Travel diary: Shanghai 上海

I traveled to Shanghai in September for a short getaway in conjunction with the long stretch of holiday's we had over the weekend. My first thought is that since Shanghai is quite a rich, high end city, it should be quite expensive, whether it's the food or transportation. To my surprise, it really wasn't! Throughout the 5 days there, we spent about less than RM3,000 for flight (Malaysia Airlines), hotel (Green Court Serviced Apartments, includes breakfast every morning), transportation, food & entrance fee. We didn't go to Shanghai Disneyland la because we didn't have much time, because our main goal was to shop hahah + sight see a little la.

DAY 1 (NANJING ROAD & THE BUND AT NIGHT):

OMG I can't believe that Dylan Wang was just here like 1 day before I landed. I think I would have cried my eyes out if I saw him in person. OK to those who don't know who he is, he's the lead for the China version Meteor Garden & the time I went was when they just finished airing it so there were quite a lot of ads of them there. Anyway, it's okay, at least I was on the same soil as he was! :P

It was quite easy & straightforward to find the way to the train at the airport as there were plenty of signage. The trip to our accommodation was about 40-50 minutes but it was only ¥7 (RM4.20)! My tip is definitely to spend a bit more on your accommodation & staying somewhere that is centralized so you won't be wasting time travelling from one place to another. 

We stayed at Green Court Serviced Apartment which was walking distance to Shanghai's famous shopping street, Nanjing Road & sightseeing spot, The Bund. While the place we stayed looked a little less modern on the outside compared to the nearby Marriott hotel, the interior was very English & newly refurnished. The kitchen area was even in the cutest shade of mint green! Sorry forgot to take pictures but it definitely is prettier than the pictures on Booking.com. Plus, it's convenient & provides breakfast so I highly recommend!

It was almost evening by the time we checked in & settled down so we only explored nearby our place which was Nanjing Road. On our walk there, we came across 小杨生煎 which was one of the recommended food joints to try by my Shanghaies friends.

Their specialty was pan fried xiao long bao, but they serve soup noodles as well. I personally prefer Cantonese steamed xiao long baos because I don’t usually eat much fried, oily foods but it was pretty nice as well. My favourite pan fried xiao long bao was the prawn one. Funny in a restaurant, you’d assume the soup dishes comes with noodles but apparently some of the dishes we ordered just came with the soup. I saw a guy eating like 2 plates of just xiao long bao on his own so I guess they probably treat it as a main dish instead. Don’t be fooled by it’s size okay, the outer skin is quite dense & doughy which made it pretty filling. 

It was mooncake festival when we went to Shanghai so we were in a mooncake mood to try some of their mooncakes. It was like damn cheap, something like about ¥15-20 (RM9-12) for a big one. But it was not nice at all la hahaha! Maybe just not the kind we’re used to.

After about a 10-minute walk, we arrived at the ever so happening Nanjing Road 南京路. It’s known for its very European styled architecture with a stretch of shopping & eateries. Here are some of the highlight stores there:

• Shao Wan Sheng 邵万生 – Specialty local foods
• Hualian Commercial Building 上海华联商厦中联店 – fashion & accessories
• Shanghai Landmark 上海置地广场 – homeware, fashion, and accessories
• Shanghai no.1 Department Store 黄浦区南京东路 – an icon of the strip, China’s first department store, now featuring 8 floors of modern shopping retail therapy
• HKRI Taikoo Hui 兴业太古汇 – Impressive new mall, featuring over 250 brands, and loads of eateries. Also, home to the largest Starbucks store in the world, Starbucks Reserve
• Westgate Mall (Westgate Isetan) 梅龙镇广场 – mid-level price shopping mall covering 10 floors offering shopping, entertainment, and dining
• Shen Da Cheng 沈大成 – All kinds of desserts and locally flavoured snacks are sold there, among which, pastry balls are the most famous

If you’re there for luxury, high end shopping, you’ll definitely need a good full day or two. For me, I was more to the cheap but good bargains so I only visited Nanjing Road to take pictures & just to  enjoy the stroll. The walkway is very spacious with the occasional mini tram you’ll have to avoid, but quite a nice place to just walk about even on a crowded weekend.

OMG you know the KFC there had a friggin gourmet ice cream bar. The ice creams easily looked better than some café ice creams we’d get in KL. Ok this picture above isn’t from KFC because I bought this after seeing the KFC one…

Nanjing Road is nice to come twice, once at night & once in the daylight to experience a different atmosphere. Or you could just spend a whole day there which works too. I really like it there at night time, plus the weather was great, like cooling to layer a light jacket under summer clothes.

If you didn’t notice the Chinese words, you’d probably think this is New York right?! Peace Hotel has been there since 1929 & has since been one of the iconic landmarks of Nanjing Road.

To get this shot, I had to literally squeeze past a huge crowd of people & you'd probably not get a shot with yourself & the full view without photo bombers unless you go during the wee hours or you pay for the photo service available there. Coincidentally there was a boat passing by which made this photo even more breathtaking.

Shanghai's Pearl Tower is sticking out from my head lol.

DAY 2 (QI PU LU CHEAP SHOPPING & THE BUND IN THE DAY):

Our accommodation was not very far (about 15-20 minutes walk) from Qi Pu Lu so we decided to walk since we've just had our breakfast at the time. The walk there was really pleasant as we passed by some very old school buildings. A lot of people cycle or ride electric scooters which were super quiet in which you wouldn't even realize its presence behind you.

