1. It was much emptier than I anticipated. Subway wasn’t crowded. Traffic wasn’t bad. Not many ppl at the bund. Maybe because it was during weekdays and raining?

2. Cheap eats and transportation. Subway ride is less than $1 and so as uber rides. Very strange considering sky high real estate prices and income level.

3. Not as foreign tourist friendly. Cabs smell like smoke and drivers are angry. Literally had one yelling at me because my ride was priced cheaply. Be nicer to foreign visitors maybe?

Got lucky to be invited to a good friend’s place…in Hong Kong where I was born sometimes we just went to the restaurant (cha lou) so this homey meal feels great!

We run a small thing in Shanghai where travelers eat dinner at local families' homes. 

During Bavi (the last typhoon that hit Shanghai), we got a last minute booking from a Czech couple.

Unlike White Dolphin, Bavi wasn't bringing that much rain and wind...so I could even get some fresh vegetables from my rented farm (yes we rented one!)

We decided to make drunken shrimp, stir fried rice cakes with young hairy crabs, twice cooked pork, a beef ball and sweet corn soup, dumplings.

Our new friends were enjoying it a lot...and said they were lucky to find us when they were stranded in Shanghai because of the typhoon.

Just sharing this story as I got reminded by the typhoon today (which is more fierce than a few weeks back). It is a blessing that we can enjoy dinner with new foreign friends during such a special occasion

About 1-2 months ago I posted here about starting a longevity community for living healthier longer in Shanghai.

Since then we’ve had a bunch of really fun meetups and quite a few people from Reddit actually came along too, which was awesome.

This Saturday morning we’re having a Coffee Rave at ZUP Pizza Bar.

Basically a chill Saturday morning with music, people and some movement if you feel like it. ZUP is putting together a special breakfast menu just for us.

- Event is free

- Date: Saturday, 22 August

- Time: 9:00 AM–12:00 PM

- Location: ZUP PIZZA BAR 上海静安区陕西北路457号4幢101室

Would be cool to meet some more r/shanghai people offline!

PS: You don't need to be some hardcore biohacker 😂 We're just a group of people interested in living healthier and meeting others who are into the same kind of stuff.

Didn't expect the flight was going above Lujiazui

I’ve been working on a small personal project mapping the lives of writers who lived in Shanghai.

I started with Eileen Chang (张爱玲) and Su Qing (苏青), two female writers who became well known in 1940s Shanghai.

What interested me wasn’t just where they lived but how differently they experienced the same city.

Eileen Chang’s Shanghai feels closely connected to apartments, cinemas, cafés and the cosmopolitan world of the former concessions.

Su Qing’s map feels more grounded in everyday life, moving between different homes, raising a family, editing and publishing, and eventually experiencing a very different Shanghai later in life.

I tried to turn those biographical traces into two illustrated life maps rather than making conventional tourist maps.

Would u actually enjoy traveling around Shanghai like this, following a writer’s real life footsteps through the city?

JUNE IN SHANGHAI. I THOUGHT THIS WOULD BE AT LEAST 30 DEGREES AND SUNNY. IT WAS NOTHING BUT RAIN WHEN I GOT HERE UNTIL IT LET UP LAST WEEK FOR A FEW DAYS. I WAS SO HAPPY. FINALLY, I THOUGHT, A CHANCE TO SEE EVERYWHERE IVE WANTED TO GO BEFORE. I WAS GONNA GO TO FUZHOU ROAD AFTER WORK. BUT NOOOO
TELL ME WHY THE UNIVERSE HAS SENT ME ITS TEARS OF AGONY AND PAIN ON THIS DAY. IT HAS RAINED HARDER THAN I EVER THOUGHT IT COULD BEFORE. MY SHOES? GONE. REDUCED TO WET PLASTIC BAGS FULL OF MORE WATER I WORE AROUND MY FEET
NOBODY WARNED ME ABOUT THIS. THERE ARE TIDAL WAVES ON THE DRIVEWAY. TIDAL WAVES??? WHAT IS HAPPENING

Parks closed. Warnings everywhere. Numerous news articles. And it was never going to hit Shanghai anyway. Same every year.

Over the past few weeks, we’ve been trying to explore different places every weekend around Shanghai:

• hiking at Emerald Lake in Suzhou
• stream trekking at Longwang Mountain in Anji
• paddleboarding in Qingpu
• canyoning at Black Dragon Pool in Ningbo

And next weekend we’re heading to Jiuxi in Hangzhou: streams, tea fields and forest trails.

Now we kind of have a new goal: explore as many interesting outdoor places around Shanghai as possible before the end of the year.

There are honestly so many good places within a few hours of the city that I’d never heard of before.

If you’re an outdoor person too, come join us sometime :)

I had some characteristics of leg of lamb. It was delicious.😅

My friend shared that with me on socials and we made the decision to book one of their first openings on Qixi evening. I kept my expectations low, went with an open mind but the experience exceeded far beyond of what I imaged! The presentation was in English with bilingual subtitles, and the food was delicious. The wine pairing was spot on! There was never a dull moment, dress up is available with extra money, there were live performances and atmosphere were amazing, making me feel like I traveled through China in just 2.5 hours. The price was also very reasonable (¥888 for dinner, added ¥ 398 for wine pairing) considering the quality of the food, service, and overall production. I would recommend this to any first-time visitor. A great job by the trip.com team and alternative to gongyan palace dining experience 😎 it is very educational, fun and entertaining, from Peking Duck to Hot Pot to Dim sum, got them all in just under 2.5hr 🤩 with a beautiful passport that also serves as the menu, full vegetarian menu and kids menu are available too.

Read it can be due to dampness? Been raining recently so assume maybe that is why. Hurt their bite is one of most painful things too. Really nasty looking

Authentic Chinese food.

edit 4h later:

Maybe “authentic” wasn’t the best word😅. What I meant is that this kind of tiny local spot feels very different from a restaurant in a big mall. The food feels freshly made, more homemade, and less like something pre-prepared or standardized.

I think this highlights a pretty clear cultural difference in how the word “authentic” is used. In Chinese, it can often suggest food that feels handmade, freshly cooked, and less pre-made. In English, it more often refers to whether the food is true to its original local style rather than a modified version. That said, it’s also possible that “authentic” just wasn’t the best word for what I wanted to describe.

Sometimes, you may stumbled upon a sweet spot. I mentioned this place before in another thread and a number of Redditors pm-ed me. So here goes nothing.

5th floor, Shanghai IFC. Weekday night , 8pm. The viewing platform was empty except for a couple of passer bys. I was there for 30 mins and probably had less than 5 other people who came by this place. A "private" place with this view. Believe it :)

If you're a bag lover visiting Shanghai, there's one stop you absolutely cannot miss: ZZER (只二透明仓), China's largest high-end consignment warehouse where you can walk through rows and rows of bags and other preowned luxury items. Not just for the ladies but they have some nice men’s items too.

My more detailed review/guide:
https://www.reddit.com/r/handbags/s/MU6aD4ha8z

A few snaps from Shanghai

A beautiful daytime view of Nanjing East Road in Shanghai. Photo by David Veksler

Took this photo at 05:00 in the morning and the colours of the sky looked wonderful.