Shanghai for three nights as a first timer.
 

I'm tempted to do a final trip on the UA 747's before they get retired at the end of October, and have a chance while out in the US at the end of next month.

Shanghai is the obvious option for me, as it ties in nicely with the need for a few more miles towards my 1K qualification, as well as a first opportunity to try the 777-300 on a PS flight. However, I'm nervous about commiting to it, as I know very little about the City, and the obvious language barriers that will arise from being a Brit who is totally hopeless with languages.

I understand about the need for a visa etc, but is anyone willing to share their experience in the same situation, visiting Shanghai for the first time.

How much of a handicap is it, not having any language skills?

Is navigating the public transport system relatively easy?

Are there any reasonably priced English speaking tour companies that can provide a snapshot of what the City has to offer for the couple of days I'll be there?

I appreciate that the City is now a major business centre in China, but not sure how geared up it is to foreign tourism. Any hints or reassurance would be much appreciated.

Go for it! Shanghai is quite easy for a westerner.

I don't speak or read the language and have been to Shanghai numerous times. Many places are accustomed to dealing with westerners, many (most?) street signs have the street names in English too, the metro kiosks have an English language option and the announcements on the subway are in both Mandarin and English, so getting around is pretty easy.
If you want to take a taxi, be sure to have the destination written out in Mandarin.

The only tour I've ever taken in China is the Shanghai "foodie" untour, which you can find and book on tripadvisor. I quite enjoy street food and small mom/pop eateries around the world, and will highly recommend that tour if you're also adventurous with what you eat.

I'll be in Shanghai again during mid/late September, but don't yet know exactly which days. If we happen to be there at the same time, I'd be happy to meet up with you for a beer or something.

mrjay. Thanks a lot for the encouragement and the advice.

Much appreciated.

Ditto the Untour - we did Night Markets (dumplings was sold out but a co-worker did it last year on my recommendation and loved it!)

I had a few trips to Shanghai in 2014-2015 for work and my husband came with me on my 3rd trip - his first trip to Asia -and he was really worried ahead of time, but loved it! He went with a guide the first day (he was alone for 2 days while I worked, and we hired a student friend of one of the assistants on my projects) but was confident on the subway on his own the next day. We have no Chinese language skills but still managed to do things like find the 3 story eyeglass mall and order 5 pairs of glasses:D

[we spent my work time at a local/Chinese business hotel but then transferred to Hyatt on the Bund for our "tourist time" - it met our hotel priorities and was a great location for us - but I have to say, the Chinese business hotel is on top of a subway stop that's super easy to access from the airport and HOTB is not ;-)]

You'll have no problems. Shanghai isn't all that difficult to get around if you don't speak the language. I lived there for almost two years (about to celebrate a year being home and am heading over in a week or so to visit) and I didn't pick up the language. The metro system is well marked in Chinese and English. There are few tourist places you'll visit, if any, that won't have English language displays. Most large restaurants have menus in English and if they don't they'll have pictures. Only the most local of restaurants will be difficult. There's nearly a half million expats in Shanghai and you'll survive just fine without heading to Laowai Jie (Foreigner's Street) every night.

One thing that will make your life easier is to be sure to take a copy of the hotel's address card when you arrive as well as ask for a tourist map. If you decide to take a taxi, the address card will help you get back to the hotel. The tourist maps usually have the big tourist locations written in Chinese so you can point at them and the taxi driver will know where to take you.

One evening I would recommend going down to the Bund (easy to access). Have dinner at Lost Heaven (reasonably priced, good atmosphere, bookings essential). After dinner take in the Bund with the lights at night, then go for a drink at the Long Bar at the Waldorf Astoria (about 20 yards away from Lost Heaven). The Long Bar is a restored 1920's bar, live music, great service, good cocktails and very reasonably priced by Western standards.

Have you sorted accommodation? You may want to concider somewhere like the Astor House. It's on the Bund, but a little walk from the main drag. It's an historic hotel with lots of atmosphere. Quirky though! But very well priced. Available on most booking engines.

Some great information. Thanks a lot folks.

At the moment, I've booked an "ultra sassy double suite" in the Metropolo Classiq at the Bund. Reasonably priced (£135 a night), for what looks like a very large room with a view, in the right location.

We took a boat ride from the Bund after dark, buildings with neon were fabulous

Thanks for the suggestions.