The thing about going on a trip with women is there's a photo taking opportunity anywhere. No matter what age we're at, us girls will never change lol

I was super pumped & excited when we arrived at Qi Pu Lu! Basically this entire street has buildings & buildings with tonnes of stores that sell cheap clothes. Bring along a trolley bag if you're planning to do some hardcore shopping. Because this was like the main attraction for my visit to Shanghai, I've dedicated a blog post solely on the shopping & tips which you can READ HERE. Literally the cheapest piece of clothing I bought was only ¥10 (RM6)!! :O

There isn't much to eat at Qi Pu Lu so we went to try their fast food branch, Real Kungfu 真功夫. It was like heaven for me because their fast food was rice sets! Sorry but I'm a major rice bucket 饭桶. The set had rice, soup, vege & meat which came out to be about ¥19-¥25 (RM12-15). Pretty good for fast food pricing because burgers are already around that price & you won't even feel full enough.

We started shopping from 9am until 3pm, we didn't even go to every building because there was just way too much to see & we were all pretty tired from carrying our bags & bags of shopping. So we took a cab via the DiDi app (China's UBER / GRAB) to drop our stuff before we headed out again to see The Bund in daylight.

A different sight but also as beautiful.

I just love the European like buildings here, felt like I was back in New York again.

We ended the night with some hotpot dinner recommended by one of my mum's friend. We waited for a good 40 minutes but the food was pretty good.

Btw, I keep getting amazed by how high tech China is. By simply scanning a QR code via Wechat, our queue number was connected to our phone & we could just hang around nearby & have a notification sent to us when our table is ready. So efficient I cant even!

DAY 3 (YU YUAN GARDEN & OLD STREET):

With some sinful shopping done on our 2nd day, we decided to visit the historical garden in the midst of the concrete jungle - Yu Yuan. 

Yu Yuan is a historical garden that has been around since the Ming Dynasty more than 400 years ago. Even if you were only planning to shop in Shanghai, Yu Yuan is a must visit place because of its exquisite, beautiful architecture & layout. 

A little stop for some selfies

I would recommend to go early, like when they just opened their doors (8:45am) if you want to get a decent photo without photobombers because it got crowded real quick when we arrived. 

You’ll get to take pictures outside Yu Yuan along the old streets for free but to enter Yu Yuan itself is RMB50. 

Every corner is a pretty corner. 

I was pretty amazed by the attention to detail in the architecture from the window panes to every tile. Kind of sweet that Yu Yuan was actually built by a son for his parents to make their old age as pleasant as possible. He designed each pavilion & courtyard to be named after pieces from poetry. Read more about Yu Yuan here.

Everyone was queuing for this so I queued as well since it was a super huge xiao long bao. Was super disappointed by it though because the filling was soup & fat only, with uber thick skin outer that wasn’t really possible to eat. 😂

I thought it was the end of our shopping yesterday but turns out there were quite alot of shops outside Yu Yuan to shop from. We bought a lot of cheong sams from there in which you can READ HERE about it.

There are surprisingly quite alot of trees around Shanghai & I loved the rooftop gardens.

Before we ended our day with a mini fashion show in our hotel room, we had lunch at this cute restaurant that served really fresh rice noodles. Fresh meaning you can see it being made at their window display. 

DAY 4 (TIAN ZI FANG & XIN TIAN DI): 

This was what I meant by many trees in Shanghai. & alot of them are maple trees! I collected a dried up one for myself because it was the iconic symbol of autumn + I’ve always had a thing for souvenirs like this.

Before entering Tian Zi Fang 田子坊 already took so many photos.... 

Tian Zi Fang 田子坊 is known as a touristy arts & crafts area that was once a traditional residential area in the French Concession area of Shanghai. Don’t be surprised when you see hanging clothes & underwear as that is part of the decor. Tian Zi Fang is pretty big & has many mini alleyways with chic boutique, souvenir shops, bars & restaurants. Best to walk together as a group as it may be difficult to meet up with your friends later on.

You can even get your ma la 麻辣 fix with a shop selling prepackaged ma la. There’s even a shop that sells childhood snacks which brought back so many memories of mine!! 

I actually like yougurt ice cream more than regular ice cream & almost every mini mart had yogurt ice cream there. Its yummy goodness is packed with probiotics, that’s my kind of guilt free dessert.

There’s was a pretty alleyway with fake cherry blossoms but some decor didn’t fit the dreamy vibe so I edited it out lol. Idk about you but the perfectionist in me had to make it picture perfect hahah!

We stumbled across a food court at a mall, I forgot was it Tianzifang station or Xintiandi station but there were many people queuing for this economy rice / zhap fan kind of thing. It was pretty good! & the price was cheap too.

We were planning to go to Xintiandi 新天地 after Tianzifang but we couldn’t actually find where it was, even with using Baidu maps (Google maps doesn’t work in China). We asked around some bystanders & they were wondering why were we going there. Maybe it wasn’t open yet? Until now it’s still a mystery.

We came across this very modern, high end place though. There’s a mall nearby this place with super high end stores.

This was the closest thing we saw that looked somewhat like the Xintiandi we were looking for, except it ended in a dead end... We gave up our search after no luck finding it & headed back to the Yuyuan cheongsam place to get more cheongsams lol.

There wasn’t much going on on our last day as we only headed to a supermarket to get some local chinese delicacies. Apparently in Shanghai (maybe just in the city centre), most of the “supermarkets” were something like our kind of mini markets. Not very large scale & only sold the necessary items. We only stumbled across one wet market by accident & managed to get the aunty stuff the aunties wanted.

I know this isn’t much of a packed travel diary but the main point is the shopping, which you can READ HERE. & for thanking those of you who’ve made it to the end of my post, the above picture is a gift for you guys ahahaha! Much handsomeness I can’t even!

If you're interested in my Shanghai itinerary, feel free to drop me an email at kimmiemaey@gmail.com :)