China Travel Forum

[lobania]

Is spending a week in Shanghai reasonable?
Is there enough to do to actually keep it interesting or is a week simply too long for the city.
Oh and how hard is it to get vegetarian food in China-Shanghai? Will most restaurants/easteries have at least one vegie option or is it simply impossible.
(I have Europe-Shanghai with one week there, can't change the city or dates but I could just about still get the ticket refunded. I'm half thinking I should save China for another trip and time and instead spend a week on a beach somewhere nearer to home)
Cheers for your help.

[aynor]

It all depends on what you like to do. Do you like to shop? If you like to shop, you can stay here for a month and still have places to go. Are you looking for Chinese History? I don't see much of that here. There aren't many old buildings save a few temples and the Old City which is pretty touristy. New buildings here, however, are amazing. We have the tallest building in China- the JinMao Tower, the Pearl of the Orient Tower, and a bunch of other buildings with very radical designs. Very cool. I believe there are a few museums that are supposed to be good. There are also plenty of bars and nightclubs here and quite a large expant community. If you get tired of Shanghai you can go to Suzhou or Hangzhou which are within 3 hours away. I haven't been to either of these places yet, but from what I understand, they are beautiful classical Chinese cities. I'm planning on visiting Hangzhou this month, actually. I think you could probably occupy yourself here for a week. As far as vegeterian food goes, there are exclusively vegetarian restaurants here. Some are actually associated with Buddhist temples. Many non-veg restaurants offer things like tofu, but there is no guarantee that it won't be served without chunks of pork or chicken. So, unless you are proficient in Chinese, I wouldn't risk it. Hope that helps.
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china tour

[Guest]

There are numerous shopping malls all over the city, even though most of them are more or less the same.
Shanghai museum was pretty good (I heard it´s best in China) and worth to visit if interested in Chinese history.
A part of the Old City definetely is a tourist trap with Starbuck´s and other not-so-chinese stuff, but I also found an excellent flea markets there.
If you don´t have better to do, try Maglev train. It goes 431 km/h to the airport and back. The train is supposed to be the only commercial operated Maglev train in the world. Return ticket is about 80 yuans.
Never been in Hangzhou or Suzhou but like idiotsavant78 already mentioned, they should be quite nice places.

[kamal]

If you are in Shanghai for a week, you can also go for non-Chinese food--they have quite respectable Indian restaurants in Shanghai for example, and of course you can get vegetarian food there!
It isn't cheap though. Shanghai is a very easy place to spend money, in my opinion, but is a pretty fun place to hang out and wander the streets. I wouldn't NEED to spend a week there, but I certainly could. I also agree with #4--there are a lot of good places to visit near Shanghai. Suzhou isn't so great, but some of the other so-called 'water towns' bilt on the canals are quite nice.

[Jessie]

Shopping is good, so is the nightlife (at least compared with the rest of China). You can see most of the city's main sights within two days (personally I would recommend doing a cruise to the Mouth of the Yangtze -perhaps it is touristy and overpriced, but you do get a good sense of the city as a port). Once you've done these I'd go and visit Suzhou (just over an hour away, famed for its beautiful gardens), Hangzhou (about 3 hours away, one of China's most beautiful cities) and Nanjing (3 hours away, former Imperial and Kuomintang capital, with a few interesting sights scattered around, and an enormous city wall).
For vegetarian food go to Gongdelin on Nanjing Xi Lu, one of the oldest and most famous vegetarian restaurants in Shanghai. Generally speaking in normal Chinese restaurants there is a tendency to put little bits of unidentified meat into your food, this isn't the case in vegetarian restaurants, but is the general for most places -don't eat anything that you can't see into (e.g. dumplings, etc)

[haphson]

Hangzhou is my favourite city in all of China - except when it is very hot (like now) or at public holiday time.it is really creater-for-tour city Most of the attractions are centred round West Lake & are FREE. It is only 2 hours by train from Shanghai so you you spend a day or better still 2-3 days there (and save money because it is so cheap). My favourite hostel is the YHA beside West Lake (Hangzhou Mingtown YHA) which you can book through Hostelworld or HI.