Have just got back from Shanghai and all I can say is that is is organised chaos. Of course, I didn't realise that I was arriving the first day of a seven day public holiday for Golden Week.

Getting through immigration was a breeze, in fact easier than getting in to the US and took the Maglev into the city to connect with line 2, intending to get off at Nanjing Road East, the nearest metro station to the hotel, only to find it was closed and we sailed straight through. Found out later that due to numbers of people trying to get to the Bund they closed the station at four in the afternoon every day. Ended up in People's Square totally lost, but thankfully a door man at the Radisson Blue helped get a taxi for me.

Spent the first day having a wander around, and headed over to the Financial World Tower, which had surprisingly short lines. Sadly, by the time I got to the top, the cloud had closed in. Not my day. For the evening, I did an Untour food tour, booked through Viator. Well recommended, a guide from Mexico City who had lived in Shanghai for seven years and took us to three back street restaurants from distinct areas of China, including the muslim area in the far north. Food was delicious and a group of eight from various parts of the world, got on well for the night.

Second day, and another Viator trip, which was supposed to be a half day trip leaving at 12 from the hotel to ZhuJiaJiau water village, a silk factory, buffet dinner and ending with a river trip down the Huangpo river after dark. I had a call from the tour guide the night before to say that I would be picked up at 10.30 instead of 12 o'clock, the reason it turned out was that the traffic out of Shanghai was horrendous and it took an extra hour to get to ZhuJiaJiau, only to find that the "quiet traditional chinese village" was absolutely packed, as it's a favourite destination for the chinese during holidays. The river trip down the Bund after dark was definitely worth doing though. Just parked myself on the rail with camera and photographed the skyline on both sides of the river.

Have to say that the hotel was excellent, the room immaculately clean and compared with the place I stayed in New York for the same price, like a palace. The only downside was the location in relation to the metro, particularly when Nanjing Road Closed in the evening, when taxi was required to get most places.

Would I go again? Maybe not in a hurry and certainly not in a holiday period. As I said, the place was organised chaos, fun for a short time, but being constantly shouted at by police and fighting crowds got a bit tiring.

Glad to hear that you enjoyed the Untour and your first experience in China.
FWIW the Peoples' Square metro stop is challenging even on the best days.

Thanks. I enjoyed it, but it did have significant challdnges as well. One thing i did find frutrating was the lack of access to website apps and functions that we use every day, such a google, instagram and WhatsApp, The hotel wifi blocked most social media, so the only access was data roaming via China Mobile, and that wasn't always reliable.

The guide on the food tour went as far as to say that from next Febrary net access will be even more difficult with vpn's banned and access to a lot of sites only available if you can prove they are required for work purposes. Don't know how accurate and true that is, maybe somebody can confirm.

What you are experiencing is the propensity of Chinese to build Great Walls, in this case, the Great Fire Wall of China. Internet traffic are filtered (censored?). To make this process easier, many sites with unacceptable content are filtered outright.

The way around this is VPN, but there are reports of resellers being arrested and shut down since this is an illegal activity.
To us VPN one need to be a few steps ahead of the game as a VPN you used last week might not be active anymore.

I have a HK based China Mobile service just for Internet communications during my China visits.

I came across another great wall as well, of Umbrellas. :-)

Trying to walk towards People's Square in the rain up Nanjing Road, with 100,000 umbrella wielding chinese walking the other way towards the Bund.

Lucky to get out with both eyes intact.

What was the turn around time for these glasses? Is it common to do blue-light coating in China/Shanghai?

Anyone know if this will be a problem the week / few days BEFORE chinese new year?

Chinese New year is the greatest migration on earth as everyone goes home in Shanghai, those that Shanghai is home, rich enough to go somewhere else. I flew out the last "official" day before holiday last year and will do that again, felt like a empty city, amazing how different from the week before where it is mass of humanity everywhere. Like I said the greatest migration on earth happens at Chinese New Year.

The following week I visited one of the historical cities and OMG wall the wall people all celebrating the end of festival. Couldn't have been more fun packed in like sardines and looking for eats.

I am visiting Shanghai next month from the 2/12-217 so during the new year. I had heard it will be pretty quiet there (relatively). Will most of shops, restaurants, and bars be closed? I'm staying in the Doubletree in the financial area. Is it difficult to get to the bund? Is it walking distance? I'm a walker :)

Great thread!

