Shanghai attractions

There is a golden building on Gonghexin Road that locals call the "Golden Pineapple." It has a distinctly retro-futuristic roof, and for two decades, it has been home to one of the most successful live shows in China's entertainment history. The show is ERA – Intersection of Time (时空之旅), performed at Shanghai Circus World in Jing'an District. It premiered in September...

There's a moment when you're walking through Shanghai's Expo Culture Park (世博文化公园) that you forget you're in a city of 25 million people. The breeze comes off the Huangpu River. The trees are dense. And if you've just climbed the 48-meter Twin Hills (双子山), you're looking down at a panorama that includes both Lupu Bridge and the Lujiazui skyline. This isn't a park you stumble upon by...

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...

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...