Impressions of Shanghai, China

Please note that details in the following may be out of date by the time you read this. This is especially so for any prices quoted here. Or in the standard legalise: "I provide no warrantee that the information is correct or that it should be relied upon in any way."

Day tour
My recommendation when visiting a new city, especially one with a different culture, is to take one of the standard city tours. Sure these can be a artificial and "touristy" but they generally go to places you would like to see anyway and they give a feel for how things work. The downside, at least, in Asian countries is they also tend to go to so called factory shops where they obviously are hoping you'll buy something. The day tours in Shanghai are no exception but so far are a little less commercially orientated than say Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, or Bangkok. The standard day tour went from 9am until 5pm, included a tea ceremony and lunch, all for 250 yuan which I figure is a fairly good deal.

Getting around by taxi
Taxis are easily the best way to get around, they are very cheap and almost always airconditioned. However, the drivers rarely speak English, the trick is to plan your days events and have your host or hotel staff write out the names of the places you wish to visit in Chinese. Present this to the driver as soon as you enter. Getting taxis from the hotel is no problem, hailing them on the street can take a bit of getting used to. The best strategy is to find a busy street and make sure you position yourself in a place where they can easily stop. Remember to always take the card from the hotel which will direct the drivers where to go for your return trip.
The first thing you will notice when driving in the taxi is the rather haphazard driving style. In particular, the way drivers cross in front of moving traffic (cars, busses, bikes, pedestrians) when turning left (they drive on the right hand side of the road). I was greatly surprised that there weren't more accidents, one part of the reason is the generally low speed everyone is travelling at.
The taxi fare starts at 10 yuan and rises quite slowly in 1 yuan increments. 15 minute trips seemed to rarely go above 25 yuan.

Trains
These are clean, airconditioned, and reasonably priced. The only slightly frustrating thing is that while the maps within the train are labelled in English (as well as Chinese), the ticketing stations at the stations were not. Hopefully this will change soon. Be prepared for a push and shove if you go during peak hour and also note you don't get given much time to get on and off. The frequency was incredible, there seem to be a train coming along about every 2 minutes.

Buses
The buses are certainly easy to jump on and off but working out where one is going isn't so easy if you can't read Chinese. They are very cheap, 2 yuan if it is airconditioned and 1 yuan if it isn't. I believe this takes you as far as you want to go in one direction. As expected perhaps, buses can get rather crowded at peak times. One feels rather self-conscious of personal hygiene when crammed in among other bodies especially during the hot humid summer days. (I've been told the best time of year to visit is Spring, around October/November.

River Cruise (Huangpu River)
There are a couple of inexpensive cruises that run for about an hour. They are good way to rest after strolling up the Bund and if you travel at the hot part of the year, they are airconditioned if you sit inside. They typically go to the Nanpu bridge before turning around. There is a dinner cruise in the evening aboard a lovely traditionally decorated ferry.

Jade Buddha Temple
This is one of the most popular temples and contains two jade Buddhas, the larger one is cross-legged (sitting) and the other smaller one reclining. The temple was built in 1882 in the Song Dynasty style. Photos of the main Buddha are not allowed by visitors but you can pick up postcards for a few yuan from one of the eager street vendors, I paid 20 yuan for a dozen different postcards and was still probably paying more than I needed.

Oriental Pearl Tower
By far the best way to get an idea of the size of the city and to get your bearings is to visit the observation deck of the Orient Pearl Tower, one of the tallest towers in the world. This is a rather popular spot it seems even for the locals so expect a bit of a push and shove into the elevators. On a clear day the views are spectacular and the full extent of the city is dauntingly obvious as the tall buildings stretch for as far as the eye can see.

Bund
The Bund is the name given to a long strip of classical European buildings on the Huangpu River, on the opposed side to the Orient Pearl Tower. The old buildings look like the architects were trying to outdo each other with the grandeur of their designs. Most of the buildings now seem to be the Shanghai headquarters for international banks. This is where the main river cruises leave from. There seemed to be a number of very reasonably priced clothing stores on the opposite side of the road from the river.

Peoples Square
This is a good place to spend a day, it includes the museum, art gallery, and theatre as well as being at one end of a major shopping strip. It is also conveniently located above a railway station.

