I don't agree, I think Shanghai is completely different from Hong Kong. Hong Kong is basically a capitalist enclave that built up from its unique position as the only place to do business back when China was closed. It's still a big port, but the center of gravity of the Chinese economy is moving decisively away.
Shanghai, on the other hand, is an ancient trading city held back during communist rule but now allowed to develop again. The entire city is under construction and there is all sorts of stuff going on. It sits at the main access to the biggest commercial river in China, which serves the agricultural heart of china and scads of industrial development. The Pearl just can't compare.
A couple of visits to Hong Kong and I had pretty much seen it . . . it's a financial district surrounded by suburbs. Nice and civilized, to be sure, but boring. And the civilized veneer is wearing away as the memory of British rule fades. Soon there will be just as much spitting in the streets, yelling, pushing and shoving as in any other large city. The gap between Hong Kong and Guangzhou is wealth, and that gap is closing.
Anyway, Shanghai is so much more, it feels like a dynamic urban center with all the attendant tensions and interests. Definitely go, I think you will agree it's no Hong Kong. Right before the handover of Hong Kong the central government said that Hong Kong would be Frankfurt to Shanghai's London. The Hong Kongers were furious, but I think the analogy is apt.
Originally Posted by themicah
Shanghai's a great city, but not really all that different from Hong Kong.
You can get many, many places in China within a 3hr flight (at least those places with nonstop service, which if you can leave from CAN is a LOT of places).
Some suggestions:
Go to Guilin (KWL) and take a boat down the Li river to Yangshuo for a change of scenery. Yangshuo transformed from a fun backpacker town to a cheesy Disney-China 5-6 years ago (and Guilin gave up on having any identity other than as a tourist attraction a decade before that), but the boat ride remains one of the classic must-dos on any China itinerary. You can also rent a bicycle in Yangshuo and pedal through rice paddies surrounded by bizarre limestone peaks (or hire a pedicab or moto-rickshaw if you're not up for biking). It's absolutely beautiful.
You can get 1hr nonstop flights for under $200 roundtrip from SZX or CAN (several flights a day) or even ZUH (on some days). I think there's a nonstop from HKG on some days, too, but it's more expensive.
The Terracotta Soldiers in Xi'an (XIY) are on most must-see lists. The tourist guantlets that surround the excavations are horrid, but the soldiers themselves are very impressive, and Xi'an is an interesting city to wander.
Of course Beijing (PEK) offers tons of sightseeing opportunities. Between the big things (like the Forbidden City and the Great Wall) and the sheer fascination of the varied street scenes in different parts of the city (from the twisted hutongs to the massive Stalinist boulevards to the quaint campus of Peking University).
I'm partial to Nanjing (NKG), since I lived there for a year. It doesn't have the world famous tourist sites of some of the above suggestions, but it's a beautiful, pleasant city, quite unlike the industrial nightmares of Shenzhen and Zhuhai and whatnot. And there are definitely things to do.
Bottom line: go to your local bookstore and browse through the China books in the travel section. See what interests you. You're bound to find something.