After visiting Beijing, the Great Wall, Xi’an, Chengdu, Leshan, the Panda Bears and the Terracotta Warriors, it was time to visit Shanghai.

Without question, not only is Shanghai the largest city in the world, it is much different than other Chinese cities.  I can see now why it is so popular.  The architectural flare and design differences quickly hit you as soon as you enter the city.

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We were fortunate to secure a room with a view right on the Bund river at the Waldorf Astoria.  The lights, the enthusiasm, the energy of the people is quite a site to see at night.  Very unique and very safe.

It is hard to say whether the evenings or the morning sunrise is better.  The Bund hotels are awesome,  It is not like anything else in the world.  It tops both Times Square in NYC and the Las Vegas strip.

You could not ask for a better place to run in the morning.  I actually found local runners in China for the first time!  I thought running was not popular in China for some reason.

When running in the morning, you see the waves of people working the 1 mile long strip along the Bund to fix and change flowers before the sun arises.

The road is also updated before anyone wakes up to keep the fancy shopping district looking 5 star.

I don’t know if anyone knew, but they have the same Wall Street bull on the Bund strip.  Made from the same artist and there is a guard to protect it 24×7 — even in the middle of the night.

and of course seeing the run rise in the morning is a delight.  The picture is a little fuzzy as the pollution is clear (no pun intended) in this city.  It is very overcast with smog, but at the same time, we have not encountered ant breathing problems.  I took this picture from the old 1920s bridge which was famous in the Empire of the Sun movie.

Running around the world is always fun.  Some of my other favorite spots:

• Zambia
• Cuba
• Antarctica
• Greenland
• Oslo
• Vienna
• London
• Suzhou China
• Grenada
• Prague
• Singapore
• Zurich
• Budapest
• Karkow
• Warsaw
• Dominican Republic
• St. Lucia
• Seville
• Madrid
• Casearea, Israel
• Hanoi, Vietnam
• Hakone, Japan
• Dublin
• Haiti
• Hiroshima
• Rural China

After breakfast, we walked across the street to walk along the Bund.  What a surprise delight – the military patrol boat welcomed us as visiting dignitaries as soon as we got on top of the walkway!

We then got tickets to take the tunnel ride under the river to the other side of the city.

I know this intrigues everyone, so I took a video of the Shanghai Tunnel experience for you!

Once on the other side, we got a great view of the TV tower.  It is right outside the tunnel exit. Amazing design!

From there, we went to visit the second largest building in the entire world.  The Shanghai Tower.

The elevators are also the fastest in the world.  You can go up 118 floors in < 1 minute!  Some of the views are amazing.  Check out the Wandering Earth movie as it will give you a different view of Shanghai.

As you can guess, the views are incredible, but the pollution makes it hard to see far or take clear pictures.  That is why they must constantly clean the windows. Somewhat scary and somewhat hilarious, while we were visiting, one of the window washers was leaning out with a suction cup to clean a trick corner and then…the suction cub slide away and he almost fell out of the basket.  Everyone laughed and clapped (including him) when he recovered.

From there we went to visit the “old town” area of Shanghai to compare it to the new town.  Here is a great picture of both the old and the new in the same frame!  Lots of fun shopping in the old town area.  Highly recommended.

One thing that stood out to me in Shanghai compared to other cities in China is the volume of government messages and billboards promoting guidance and other messages.  Quite prominent here in this city.

OK – off to lunch and maybe a little shopping.  Check out the model I saw getting pictures taken by paparazzi when she got out of her pink Ferrari!

Check out the next post when we explored historic areas of Shanghai.