Shang-High

We bid Hong Kong au revoir on a gloriously-sunny day and enjoyed clear, unfettered sightlines from the plane window as we made our way two hours northeast towards Shanghai. Our descent into Shanghai, in contrast, was marred by a dense, gray haze that largely obscured our view. Given the reputation of mainland China's cities for harboring significant amounts of airborne pollution, we grew concerned about our ability to enjoy our brief time in the city. As it turned out, our fears were entirely unfounded. Shanghai's many charms were soon impressed upon us, and the air quality proved to be merely a minor nuisance.

Given Vik's fervent insistence on the matter, we ended up taking Shanghai's zero-resistance Maglev (magnetic levitation) train into town without fully having a sense of where our hotel was located. The ride from the airport to Shanghai's eastern border involved reaching a top speed of 430 km/hr (250+ mph) and took exactly eight minutes. But that was just the tip of the iceberg of our journey. Forty-five minutes later, armed with only a vague Shanghai city map and an American kindergartener's command of Mandarin, we found ourselves smack dab in the middle of a busy Shanghai subway station at rush hour scratching our collective heads like a couple of overwraught chimpanzees. It was only after sheepishly approaching a very official-looking military policewoman that our luck began to turn, and the astonishing kindness of Shanghai's locals became clear to us.

A passing commuter noticed the two of us feebly trying to communicate via a combination of slow-motion English and wildly-exaggerated hand gestures and took pity on us. He then proceeded to escort us from one subway line to another and then onto the correct train in the midst of a very crowded rush hour, all the while offering to carry Kaberi's rolling backpack for her. Fifteen minutes later, above ground, another gentleman sprinted across the street past oncoming traffic to ask for directions on our behalf when he didn't recognize our hotel's address. Two minutes later, a shopkeeper literally walked right out of her store's front door onto the street to guide us to the right turnoff in an elaborate six-lane intersection. Then, around the corner, two smartly-dressed young guys accompanied us for five blocks to confirm that we were in fact walking in the right direction.

Despite our fatigue, we found ourselves amazed by the generosity of spirit we encountered upon arriving in this bustling city. As a result of the experience, Vik vowed to henceforth help any disoriented visitor crossing his path back in the States. By her estimation, Kaberi regarded this as a nice, but potentially misguided, gesture as it would very much be a case of the blind leading the blind. Vik has chosen not to dignify this characterization with a response (a rarity for him).

Upon finally reaching our hotel after first navigating a narrow, dark alleyway teeming with working-class flats and then passing through a large, imposing gate, we took inventory of an authentic five-room, 1920's Art Deco mansion profiled in both the New York Times and the Shanghai Luxe guide. We found ourselves quite content to sleep in a living museum with art prominently featured in the lobby and antiques gracing guestrooms and common spaces. The uniqueness of the space went a long way in making up for the out-of-the-way location in the western edge of Shanghai's French Concession neighborhood, the lack of English-language customer service and the draftiness of our second-floor room (which apparently gave Kaberi carte blanche to steal much of her husband's precious body heat).

Thereafter, we headed northeast into the French Concession. The so-called French Concession resulted in the 1840's from the aftermath of the Opium Wars. Over the next 100 years (until the point when communist revolutionaries rose to power), the area's corrupt law enforcement helped to transform it into a den of ill-repute overrun by gangsters and prostitutes. Ironically enough, China's earliest communist organizers took advantage of the lax oversight of the French authorities to hatch the beginnings of their movement here.

We soon arrived at Shanghai's historic Xintiandi district where a farsighted Hong Kong developer restored and renovated traditional Shanghai middle-class Shikumen houses (characterized by gray and red stone exteriors and prominent front gates) to house high-end boutiques and restaurants. The attention to detail in the restoration was exceptional and we were thrilled to see a part of Old Shanghai retained for contemporary use (the local Starbucks was particularly striking). Nearby, we stopped in for a delicious gourmet Chinese dim sum meal at the highly-touted Ye Shanghai restaurant where we scarfed down the amazing lotus root and sweet-fried sunflower appetizers. We were so taken with the area that we returned the following afternoon to visit the Open House Museum, a traditional Shikumen house morphed into a turn-of-the-20th-century time portal.

On our second day in the city, we made our way to the Taikang Lu arts district to sample more restored Shikumen architecture. Kaberi especially enjoyed window-shopping and people-watching at the sundry boutiques, cafes and artisan shops of Lane 248. We had a brief moment of deep national regret, however, upon encountering a smug American woman loudly singing Broadway showtunes as she walked in and out of shopfronts. Suffice it to say that the Chinese tolerance for visitor boorishness appears to be nearly limitless. Noise pollution aside, the Takang Lu area represented a nice contrast to the endless high rises dominating the Pudong (eastern) side of the Huangpu River, to which we had relocated for a night at the tony Shangri-La Hotel. Before returning to the hotel, we stopped at Shanghai's acclaimed Bund on the west bank of the river where we partook in sunset views and bellinis atop the Three On The Bund building. A rather full day concluded with a meal at the hotel's in-house Japanese restaurant and a chance to watch the city light up below us from our 27th floor room.

The next morning, we returned to the Bund to appreciate the vivid Art Deco architecural detail of several prominent buildings fronting the river. Created in Shanghai's then-financial and cultural heydey in what was the British Concession, the architecture of the Bund stands surreally frozen in time at the point of the communist takeover in 1949. Walking around with our heads on a swivel, we were particularly impressed with the marble lobby of the HSBC Bank (where Kaberi surreptitiously and illicitly took a picture of a scene commemorating her beloved Calcutta) and the mosaic murals of the Customs House. Our visit concluded with lunch at the illustrious M On The Bund rooftop terrace capped off with a sinful pavlova.

Before rushing off to Shanghai's South Station to catch an afternoon train to Hangzhou, we took in one final attraction: the unartfully-named Urban Planning Exhibition Hall. Despite the uninspired branding, the UPEH made for a truly-remarkable sight. Comprising five floors, the exhibition hall has as its centerpiece a vast model of Shanghai as envisioned in 2010. In yet another amazing testament to Chinese engineering, city planners have managed to miniaturize the entirety of this dynamic city into the width of half a city block. Our trip to the UPEH neatly summed up our entire Shanghai visit, leaving us both completely enthralled by that which unfolded before us and craving much more time to fully savor all of it.