Exploring Shanghai, the Paris of the Orient

When our tour group left Saipan on Sept. 4 for a four-day trip to Shanghai, we were primed to be impressed but I’m sure none of the 35 members of the group were prepared for the magnificence, the sheer presence of this vibrant metropolis that literally keeps you going long past the point where your body, your feet, and your wallet could keep up. With its long history as a commercial hub and its sizeable expatriate population, this “Paris of the Orient” is at once cosmopolitan and tradition-bound, ultra-modern and ancient, bustling and leisurely.

“I didn’t expect that Shanghai would be like that. I thought that it would be an old city, with traditional Chinese buildings, but when I got there it proved to be one of the most modern cities, with viaducts, magnetic trains, subways,” said Ruselle Devera. “It’s just like the cliché that it’s the place where the East meets the West, with areas that have Western styles of living and Western settings mingling with old houses and traditional architecture.”

One thing that particularly struck him was the smooth flow of traffic. Considering that Shanghai has a total population of 13 million, Devera said the traffic and the condition of the city was very good.

“It is hard to imagine how they control the flow of traffic through the arteries of the city; the cleanliness of the city and its sanitation. For a metropolitan city to maintain such a high level of sanitation is impressive,” he said.

Devera said it also changed his impression that Shanghai is a controlled city where the movement of people is restricted. “It turned out to be wrong. People were not prohibited to walk around the city, even at night. The peace and order situation is very good and the crime rate is very low.”

Another thing that makes Shanghai distinctive is its separation of the entire city between the old and the modern, a literal divide that allows visitors a glimpse of the old Shanghai and the new Shanghai in one panoramic view. Jessie Wang, our travel guide, explained it thus: The old part of the city is located on the western side of the Huangpo River and the sleek, modern part is on the eastern side.

To get a better feel of the city’s sprawling breadth, a friend and I had dinner at the Grand Hyatt Shanghai, known as the highest hotel in the world. Located on the 53rd to 87th floors of the Jin Mao Tower in the heart of Pudong—Shanghai’s financial and business district—the place offers a sweeping and unobstructed view of the vast city, the millions of lights dotting this marvelous metropolis a magnificent sight to behold. With the Huangpo River and the Bund on the foreground, the view from the 56th floor was both exhilarating and hypnotic. For an even headier experience, we had a drink at Cloud 9, a sky lounge on the 87th floor of the hotel. From there, the sight was breathtaking—a vast sprawling mass of lights that seems as if all the stars have fallen on one’s feet.

Ana Sablan, who was on the trip with her daughter Christie, said the lights were the highlight of her experience. “It’s true what they say about Shanghai as the city of lights. The lights were all over. It was very cosmopolitan, very modern.”

For most, though, it was the shopping that had everyone excited. Much like any metropolitan cities in the world, Shanghai has everything to offer, from the highly discriminating buyer who prefers branded products, to those on the lookout for basement bargains.

Marian Tudela, who has experienced shopping in Beijing, said that her experience in Shanghai is comparable to shopping in the Philippines’ Baclaran, where bargains can be had for almost nothing.

“The shopping is really good. I got quality purses. The materials are leather, even the fake ones,” she said. She tells of buying Prada and Gucci purses and three dollars for a fake Rolex.

Devera agreed, saying: “It’s really a good place for shoppers. Whether you want to buy authentic ones or imitation products, you can find it there. One of the best infrastructure for tourists.”

For Dominie Escurel, he liked so much all the places that the group went to that he could not identify one specific place that stood out for him.

“I really liked the different places we went to. Everything was so progressive and beautiful. We also went out on our own; we went to the Titanic Exhibit and the Shanghai Ocean Aquarium where I think they had the most complete collection of fishes from all over the world,” he said.

Both Escurel and Devera would never forget, though, the time when they both got lost while the group was touring the Bund. “We decided to go on our own but we were lucky because we ran into the group later.”

If there is one thing, though, that I can complain about this recent trip, it was the fact that four days was too short a time to fully explore all the treasures and marvels that this fantastic city had to offer. We did manage to visit the Yuyuan Garden, originally built in 1559, representing classical Chinese gardens, and the Oriental Pearl TV Tower on the bank of the Huangpo River, with its 11 spheres and 263 floors, and the Bund, which is the most famous landmark of Shanghai, with its neoclassical architecture that dates back to the 1930s.

Still, with more sights to see and more corners of the city to explore, it felt like we never really explored Shanghai to the fullest. Before we left, however, the city gave us a really impressive parting shot—a ride on its spanking-new magnetic levitation train, the world’s fastest, most futuristic passenger line—on our way to the airport.

We were all excited at the prospect and, much like the gauche tourists that we were, we just had to have our pictures taken beside the sleek trains before getting onboard. And what a ride it was! With a breathtaking whoosh, it rocketed to 130 kilometers per hour in 60 seconds, while a LED display on top showed the speed increasing until we reached a heart-stopping speed of 430 kph!

Sadly, it ended too soon. A distance that would take a bus about two hours to get to was traveled in just under five minutes. And it took us longer to reach the train station than to actually ride on it! Still, it made for a wonderful dessert to the Chinese lauriat that Shanghai has been for all of us.

The four-day Shanghai trip was organized by Century Travel under its “Experience Shanghai” promo, in a tie-up with Spring Travel International.