Originally Posted by
PTravel
Neither Mandarin nor local connections are necessary to get around Shanghai.
I'm not sure that any city conveys the flavor of China as a whole. However, Shanghai is a heck of lot more Chinese than Hong Kong.
1. I'd be careful about your first comment. In general I agree but it needs to be stated with caution. If you don't know mandarin, then yes you can get by but you need to be prepared. That means knowing your hotels name (or having it written down in Chinese) and then having the hotel help you with the cabs and make sure you bring a hotel card with you. I'd say about 95%+ of the cabs in Shanghai don't speak English, so if you don't have a card and don't speak Mandarin, don't expect a cab driver to speak English.
Subway is easy without Chinese, enough English in the stations to figure it out. Buses are another matter.
Buying food is mostly ok, if you don't go to local restaurants (which IMO are some of the best places to eat). In those places, not only talking is a must but likely there will be no English menu.
2. Depends on how you define Chinese. Shanghai is super cosmo, so I wouldn't let it represent China. But it is just a part of it, and there are many other parts.
Originally Posted by
anacapamalibu
Personally I would skip Macau, unless you are into asian gaming like sic bo or fan tan.
Having gone to Macau and spent two days there, I would agree. Cool to see, but not over HKG or PVG for the first time.