Shanghai for beginners

In October 2003, Garry and I travelled to China for two weeks. After spending time in Xi'an and Beijing we finished our first Chinese excursion as a couple with a 3.5 day stop in Shanghai. I was travelling on business helping my Chinese team pitch for local representation of a global account. It was also my first time in China’s largest city so, after working solidly for two days, Garry and I spent the following Saturday exploring central Shanghai.

My company put us up in the Hua Ting Hotel. When it opened in 1986 it was Shanghai’s first five-star hotel. Its grand staircase, glass-walled lift, indoor fountain, rooftop restaurant, and cabs waiting outside the entrance opened a whole new world for the Chinese. 

Even the hotel's name was carefully crafted to sound similar to a renowned global hotel brand. This led to confusion between the Chinese team and me as we prepared to fly to Shanghai. They'd constantly refer to the hotel as the "Hilton Hotel".  However, it wasn't, and never was, part of this global chain. Over the years I've encountered plenty of these homophonic translations in Asia.

Sadly, these days the hotel is showing its age with dated decor and well-worn fittings. The service was also a little haphazard at times, starting with an airport transfer we'd booked through the hotel. After arriving in Shanghai we waited more than an hour for a car that never arrived. We eventually gave up and caught a taxi into town.

Guided by our Lonely Planet bible, we made the most of our free time in Shanghai. After a hearty buffet breakfast, we caught the metro into the central city and spent the day visiting the Shanghai Urban Planning Exhibition Center, walking along the Bund, then crossing under the Huangpu River via the incredibly kitsch Bund Sightseeing Tunnel before venturing up the iconic, bauble-clad Oriental Pearl Tower.

The Oriental Pearl Tower is an impressive edifice. It was built in 1994 as a television transmission tower on what was, at the time, an undeveloped eastern shore of the Huangpu River. It rises 430 metres and it is dominated by three pink bauble-like structures. These include restaurants, viewing platforms, a small 20-room hotel, and its transmission infrastructure.

From the tower, we enjoyed uninterrupted views of the recently completed Jin Mao Tower, the bustling river traffic, and an austere Communist monument on the opposite bank known as the Shanghai People's Heroes Monument. Earlier in the day we'd walked along the Bund as far as this concrete edifice. It's a classic totalitarian monolith - one that leaves you baffled as to what its creators were thinking when they conceived it.

At 430 metres, the Jin Mao Tower was the tallest building in Shanghai at the time. It was also the first of three supertall skyscrapers that were ultimately built in a cluster in the Pudong district. During our visit, it sat in splendid isolation surrounded by vacant plots of land.

A few days earlier we’d experienced the tower up close. Chris, my China Country Manager, had taken a group of us for cocktails at Cloud 9, located on the 87th floor. One member of our group was a guy called Brian. He’d flown in from the San Francisco office to assist with a new business pitch. He was also looking to relocate as an expat. 

At the time we were desperate for reliable expat talent in China. As a result, I’d spent the week in Beijing and Shanghai doing all I could to ensure his visit was as smooth and memorable as possible. Of course, memorable rarely meant “seamless” but instead involved a litany of flawed logistics and misunderstandings. I was terrified he’d find the entire experience stressful and unappealing. However, I needn’t have worried. He and his soon-to-be wife happily relocated a few months later and stayed for four years. 

Our cocktail hour at Cloud 9 was a moment where everything went right. The nighttime cityscape was simply breathtaking. As I recall, it was one of the more hip, and exclusive, venues in town with a well-heeled queue waiting to enter. Years later I took my mother back to the same cocktail bar.

Decades later, two experiences still stand out about that first time in Shanghai. First, the Shanghai Urban Planning Exhibition Center. This extraordinary venue houses an enormous scale-model diorama of the central city. The exhibit fills a hall the size of a basketball court and features a facsimile of every building in the area. 

Occasionally, the room’s lights dimmed and windows in its miniature buildings lit up as if at night. The diorama also featured buildings and structures with planning approval yet to be constructed. It was here we first saw the three supertall buildings planned for Pudong. Over the years I’ve been lucky enough to return and watch each of them coming to fruition.

The second standout memory was our visit to the Oriental Pearl Tower. I distinctly recall exiting the lift we rode up to the Space Module, its highest observation deck. At a height of 351 metres, it's housed in the smallest of the tower’s three distinctive baubles.

As I marvelled at the uninterrupted view, I turned to share the moment with Garry, only to find him cowering against an internal wall. The observation deck's curving, floor-to-ceiling windows had triggered his moribund fear of heights leaving him unable to move any closer. We still laugh about it decades later.

Our trip finished with a quick stopover in Hong Kong. We landed late in the evening on Saturday, 1 November, and spent the following day sightseeing. I then worked on Monday before we both flew home that night. We finally landed in Sydney early on 4 November, after two hectic weeks on the road.

We spent most of Sunday exploring Kowloon. After a lazy morning, we caught an MTR train across Hong Kong harbour to Prince Edward Station. We then made our way back toward the water by wandering through the market streets of Mong Kok. Along the way, we took in sights like the Bird Market, the Goldfish Market, and the Fa Yuen Street Market.

Having been dazzled by Mong Kok on a previous trip I wanted to share its colour, vitality, and chaos with Garry. As you can see from the image above the crowds were simply heaving during our visit.  I must admit I cannot recall what we bought that day if anything. In the years since I’ve never been back to Mong Kok. Twice was clearly more than enough.

Once we'd had enough of the market crowds we walked to the Tsim Sha Tsui promenade. From here we took in the city's panoramic skyline before returning to Wanchai on the Star Ferry. On a whim Garry and I decided to finish the day with a ride up The Peak Tram. 

The tram is a funicular railway that takes you to the upper levels of Hong Kong Island. It starts from Admiralty, near City Hall, and rises to Victoria Peak via the upmarket Mid-Levels district. In those early years of business travel, I frequently stayed at the Bishop Lei International House Hotel in Mid-Levels, including this trip. It has the smallest rooms you can imagine but is surprisingly well-priced for Hong Kong.

The Victoria Peak observation deck is one of those classic tourist experiences. It offers a stunning panorama of the harbour and the skyscrapers of Hong Kong, a scene that inevitably appears in the photo albums of first-time visitors. I have a photo my parents took here more than 30 years ago, along with that of my first visit. On this occasion, Garry and I timed our excursion perfectly, arriving at the observation deck shortly after dusk, just as the city's iconic buildings were lighting up for the evening. 

As I look back, our return journey on the Star Ferry was probably the day's most memorable highlight. After an exhausting day in Mong Kok, it was wonderfully refreshing to watch the sun setting over Hong Kong's bustling harbour. I think the photo below says it all.