I wouldn't say that the DoubleTree is in the financial area. It is in Pudong but it's not in Liujiazui. You are near Century Park which does have a good amount of things to do but Liujiazui is about a 5 km walk.

Having lived in Shanghai, it will be somewhat quiet for Shanghai but there will still likely be some crowds. It's a 40 day travel period for Chinese New Year. While I was there, I traveled out back to the US since it's a week holiday. The water towns may be crowded especially now that the Line 9 extension to Zhujiajiao opened a few weeks ago.

While pollution may be "better" than it has been in past years, if you're not used to it it will tax you.

Thanks for the info. I had initially planned on staying at the Hilton, I was notified they are changing to another brand so this is why I'm at the DT.

How far is the bund? Quick taxi?

Yeah, the Hilton Shanghai changed at the beginning of the year. I stayed there back in September when I visited Shanghai.

The Bund is right across the river from Liujiazui. I would go to Liujiazui, see the tall buildings up close, go along the river and take photos of The Bund then head to the Metro and pop across though you can also take a pedestrian tunnel or a taxi. The Bund area is very crowded when it comes to street traffic. If time is not of the essence, I'd just take the metro.

I can't answer to the color coating question. It took us about an hour to get the glasses, once we had chosen, I think? Maybe a little less. Certainly it's a "wait for them" issue, not like clothing where you go back later....

Pick a hotel near a sub-way, with that you are close to almost everything. Almost every subway stop at the juncture of 2 or 3 lines have lots of amenities, some more local than other. If you are close to subway taking it to line 2 and get out at East Nanjing and the Bund is easy walk. Other things like the River Old towns, the Financial Center and a visit to the top of the Financial Building are all subway reachable.

Taxi is much lower cost in China than most other places I've seen. So cheap pretty much shouldn't be a worry for most westerners for the convenience if you can manage the language issue. The quality of the car and safety of the driver is something else all together. Note, I do 40-80KM/3-4 segments a day while I'm here for the past year and half only one near death experience. If you are going to use a taxi from hotel download DiDi. Didi now has English search / input and so easy to use. The challenge is every time I've used Didi the Taxi driver always calls to ask where you are even though the navigation ap says exactly where you are, a cultural thing. At the hotel it helps to have Didi as even there you could wait for a long time for Taxi but with Didi you might only wait 5-10', I've heard some of my co-workers waiting 20' at the hotel. Also at the hotel the attendant can always help you if the taxi driver calls. Now if you are out and about getting a taxi can be a long wait, and again Didi is the way to go. Just text them you are where the ap says.

If you're talking about Transitions type coatings, I don't think those shops can do it. I broke my glasses while in China and had them done at a Red Star Optical and they had to send out to have my lenses coated.

Interesting. Didn't know about those. However, I still would think that they're not available at the Chinese eyeglasses mall. They might, however, be available at the Lenscrafters stores in Shanghai but you'll likely pay a premium for them.

Will I be able to use facetime while in Shanghai? I hope it doesn't sound like a stupid question but I'm not sure what China does or does not block.

Tinder or Bumble? I wouldn't mind finding a wife while I"m there too.

Yes, you'll be able to use FaceTime. It's how I communicated with my family back in the US each week.

Considering Grindr, Scruff, etc. all work in China, I can't see why Tinder or Bumble wouldn't work.

Duplicate

Blue light / LED blocking coating has been available at all the major eyewear malls at all the major Chinese cities for over two years. It is a longer wait as the lenses needs to be coated after cutting and before mounting.

Thanks, yes - that's what I was referring to, didn't know lenscrafter had such a great explanation. I don't mind a longer wait, but think it will still be possible to pick it up within 1-2 days? Would it decrease your bargaining room?

My experience is usually 2 days. Ready morning of day 2 as the coating is done in batches after the lens is cut to fit the frame.

Tinder is blocked in China!

Tinder is blocked, but works with a vpn. It could be the Facebook login, but there’s also a Chinese Version called TanTan, if you’re into that

I use Great Firewall of China to check whether a site is blocked in China. It's in version 1.0, so it's not perfect.

It's run by folks from the Netherlands, if I recall correctly. Useful for getting an idea of what may work before you go.

Thanks for the heads up. I'll take a look at tantan when I'm there.