City Attractions

Let us start with a confession. When the Oriental Pearl Tower was first proposed, many people thought it would never work. The design was too strange. The location was too remote. The construction was too difficult. Thirty years later, it is impossible to imagine Shanghai without it. Here is everything you need to know about the tower that changed Pudong forever – from its unlikely birth to what...

Let us be honest. Before you moved to Shanghai, someone told you about the fake markets. A friend whispered about a secret building where you could buy a "luxury" bag for the price of a nice dinner. A colleague bragged about their "totally real" watch that cost ninety percent less than the one in the mall. Those days are mostly over. But the markets are not dead. They have just changed. This guide...

There is a corner of Shanghai where grey brick Shikumen walls meet glass shopfronts. Where an alley that once led to a family kitchen now leads to an Italian restaurant. Where the past was not torn down. It was redesigned. Xintiandi is not the oldest part of Shanghai. It is not the quietest or the cheapest. But no other neighborhood tells the story of the city‘s transformation quite like this...

Some places feel like they belong on a movie set. Yuyuan Garden is one of them. Tucked away in the middle of Shanghai‘s busiest tourist district, this 400-year-old garden is a time machine. One minute you‘re pushing through crowds near the City God Temple, surrounded by neon signs and souvenir shops. The next minute, you step through an ancient gate and suddenly the noise fades. You‘re standing...

Between the towering skyscrapers of Lujiazui and the sleek storefronts of Xintiandi lies a different Shanghai. Here, laundry flutters above narrow alleyways. The scent of sizzling street food mingles with the aroma of freshly brewed coffee. And around every corner, a new discovery awaits. This is Tianzifang (田子坊) . A warren of traditional Shikumen (stone-gate) houses transformed into...

There are tall buildings. And then there is the Shanghai Tower. Standing at 632 metres above Lujiazui, it doesn't just dominate the Shanghai skyline — it redefines what a building can be. It twists. It breathes. It powers itself. It houses a hotel so high that its guests sleep above the clouds. And it gets you to the top faster than Usain Bolt can run. If you live in Shanghai — or you're...