Now On To Shanghai
So far in April we had spent four nights in Italy followed by four more in France, plus another one night layover again in Milan on the way home. Now two days after landing back in Singapore we were off again, this time to Shanghai, China for a drug company meeting. It would be our second trip to China already this year, the previous in Beijing at the end of January and start of February. I hadn’t been to Shanghai before — We were supposed to go in 2019, but I absentmindedly forgot to get a visa and was turned back at Changi Airport in Singapore when we tried to check in. Visas are no longer required for Australian tourists so now it was time to make up for a missed opportunity.
Wednesday, April 15, 2026
We were staying at the Shangri-La and arrived at around 7:00pm, a chocolate pair of glasses courtesy of the drug company waiting on the table in our room for us to gnaw on, as well as a bizarre-looking fire safety mask on hand just in case. We scoffed down the chocolates and went out to look for some food, passing a high school with an electric fence running all the way along the top of a high wall and that wasn’t a one off either, all of the schools we would see seemed to have them. We eventually found ourselves at a restaurant where the food looked really good, but although her spoken Chinese isn’t bad, Anna can’t read it so we had to resort to Google Translate, leading us to some odd choices. I’m fairly certain “Weird flavoured shrimp” wasn’t exactly what was written on the menu, but what we ordered was all great, another pattern that would occur over the coming days, but I don’t think Anna will find another drink with a butterfly frozen inside the ice cube.
When we were done eating there was a Goose Island Brewhouse down the road that inexplicably had a display with hundreds of paintbrushes hanging from the ceiling, mostly red. Cash hasn’t really been used at all in China for quite a while now, you just scan a QR code and pay with an AliPay account and there wasn’t really an excuse when a beggar came up to me asking for money. I gestured that I had no cash, but he just whipped out a lanyard around his neck with his QR code printed on it. I guess I’d just have to point out my phone is dead from now on. We pulled up a seat in the window at the pub and ordered a couple of drinks before deciding to get an entire flight so we could taste everything while we got chatting to a couple of local guys sitting nearby, our trip off to a good start.
Eating and drinking on our first night in Shanghai:
Thursday, April 16, 2026
While we had been looking around the previous night we had found a lot of cool shops that we had wanted to have a look at so that was the plan and just as well we had narrowed it down this area too, because it would be impossible to explore all of this over the course of a few days:
Shanghai is a provincial-level direct-administered municipality in China. It has a population of 29,558,908 in the urban area as of 2025, thus making it China’s most populous city and, more broadly, the fifth-largest city in the world by population. The city is located on the Chinese shoreline on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River bisecting the city.
*some vowels given the horns for your safety
That’s right, several million more people than all of Australia in one city. Fortunately for us we were staying in the Jing’an district, one of the city’s central districts so we’d be set for a few days with massive shopping areas, as well as plenty of bars, restaurants, and entertainment options. We also had no problem finding our morning latte either, because for some reason most shops had a small cafe inside, even the three-storey Adidas store. We love vintage stores and when I found an old Black Flag My War skateboard, one of my favourite albums, in a restaurant run by an old punk in Beijing earlier in the year I thought it was pretty incredible, but it may probably be one of few items of punk memorabilia in the largest communist country. Boy, was I wrong! There were quite a few vintage stores and besides a spot to order coffee, they all seemed to have racks and racks of old music t-shirts, especially punk and metal ones and some were really obscure bands such as the one I have edited above, right. Unfortunately for me all of the ones I wanted were mostly too small, but it was still great to have a look through them all and Anna found a few things she liked as well. We continued through the light drizzle along the winding, low-rise streets constantly stopping off at more shops and seeing many weird and wonderful things, such as an area of the footpath that was just old cigarette packets that had been encased in glass. However, despite dinner with some drug company representatives and other doctors already scheduled for that evening, it was after 4:00pm and we were getting thirsty and hungry so we stopped off at one of many craft beer places while Anna researched a spot to get a light meal, specifically dumplings. Almost as if it were destiny when we got to the shop it immediately started raining so we had no choice, to avoid getting wet we had to have some.
Around Jing’an on a wet afternoon:
We still had a few hours until dinner so we continued on past some unique-looking buildings and accidentally found ourselves in Tianzifang and it was an absolutely stunning surprise:
Tianzifang or Tianzi Fang is a touristic arts and crafts enclave that has developed from a renovated traditional residential area in the French Concession area of Shanghai. It is now home to boutique shops, bars and restaurants.
The district comprises a neighborhood of labyrinthine alleyways off Taikang Road, a short street which is today mostly known only for Tianzi Fang. Tianzi Fang is known for small craft stores, coffee shops, trendy art studios and narrow alleys. It has become a popular tourist destination in Shanghai, and an example of preservation of local Shikumen architecture.
I have no idea how we even found this place without knowing about it in the first place and even then it would’ve been difficult to find, especially considering this:
Tianzi Fang is largely hidden from the neighbouring streets, as it grew from the inside of the block outward, although there are now shops on Taikang Road itself. Historically Lane #248 was a key entrance that, in order to gain access to the commercially developed area, required walking about 50m through whilst be surrounded by local residents’ life, including bicycles, hanging laundry, etc. until finally emerging in the ‘new’ area.
