Visting Shanghai Now: It’s a Blue-Sky, App-Based Life

During a recent visit to Shanghai, I looked up through the canopy of the trees in the former French concession district and I understood that the sky was not the usual gray but a bright blue.

In a traffic crossing near Wakang MansionA centuries -old reference point reminiscent of the Flatiron building in New York City, the scene was strangely silent, while the can barely audible electric cars and the scarred bikes.

And along a particularly fashionable trait of Huaihai Road that usually attracted as many foreigners as well as the locals, domestic tourists walked along the empty garbage sidewalks.

After a life of loving Shanghai despite his pollution, noise and the mess, I felt like if I had removed my pink glasses just to find that the city had become pink.

Last year, China began to open after its long pandemic closure. He started offering programs without visa and trans-visa, creating all-in-one apps like Wechat AND Alipay Accepting international credit cards and educate hotels to welcome foreigners again.

In December, the country expanded and simplified The Visa program, which allows travelers of 54 countries, including the United States, to enter without visa for a maximum of 10 days if in transit in another country. (Standard level tourist visas, which require a consoled visit of person and allow you to stay longer, are still an option). It has also increased the number of cities of transit-visa entrance to 60 and now allows visitors to travel freely with each other.

Everything that is designed to make China easier to visit, but during my two -week stay I discovered a place that somehow was more difficult to navigate. With adequate planning and patience, however, visitors to Shanghai will discover an equally varied and sophisticated city in its post-blue character.

The almost total transition of the country to the life -based life has brought incredible convenience to the premises, but has also created a new barrier for travelers.

First, companies often had signs or multi-language websites; Now, almost everything is digitized and consolidated on the apps. I have the advantage of speaking Chinese, even if my reading skills are limited, but for most visitors, this turn will prove to be demanding.

As usual, I downloaded a VPN service before my arrival, allowing me to circumvent China’s “Great Firewall” and access to the websites blocked, including Google. I also added the messaging platform Wechat and the payment app Alipay And above all, they made sure they accepted my credit card before my trip.

Both apps are necessary for the most elementary functions, such as rides or ordination in restaurants. The first few times I pulled on Alipay for a transaction, scanning the QR code of a factory or letting them scan mine, the app was glitch and slow, but on the second day it worked – most of the time.

One day I walked TianzifangA labyrinth of narrow alleys flanked by Shikumen converted by the mid -nineteenth century Houses, a style of residence of the distinct courtyard in Shanghai. Some are still occupied by the residents, but many are now full of shops of crafts, contemporary art galleries and food stalls that sell everything, from the cakes of crab shells to fried stinking tofu.

When I tried to buy a Qipao, a traditional silk dress, the seller’s QR player would not have accepted my code. After multiple failed attempts, including a blow to the latest resort of my foreign card that no one expected to work, we both gave up. I would have offered myself to pay in cash, but I had not obtained anyone after most of the companies no longer accept it, a reality affirmed by the most humble street food sellers using Alipay.

Inside Alipay there are various other essential apps, including the move DidiQuite omnipresent that it is now impossible to greet physically taxi. The rides are so convenient-circus 200 yuan ($ 27) for an hour of an hour from the airport and often few dollars for travel in the city center-that I rarely took the subway. The use of Didi is provided with slight barriers for visitors: drivers are authorized to stop only in approved areas and confirm cyclists asking for the last four digits of their phone numbers instead of their names.

Many language problems can be solved using the translation functions of WeChat and Alipay, which interpret the features of the app, as well as images and speeches. I found the most useful tools in Hole-in-The-Wall restaurants whose menu would not have characterized English even before the pandemic. In a point of fish in ZhujiajiaoAn ancient water town transformed into the living museum on the outskirts of the city, the tool helped me discover dishes for which I previously could not have read the Chinese characters.

Other travel infrastructures have also been slow to adapt. Although the hotels have been educated to accept foreign cards, it is better to stay at an international brand or call to book a room in a boutique hotel to ensure that the payment process goes without hitches. Some online booking platforms will accept a card, only that the hotel does not accept payment on arrival. This, together with other changes, such as the now unmarried surveillance times, can feel discordant with the desire of the country of multiple visitors.

A new promenade

Together with growth towards the outside, Shanghai continues to create new character pockets in its centers. An example is Long Suzhou Creek, a tributary of the Shanghai central Huangpu river. The stream begins just north of the Bund, the walk on the promenade that continues to work as the focal point of the tourism of the city, home to a Jean-Georges Vongerichten restaurant and almost all large-name hotels.

For decades, the long Suzhou Creek areas hosted the Shanghai industry, which moved out of the city in the 80s, leaving the warehouses in ruins behind and a polluted navigable street. But a revitalization of $ 5 billion in the stream ended in 2020, and in its heart there is a 26 mile route that acts as a green connection that connects both artistic and new culture points.

At the confluence of the stream and the river it is recently open Regent Shanghai on the BundA 135 room hotel with golden interiors and views on the Bund Art Deco facades in the south, the glassy skyline of Piong to the east and the random charm of Suzhou Creek to the west (from $ 380 per night).

I spent a day by bicycle west from this point, stopping first at Rock federationA series of alleys flanked by red brick buildings containing galleries, shops and restaurants. At the center of everything is the Rockbund Art MuseumOn display genre works of Asian artists.

On my way to the new open PhotographicAn outpost of the Stockholm Photographic Museum, for lunch in his bistrot all day NunI have passed the former building for General Post Offices And the Sihang warehouse, an important site of the second Sino-Japanese war, which took place from 1937 to 1945.

I followed lunch with a drink through the stream Lady beer, A cavernous space flanked by refrigerators and touches of beers from over 50 countries, before passing an hour to wander through the lanes covered with graffiti of M50Where assorted tunnels fill ex cotton cottones and factories. The final stop of the day was 1,000 treesA complex created by the British designer Thomas Heatherwick that houses an exaggerated shopping center.

The other strongholds of the city visitors were lively but free from the crowd I was used to. TO YuyuanA garden of the Ming dynasty era surrounded by a bazaar and tea houses, the wait for the famous soup gnocchi Nanxiang bun cooked steam He took a fraction of the usual time.

The crowds were also scarce in the restaurant and the shopping center of Jing An, except for the Friday evening when I spent InsA new complex of nightlife in Fuxing Park. It offers similar access to a music festival to all types of places for a single altitude of entrance and it was a success after blocking with the places that want to dance more and spend less.

Growth access

For travelers who want to see more of the country more, it is now possible to reach most of the provinces of the country by train from bullet. I took the train from Shanghai to nearby Nanjing, such an easy and comfortable experience that seemed illusory.

Also Beijing is now only 4.5 hours by train, compared to the previous car trip or 2.5 hours. International travelers who take the projectile train for the first time must present their passport to the railway station in order to buy a ticket; The following trips can be booked directly via Alipay.

This new ease of access made me enthusiastic to return and see more of the country, but some of the remaining obstacles have left me to hear as if China’s reality has not achieved its tourist goal. (And the ubiquity of the surveillance cameras can feel discordant with the desire for multiple visitors.)

After two weeks, my mandarin was resuming fluidity, as well as my ability to use apps. The city under the surface felt just at hand.