Our 72 hours in Shanghai

​Part of our end-of-semester trip in Asia, we decided to visit Tokyo, Seoul, Hong Kong, and Shanghai. Shanghai was one of those cities that I thought I would never visit, so I still can't believe I had the opportunity to go explore after my semester in Taiwan. However, since we did not have a VISA for China, we could only stay up to 6 days in Shanghai; we stayed for three days, and here is what we did:

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We arrived in Shanghai pretty late in the evening, so Marcus and I were both pretty tired. Getting our 3-6 day VISA went fairly smoothly and the officers were very nice and helpful, but that nice atmosphere did not last very long after we left the arrivals hall to go get a taxi. Some lady came up to us pretending to be an employee at the airport and since she had just “finished” her shift, she 

would give us a ride into the city because she was going that way anyways…. For a small fee, of course. Us, being the savvy travelers that we are, did not fall for her crap and walked away towards the actual taxi drivers after her trying for a solid 2 minutes to get us into her car (kind of creepy). So, if you ever go to Shanghai, watch out for these “friendly airport employees” – trust me, it’s a scam. After finally getting an actual taxi, we got to our hotel at like 2am and went straight to bed. We were exhausted from 4 days in Hong Kong so trying to catch up on some sleep was necessary.

Important thing to know is that my boyfriend and I are fairly relaxed travelers. We don’t really wake up early to get a super early start to our day, as we wanted to relax during this mini vacation. Our first day, we woke up in-time for the breakfast the hotel offered and went back to our room after to hang out for a little bit longer before exploring the city (we probably fell back asleep). Around noon, we started our day, first stop being The Bund, the waterfront where you have an amazing view onto the skyline of Shanghai. It was superrrr windy and super cloudy (pollution) but the view was incredible. I never thought I would see this skyline in real life, so this was one of the most exciting things of this city trip.

After taking the usual millions of pictures, we walked along the waterfront towards the Yu Garden. We didn’t really know where we were going, making it a good way to explore all the little streets in that part of Shanghai. We walked through this tiny bamboo forest with a bunch of cats everywhere -- it was literally full of cats eating catfood.

​Eventually, we finally got to Yu Garden while it was already starting to get dark. Surrounding the Yu Garden there were a bunch of little shops and restaurants with amazing Chinese architecture. The lights were all starting to light-up so we came at the perfect time. Normally we wanted to go inside of the Yu Garden, but since the sun had gone down we wouldn’t have seen much. 

After walking around a bit longer in the surrounding streets of the garden, we took the metro back to Nanjing Road to have dinner. Nanjing Road is a huge shopping street, comparable to the Meir in Antwerp but 5x bigger; very easy spot to find a restaurant (with a little higher price though).

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At the beginning of our 2nd day in Shanghai, we decided to go get a closer look of the buildings from the skyline. Taking a metro, we got to the other side of the river right by the Oriental Pearl Radio & TV tower. It was a super misty day again, so the view wasn’t that great, but it was cool to be in the middle of all these unique skyscrapers. We walked around for a bit, getting photographed and stared at, but we had honestly gotten used to this by now. Near the Oriental Pearl tower, we had some lunch and tried to decide where to go next (planning ahead of time is not really one of our strong suits).

We both decided on the Jing’an Temple, being one of the more popular temples in Shanghai (I think). We took our time as we explored the gorgeous temple, trying to see every part of

it. In the middle of the temple there was a sculpture where you could try to throw a coin into for good luck (it was much harder than it looked!). Inside of the temple there was a big Buddha statue, where you could worship and pray. It was a very nice, calming temple in the middle of the hustle and bustle that is Shanghai.

After the temple, we wanted to go to the neighborhood of Tianzifang but first made a stop in the street of Xintiandi. This street had a bunch of little shops and restaurants, and cute little lights. It felt super cozy and a bit European. Xintiandi was like a little outdoor mall but with a very relaxed atmosphere. From Xintiandi we made our way over to Tianzifang, which was also filled with cute little shops and restaurants. The small streets of Tianzifang were filled with tourist, but it still had a very local feel to it. We tried these hugggeeeee fries here; biggest fries I have ever seen. And we also bought some little souvenirs (Marcus’s souvenir got confiscated at the airport loll, sorry babe). Besides the Bund, I think this was one of my favorite spots of our trip to Shanghai.

After snacking and shopping at Tianzifang, we had dinner in the French Concession which I am pretty sure is a very popular neighborhood for expats because that’s basically all we saw there. After 5 months of only Taiwanese and other Asian foods, I didn’t feel that bad for not fully taking advantage of the Chinese food Shanghai had to offer – that night, we had nachos at an Irish pub…. In China haha.

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Our trip to Shanghai was super short and very basic when it comes to the places we visited. If I ever go back, I hope to explore some of the surrounding cities and perhaps do some day trips to other cool places around Shanghai! These 2 days, regardless of how fast they went by, gave me a nice look on the Chinese culture and the busy life of Shanghai. If you were to ask me where to go in Asia, Shanghai would not be my first suggestion, but perhaps it is in the top 10 places that I have visited in Asia.
 
Off to my next adventure…
 
With love,
Sara