This might seem like an odd side-step here to end up in Shanghai of all places, but initially we had planned to do a quick trip to Czechia and Austria. However, a certain head of state and friends decided to attack another country, basically closing off flights through the UAE, where we had a changeover.

Given we both had limited scope for holiday dates, we looked around somewhere in Asia and it was decided to give Shanghai a chance since neither of us had been there.

We got a cheap flight on Juneyao Air for the three hour flight. Sure, it left at insane ‘o clock in the morning, but we definitely slept on the plane, and got through Shanghai Pudong airport quickly since it was pretty much empty.

Day 1

A very nice BYD taxi took us into the the city to the hotel and as I was to discover, most of the cars (and motorcycles) in Shanghai are electric. It was also dark and raining, meaning you get that Bladerunner vibe which used to be associated with Tokyo in the 1980s, but certainly the neon colours and skyline in the mist and rain means that Shanghai has certainly joined that group.

It was also very, very early when we arrived at the hotel and a few other people were already there, but from the staff’s cal;m demeanour, it seemed acceptable to just rest and sleep in the lobby, so that’s what we did.

At a more reasonable hour we went across the road to the Family Mart to get something to drink. Ah Famima; no Famichiki, but it still looks and feels very familiar. An odd way to start a Shanghai trip with a Japanese conbini?

We then walked into the main city, and specifically the old town, which is very touristy, but when we arrived at 9am it was empty, and only a few places were open, so we stopped in to have a quick bite to eat and a cup of coffee.

Interacting with shops even a few hours in reminded us of the basic research we’d had time to do: don’t expect anywhere to take VISA or MasterCard, and make sure you have AliPay or another local payment system set up - which we had. And cash. Always cash.

Even though it was lightly raining we got to have a very nice walk around and take in some of the sites and start learning a few things. Some were very practical - very few cafes and restaurants have toilets, so if you need to go, you need to know where the public toilets are.

I also got to see the very cool portable Police boxes.

Also, we started to see food shops opening so we got some snacks. It all smelled and looked very good.

After lunch we went back to the hotel to actually check in and have a rest, before heading out again to see the old town by night, and they’ve done a great job with lighting and it looked spectacular, especially in the rain and mist.

For dinner we found a apparently well reviewed hinabe restaurant, or at least that’s the Japanese name for it. I think in Mandarin it’s ‘huǒguō’ (?)). Basically, you cook your own meat in a split heated bowl with a different soup in each side. We had a mild soup in one side and a raging pepper filled red soup in the other. This was off the tourist track, but the staff we so helpful, showing what sauces went with what, and the salads, which was a theme for most of the trip - everyone was really patient and helpful.

We also took a walk down to the Bund, which has a lot of larger European style buildings and which has the view across the river to the business district - all modern skyscrapers with massive LED lighting on them. Neon has truly been replaced with LEDs in the new BladeRunner. The rain and low cloud certainly added to the effect.

Day 2

Something different on day 2; my travel partner had booked a traditional Chinese costume photo shoot for around the old town, including the Yu rock garden which was on the to-do list. The first task was to find the company first since all this was arranged via Instagram. There’s a lot of IG in China.

We found the building - more of a gated group of residential apartments, but we had arrived a bit early and found again that the only places to sit down and have some refreshment was a Starbucks over the road, so we sat a chatted, waiting for the place to open, watching people come in, relax and then head off to work or whatever. Like any coffee-shop anywhere.

Inside the apartment building was an interesting contrast - dangling cables to LCD screens everywhere, often showing adverts, facial recognition to get in. On the floor we wanted it seemed like most of the room were vacant, and even when we found the right door we couldn’t hear anything until they opened the door and it looked like any other place of business, with a crowd of staff sorting out costumes, make-up and making sure bags didn’t get lost. I got talking to a family from Singapore who seemed to be loving Shanghai.

Eventually we were all ready, and with a photographer, we headed out into the old time. The photog was a real pro, handling posing, shooting and the crowds of a public tourist spot almost effortlessly, and he was incredibly friendly and polite too. We must have walked around for well over an hour. During one longer posing location I got talking to a chap from India who had brought an old 3D Fujifilm camera which I’d never seen before and we had a chat before we both had to move on.

Eventually we arrived back at the business apartment for the reverse transformation and the whirlwind was done, and even the initial photos looked really good. It’s not my normal travel thing to do, but I’m glad we did, otherwise I’d have never seen it.

We then walked to a place called the The Refinery for lunch, which was actually in the wrong place on the TripAdvisor listing, but correct on the Google map for a change. We were already learning that non-Chinese tourist and maps may or may not be right. Sometimes we took an average guess across multiple apps.

The Refinery was a nice international place in a cluster of seemingly expat but not wholly tourist focussed shops and restaurants, along with a building which had a full Lays crisps building facia.

After that we walked about some just normal streets, some normal shopping centres, and just soaked up normal Shanghai. Road signs telling drivers not to use their hooters, small sushi shops, small vegetable supermarkets. Normal city things.

Of course, I’m looking at motorbikes, which are mostly scooters. I mentioned that most (all?) were electric, but some looked to have been retrofitted, and were wrapped in crash-bars, and the kind of mods frequently seen on working bikes, as adapter to their life’s work as a 1980s public telephone. Evolved.

