between the two ferries on the Pudong side and from the Taigong line there is a new riverside walkway all the way to the main Bund walkway, but that is usually heaving, so better along the other side of the river.

If you haven’t been before, going up the Pearl Tower is fun. For other things, it depends what you like! The French Concession and Hongkou are the only historic areas really left – lots to see but a guide will really help enjoy it. We really liked the Residence of Zhou Enlai, a very central person in Chinese history. We get clothes made at the South Bund Soft Spinning market. There is in reality much less to see in Shanghai than say Beijing or Nanjing.

In terms of restaurants, your definition of local may not be right vs what might be considered ‘local’ vs tourist restaurants that you might find in Italy or France. Foreign tourists are massively outnumbered by local tourists and inhabitants so the restaurants are almost entirely populated by Chinese people. Shanghai is expensive and good and bad restaurants are expensive. There are some restaurants they call ‘hole in the wall’ but difficult unless with a mandarin speaker. Queues are a good sign and don’t usually entail a long wait as people are served/eat quickly and people leave more or less as soon as they finish eating.

These are ones we visited last autumn and where local people eat!

Yong Fu Mini (Ningbo cuisine) in IFC (see roof terrace)
Canton 8 (Runan Street branch)
Shi He Yuan – in IFC
Shanghai Rose/Mei Gui Ting Shanghai (in the French Concession)
Hong 0871 (Yunnanese, in Hongkou) ✔️✔️
Lan Xin (on Jinxian Road – best value, expect to queue)
Di Shui Dong – lots of expats but also many Chinese.

Avoid restaurants in the Xintiandi area! Also avoid Lost Heaven (both locations) – used to be great, now shite.