It was really eye-catching once inside, however, even with maps on some of the walls it was impossible to navigate, but still we tried our best. The shops weren’t really our kind of thing, but just wandering around the lanes was nice until it was time to go back to the hotel and get changed for dinner, the only problem being that we did get hopelessly lost for a while, but we eventually found our way back out.
Dinner was in a fine dining restaurant and everything had been ordered in advance so we sat through course after course of fantastic food and once done went to a cocktail bar. It was darkly little with cocktail makers in bowties, not my type of place, plus I knew it was just going to be all medical talk the entire night so Anna and myself have an agreement in those situations that I stick around for a drink or two and then I find another place that’s more to my liking and she contacts me later when her cohorts are leaving. So that’s exactly what I did and the people that Anna was with don’t tend to stay out all that long so a couple of hours later she joined me at my new found bar for a drink while a weird laser show went off in an adjacent park.
In and around Tianzifang and some lasers shooting through a bush:
Friday, April 17, 2026
Anna had to attend the drug company meeting in the morning and then we were free to do our bidding for a couple of hours so we went to a slightly different area with a long street full of the quirky type of shops that Anna likes, complete with their own cafes, plus there were also a bunch of restaurants and bars once more. After being in and out of shops the whole time and passing a woman walking her goat down the road we found an even larger Goose Island Brewhouse so we sat down for a drink and discussed the evening’s plans. Anna had to go back early for pre-dinner drinks so she got a car and returned to the hotel while I slowly wandered back, finding more bizarre stuff as I went.
Eventually I arrived back to freshen up and meet up with some of our friends and other attendees to make our way to a different part of the city with a view of the skyline that people are probably more familiar with when they think of Shanghai, the Bund:
The Bund is a waterfront area and a protected historical district in central Shanghai. The area centers on a section of Zhongshan Road (East Zhongshan Road No.1) within the former Shanghai International Settlement, which runs along the western bank of the Huangpu River in the eastern part of Huangpu. The area along the river faces the modern skyscrapers of Lujiazui in Pudong. The Bund usually refers to the buildings and wharves on this section of the road, as well as some adjacent areas. This region has a significant European influence, with the style of many structures most comparable to that of European cities, particularly Gothic, Baroque, Neoclassical, Romanesque, Art Deco, and Renaissance architecture. Additionally, some of the city’s top eateries are located there. From the 1860s to the 1930s, it was the rich and powerful center of the foreign establishment in Shanghai, operating as a legally protected treaty port.
That all sounds like fun, but first we’d be having dinner at Cejerdary, a restaurant known for its hairy crab dishes, particularly noodles, so of course that’s what we tried to ordered, but unfortunately they had run out, probably the reason we were able to still get a seat. Instead we had to opt for the hairy crab rice and the staff were very precise with their food too, providing us with an egg timer for the exact moment the rice was perfect to eat and it didn’t disappoint. Even if it was the backup option, it was still absolutely delicious.
When dinner was done, it was time to have a walk around. Everyone had already visited the Bund in the past, but obviously it was my first time and the area was simply stunning, surrounded by beautiful, old buildings, countered by Shanghai’s incredible, modern skyline just across the river. We snapped our fair share of photos and then it was up to a pretty classy bar for more drinks and some industry conversation. I played by the normal rules, had a drink with the others before finding something a little more lowkey nearby.
Some bizarre stuff we encountered while shopping and then onto the Bund:
Saturday, April 18, 2026
Our final full day in Shanghai was upon us and Anna would be busy the entire day so I spent it all walking, covering at least 20 km (12.5 mi) over the course of the afternoon. As usual the first stop was a nearby supermarket to see what interesting things I could find in a grocery store in China, but besides a sign clarifying what a drink is and a giant tuna head and fins standing up among the sashimi, there wasn’t much that was all that amusing. Next on the agenda was to find some flea markets and there was one not far from our hotel right near an old temple, however, there wasn’t really much there for me so because the weather was perfect I decided just to spend the afternoon walking around, cutting through parks, past historic buildings, and also back through some shopping areas, some parts I had visited, some I hadn’t, and then when it was time I made my way back to the hotel.
After seeing two food delivery riders crash into each other along the way we went to another nearby restaurant for some great noodles, followed by meeting Anna’s Thai colleague and friend, Warapat, and his partner back at the Goose Island Brewhouse for a fun night. Upon returning to the hotel I opened the bathroom drawer to see if there was any toothpaste so I could brush before I went to bed and fortunately there was, as well as the remote control for the TV. A strange place to put it, but at least now we know.
Wandering around Shanghai once more:
So that’s pretty much a wrap on our time in Shanghai. We flew out on Sunday evening, but not before an elderly man excitedly approached Anna in the street to ask if I was two metres tall, before insisting on having phots taken with me, him absolutely ecstatic afterwards like he had just met a celebrity in the street, much to Anna’s amusement.
I’d probably be as excited as he was too if I found out I was returning to Shanghai, I love this place.
But we still weren’t done for April, there was still another major trip coming…
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