Finally we stopped in at a franchised restaurant and tried mabou dofu and other more ‘Chinese’ food, had a beer and relaxed. The place was busy but again the staff really helped with advice on portions.

After this we went to the Jazz and Blues bar I’d noticed a couple of doors down, and we listened to some live music whilst trying some of their signature cocktails. It was great; I’m a big live music fan.

Day 3

And now for something completely different.

We got a taxi to Shanghai Disneyland. I’m not a Disney fan, but I was kind of curious, and as you’d expect, the whole thing runs like clockwork, is clean and looks exactly like the other Disneyland’s I’ve been to.

We discovered that the hot place was Zootopia land; and that people are so busy on social media that ride queues weren’t bad at all. We went on rides which were clearly newer upgrades of ride we’d done in Tokyo, like Pirates of the Caribbean, which had been overhauled with massive background screens and CG to augment the live action components. The best ride though was the Tron light cycles. Sitting on a sports-bike style seat, clamped in, and then accelerating in and outside of the neon style building was great. Would ride again; and again; and again.

Also, the rapids ride was as wet as advertised, which I approve of.

As expected then, it’s a Disneyland. They’re fun, they look great and they’re efficiently run.

Ironically, we started heading back to the hotel as it started raining, so our timing was on form, but by the time we got back the rain was still going and we were tired so we did the thing. The thing I don’t like doing even in places I live. We did the McDonald’s since we were passing it. I did insist on trying something only on the local menu though - some cheese burger with local spiced sauce, and two pork sausages on top of the patty. It was pretty good for McDonald, so I felt like I hadn’t sold out too badly.

Day 4

So today we finally got to do a couple of things on my list - starting with riding the underground. First thing: you have to put bags through a scanner to access the platform area. OK, a bit odd but since it was now the weekend, there weren’t many people. One upside though was that the ticket machines were incredibly easy - not just because you could have an English UI, the lines have numbers, and the screen gives you a summary of duration, where to change, and how long to your change. As a bonus it was was relatively cheap, and the trains and stations were clean and well managed. I’m a fan of public transport.

We took a short train to the People’s Park which was very cool and relaxing, and then went looking for a hotel which allegedly did a buffet breakfast which had great reviews, but when we arrived the price was a lot more than social media portrayed and for some reason my AliPay didn’t want to work for the first time, so we took the hint and looked for somewhere else, which ended up being the Starbucks flagship Reserve, which is a huge multi-floor Starbucks with a full breakfast set, bakery, and as you might imagine, a roastery.

We almost missed it as one map had it a further 300m down a road, and we were waiting at traffic lights and noticed it just behind us!

The breakfast was excellent - egg and ham croissants, with fresh fruit, yoghurt and I had a fruit tea. A very nice brunch.

After a look around the area we took the train out to the Zhujiajiao water town, which is an area of shops and houses around a group of rivers and canals. It was crowded but had a fun vibe given it’s very much tourist area, and we even had a street portrait done, which was a fun experience as the artist had decided I looked something like KFC’s Colonel Saunders. No one has ever made that comparison before!

There was some great looking and smelling street food, but we weren’t that hungry. There was also a lot of franchised shops on the periphery, but we decided we’d done that today, and headed down some side streets and found a quiet tea shop to sit and relax.

We’d taken the boat from the train station to the main part of Zhujiajiao, but decided to walk back, which gives you a different view of it, which was worthwhile.

We then went looking for another social media place, some shops advertised as Shanghai’s Harajuku. Again, not my thing, but why not. It turned out to be four or five lively buildings, and a lot of social media people making content. Now quite what we were looking forward too, and no available restaurants for dinner. We also couldn’t find another building, and since it was dark, we decided to give it a miss.

Fortunately on the way to the train station, we passed a fairly low key (from the outside) Italian restauitrant, but inside it was quite nice looking, and the food was excellent and not really that expensive, so that was a stroke of luck.

Despite the feed I’d been wanting to try a small family run but franchised place a few doors down from the hotel. Every day we’d walked past a sign for a and a spicy ground pork burger in a large bread bun, so I gave it a try, and it was fantastic. Really.

If that wasn’t enough, I picked up some cucumber flavour crisps from the Family Mart. It was amazing how much they tasted like cucumber. Well done.

Day 5

Ah, the last day. We’d left this quite open in case we found something, or had missed something. We went back to the old town for one last look and picked up some souvenirs. I’d been thinking about the building we went looking for the previous evening, but couldn’t find. Reading up, it’s called the Normandy Apartments, as it was a French influenced bit of architecture from the 1920s, and I thought I knew how to get there, and it was only a few minutes on the train. As it was, the intersection in front of it was packed with tourists and social media people, but it is a nice building, even with some dark parts to its history, so we took in the atmosphere, then found a tea shop (it’s a theme, I know).

By then we needed to be back to the hotel, pick up our suitcases as we were flying that night. It also meant one more chance to stop in at the same food place from the precious night, this time with the magic of phone translation we got some ramen style noodles, some sweet pork, and another spicy ground pork bun.

So indeed we got on our last train and headed to the airport. It was quick and simple, and was a nice relaxing end to a fairly busy trip.

Given the hurried organisation and that we had different goals, it had worked well and we got to see a lot of what we planned and a lot of what we hadn’t which I always consider to be the sign of a good trip!

2026 A Quick Trip to Shanghai