Initial Thoughts Shanghai

I just returned from a 4-day trip to Shanghai, China. It was my first time in China and overall a great experience. Definitely a trip I will remember forever, and one that has convinced me to prioritize travel around China over the next few months.

While getting the Chinese Visa was quite expensive (and kind of a pain here in Hong Kong), I am happy to have got it done in time to go on this trip.

We arrived in Shanghai on Friday around noon. Over the next few days, we spent our time (as I usually do while traveling) divided amongst sightseeing (the touristy things), eating, going out and walking through random parts of the city.

We were able to see many of the most famous sites in the city pretty quickly, as everything (in the city of Shanghai) is just a cheap cab-ride (or Metro stop) away. Our hostel, the Phoenix was in the perfect location – a 15 minute walk away from the popular neighborhood, “The Bund.” The hostel, and more on hostels perhaps in another post, was certainly a highlight of the trip.

There was awesome food downstairs, my favorites being beef dumplings, onion pancakes and sizzling steak. The rooms were really clean and quiet. And there was an incredible rooftop bar/patio/game area where we played ping pong and threw darts with some of the people at the hostel. The Phoenix served as a great “home-base” location for us, and I certainly felt safe and secure there.

Food in the city was generally cheap around the hostel (and more expensive as you ventured closer towards the water / downtown). We ended up eating mainly traditional Chinese food and it was really good. Shanghai is also certainly known for it’s nightlife (and I would recommend checking it out). We went to a number of places over our 3 nights there that were super fun.

Another cool part of the trip was heading up the Shanghai Tower – the second tallest building in the world!! (2018). Though I had just saw the Taipei 101 (the 5th tallest tower in the world) just a few weeks ago, this skyscraper looked much bigger (it is really about 100m bigger). We went at 8:00 pm on our last night there and there were no lines. The tower has an interesting display in the lobby that talks a lot about building skyscrapers and the history of the world’s tallest buildings. There was also ice-cream at the top.

Details aside, Shanghai was certainly a great trip. I would definitely recommend checking it out, especially if you enjoy big cities, nightlife and really good food.