Shanghai tourist sights

The Bund

Arguably the most famous street in Asia. Why? I don’t know. It’s a curved promenade along the river and about a mile long. There are western style buildings along the promenade that date from the 1920-30’s. These were banks, trading houses and later became consulates. A nice walk around, but I don’t see the attraction.
From here you can walk through a pedestrian tunnel under the river to the Pearl Tower.

Pearl Tower

Really not much here either, but it’s like going to New York and not going to the top of the Empire State Building. You just have to do it. The views from the tower are very good on a clear day. You get great pictures of both new and old Shanghai.



Old Town
We got lost walking to Old Town. We ended up in a residential/apartment area in a poorer area. From what I could see/tell, the apartments are very small. They are about 500-sq. ft. with just a couple rooms. One room is for living and sleeping and the other one is for eating and cooking. There are no bathrooms. There are 10-12 apartments to a building and they share a communal bathroom/bathhouse.
Each neighborhood has its own outdoor market where they buy food and goods. It makes sense since I didn’t see any refrigerators in any of the apartments. We also walked by this child care facility in the middle of this maze of housing. The children laughed and smiled at us. We took some great pictures of them. I also got some great street food along the way. Pork dumplings were awesome. 10 for 25 cents.

We arrived in Old Town. Yep, this is where the tourists go. The architecture is old china but the stores are new junk with the exception of jewelry, jade, and some antique shops. Gold and Jade can be bought here for a reasonable amount. The jade in Xian was much better quality and cheaper. On the backside of old town is Fuyou market. It is really a bazaar or flea market where you can find almost anything. People bring stuff out of the closet and sell it here. Political pins, coins, woodcarvings, jewelry, clothes, silk, etc. Some of the items like vases and porcelains are hard to tell if they are fake or not. If you want real porcelains, I would go to a reputable antique shop. Remember, bargain, bargain, and bargain. Offer 25% of what they ask for then work up from there. Never ever pay the price that they ask. I even did this in regular stores. It worked most of the time. The only places it doesn’t work are in the designer stores, department stores and friendship stores.

Yu Garden

Literally next to Old Town is Yu Garden. This is a classical Chinese Garden. It is worth a half-hour to walk around and see the rock formations, which are quite large and the architecture that blends in wonderfully to the natural surroundings.

Nanjing Lu
After seeing the old town shopping, go here to see modern day shopping. Nanjing Lu is a pedestrian street lined with stores filled with everything and anything. This is a professional shopper’s paradise. “Shanghai No. 1 Department Store” is on this street. It has 11 floors for your shopping pleasure, not mine.