Shanghai parks

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...

If you are moving to Shanghai with a family, you will quickly discover a pattern. Parents talk. They compare compounds. They ask about schools, green space, and whether you can actually get a proper grocery delivery without waiting two hours. And sooner or later, someone will say: Have you looked at Gubei? Gubei and the broader Hongqiao area are not the flashiest parts of Shanghai. They do not...

Every neighbourhood has a living room. The Former French Concession's is Fuxing Park (复兴公园) — ten hectares of plane trees, rose beds and gravel paths where, every single morning, the whole opera of Shanghai life performs: tai chi at dawn, ballroom dancers by nine, chess players holding court, a choir somewhere behind the fountain, and a man writing poetry on the pavement in water that evaporates...