Museum
The main Shanghai museum is located in the Peoples Square and is well worth the visit. It is a traditional museum, by which I mean it is full of real exhibits, typically of a traditional/historic nature. I recommend hiring one of the phones which delivers an English (and other languages) commentary on most exhibits.

Yu Yuan (Yu Garden)
This is probably the best place to pick up gifts and souvenirs of your stay. Note that the shop keepers here will quote prices as high as they think they can get away with because it is a common tourist destination, so be prepared to bargain aggressively. One third or less of the initial asking price is standard. The trick then it to find out the real price, my technique was to express a genuine interest in what you want in a couple of shops before actually buying (possibly from another), as you walk away they will generally shout out something close to the lowest they will accept. Of course the idea here is not necessarily to get the lowest price (unless you enjoy the chase) but rather a price you're happy with.
The usual pestering by "Rolex" watch sellers will occur here as at many popular visitor locations. No strategy I found reduced their persistence so you will need to try your own technique.

White House Gallery (French Concession Area)
This small gallery has some exquisite pieces and some of the artists still work on the premises,` which among other things means you are not supposed to make a lot a noise. Some of the items are for sale but don't expect bargain prices for they are mostly quality products.

Eating out
Eating out with the locals can be a bit daunting at first, there is often a rush to order/collect the food and rarely is there any English description, fortunately there are generally English numbers indicating the price. Faced with the choices of MacDonald, KFC, or a local place try and resist the easy options and choose the later. It is certainly going to be cheaper, more interesting (even if you aren't sure what it is), and probably much better for you. After a few, perhaps stressful experiences you will find it isn't so hard to point to what you want, perhaps after observing what other people are ordering. 15 to 20 yuan should get you a fairly good meal.
Going up a notch to the local restaurants and you will find there are usually English names on the menu but even if there aren't there are usually pictures which give a fair idea.

Science Museum
If you or your kids are into science and technology museums then this is an amazing place and at the time of writing it is just stage 1 of the eventual complete project. It would be hard to find it's equivalent anywhere in the world. It has 8 very large galleries and the only disappointing one is perhaps the natural history which consists of largely unnatural models of the plant and animal kingdom. The museum also includes a couple of IMAX style theatres. The food alley in the basement serves surprisingly good cuisine, mostly for 15 yuan per dish.

Shopping
As you can imaging there are shopping opportunities aplenty. Personally, it wasn't what I was interested in but I would suggest getting off the main streets and exploring some of the smaller alleys. These have the shops the locals use and the prices seemed to be a fraction of those in the main shopping areas. While I was told that prices of name brands were considerably cheaper I didn't consider the prices anything special.

Hotels
It isn't my intention to make recommendations but I stayed at the Galaxy hotel, it is 4 star, reasonably priced and very comfortable. If you ask for it the rooms have internet access in the form of broadband, they provide cables and instructions. The cost is 1 yuan per minute which is not cheap but about the same price as I've encountered elsewhere in Asia.
It should be noted that even though these are high quality international standard hotels, the staff will generally only have a very limited grasp of English. I am not putting this forward as a complaint (after all, even a trivially limited English skill is better than my Chinese vocabulary) but this is something a visitor needs to accept.
Not unique to this hotel (I have heard from others) is the service at the reception desk which is somewhat less than one may be used to in other hotels internationally. Certainly not rude but the staff don't seem to go out of their way to attend to customers, I suspect this is a cultural effect as I also found the airport staff bordering on surly.

Airport
If you have never travelled fast on land then I recommend taking the magnetic levitation train to the airport, it will whisk you along at a brisk 430 km/hr. Unfortunately it doesn't leave from the city centre, you need to take a taxi to the station first, but it does deposit you inside the airport terminal in airconditioned comfort. Cost 40 yuan.
The airport itself is fairly plain but huge both in length and internal volume. It's roughly divided in half, one for domestic and the other international. In summer the airconditioning doesn't have a chance of keeping up with the solar gain through the large windows that run the length of the building on both sides. My main complaint is that it is definitely not as comfortable as most other international airports, I wouldn't want to have a long stopover there, for example, there are now shower facilities.
If you happen to fly out at night, keep an eye out for fleets of squid boats (they are the points of light). As the flicker in and out of clouds, and given the lack of any depth perception, I am fully prepared to imagine they form the basis of many UFO sightings from air planes.