Shanghai — China Largest and Richest City: A Complete Tour

unfortunately they slowed it down to 300 km an hour which is still pretty impressive it costs 50 renman B and takes 8 minutes from the airport to the city very convenient and entertaining the most popular area in the city is the city's historic Waterfront area the bunt also known as whan and actually the Bund from Mandarin means embankment there's so much Western influence there's even a charge in Bull just like the one on Wall Street in New York grab him by the horns once the financial heart of the city today the bun is home to high-end restaurants and

hotels and the number of 1920s era buildings including the art deco peace Hotel completed in 1929 another famous building is the neoclassical HSBC building and it's served as the branch of HSBC which actually stands for Hong Kong shenhai banking corporation other famous buildings include the customs house chared Bank building the North China Daily News building and so many more most of these buildings were built in the 19th and the early 20th century by European powers as you can tell there is a significant European influence why is that foreign powers

mostly Britain had been illegally exporting opium from India to China since the 18th century China wanted to stop the opium trade because it was bringing nothing but social and economic problems to the country like the Whit's prediction but China lost the opian wars and was forced to open dozens of cities to Western Traders thus shenhai from 1860s to the 1930s was basically split into a Chinese half and a European styled Western half a rich and Powerful center of the foreign establishment op opting as a legally protected TR Port the juano river divides

the Metropolis into two parts hudong that is the east side and pushy that is the west side there are three ways to cross the river the first one is to take a ferry the second one is to go by car or a bus and the last one is taking the bun side scene tunnel of course this one is mostly for tourists and it costs 50 rman beat one way on the opposite side from the bun you will find luaj it's a peninsula formed by a band of the river that was nothing but Villages and warehouses some 30 years ago but since the 1990s L Jau was turned into the new Financial

District of shenhai thanks to the economic reforms initiated by leader Dan shaing today they call it the Chinese Wall Street 500,000 people work in luaj with an average age of 29 and A2 years 70% of whom have a master's degree or higher today leaj is shanghai's glitzy Financial District home to the shenhai stock exchange first free trade zone in mainland China shenhai aquarium fancy malls stylish bars with panoramic views and a cluster of super tall futuristic skyscrapers like the pink rocket likee Oriental Pearl TV tower this tower has 15 Observatory

levels there's also a revolving restaurant at the 267 M level another Super tall skyscraper is the Gin MAA Tower 420 M tall the shenhai world Financial Center 492 M nicknamed the bottle opener because it kind of looks like a bottle opener and finally shenhai Tower this is the tallest building in China and the third tallest in the world 632 M I decided to visit the observation deck at shenhai Tower obviously which offers spectacular views across the city besides being the tallest building in China shenhai Tower also has the world's fastest elevator which

used to travel at the speed of 20.5 m/ second but now they had to slow it down to 10 m per second because some people would literally bleed from the nose by the time they reach the top outside I saw some guys with a drone and I wanted to talk to them lying a drone in shenhai isn't impossible without a license can I ask you what you guys do don't now we are do the in uh building inspection so you can see the pilot land pilot turned out they're a drone inspection company they hook me up with some amazing shots and exchange for some randman be the city is

huge luckily shenhai Metro is also very huge it is the longest subway system in the world 508 stations 826 km in length it's twice the length of New York City subway Subways are just so clean so nice you guys believe we're in inside the subway but it's very easy to use and the trains are always on time look see the train is coming and in 12 seconds the doors will open 4 3 1 yes and the door is open you can buy a travel card and top it up or Betty it set up an alipay account and pay with your phone by scanning a QR code so convenient also alipe will help

you use the local Uber called didy which is much cheaper than conventional taxis if you're choosing a hotel I think anything online too is a great choice this line goes straight through the city and it's easy to get everywhere you hear it cool vision is in town downtown Shanghai Wukong Road you want meet us come here now let's meet my friends Henry and Kunal Henry is a local guy and Kunal is from India but he's worked in Shanghai for 7 years now both have lived in the US and both now work for Nike Henry wanted to take us around his favorite places in the

city and we started with the former French concession what is the French concession in the 1800s after a prolong struggle with imperialist powers China was forced to allow foreigners to take possession of designated areas in shenhai called concessions the French concession existed between 1849 to 1946 and consisted of upscale residential and Retail districts and was also the center of Catholicism today today the French concession is an area that is popular with tourists and expats and you can wander around for hours without feeling like you're in in

bustling Asian Metropolis wukan Road has the highest density of historic Villas so this is the wukan building it was originally built in 1924 so exactly 100 years from now yeah used to be called a Normandy apartment when that time like I mentioned there's a lot of foreigners people from France British they come here and then they used to be live here Henry wanted us to try some local Delicacies and we had a fantastic lunch at the Rose restaurant one thing you have to know about shenhai Cuisine is that it's sweet wow the chandelier is so impressive well

look at that we going to the first floor it's a busy place so first dish in sweet and sour pork you'll find it uh tastes very similar to S and sou Chicken in us and this one is a reddish but they make it in a very very complicated way so chicken sauce byall kind of like a tofu but it makes the vegetables and this tofu skin together so also the one I really like I really like yeah and the president beef to be honest my also my first time trying this I don't know why they call the presentent beef but we we we'll try and see how and Shrink with crab meat

also another very classical shanai Cuisine so almost every every person company I would recommend and you will find the F and the last one I would like to introduce this one I believe originally from sujo but it's sujo is very close to Shanghai so that's why also makes part of the shangai is the uh squirr uh Mandarin fish some in Chinese but why most foreign like this is because they make it a boneless most fish in China cooked are with some original fish had fish bones but this one no so you don't need to worry about that all you need to do is just to

cut it and then have a very good taste so get it for love okay thank you the check came to over $200 yes shenhai can be pretty expensive Henry and Kunal told me a lot about the local realities apparently when you try to invite a girl on a date she will ask you if your area code is 310 the first three digits of the ID number for people born in Shanghai if you're not shangan the remaining shangan will not accept you especially in the terms of uh finding a partner finding a partner but we could being friends being colleagues that's all fine other things are

fine but like finding a partner they start to ask you this question first are you 310 do you own a house something like that if no we don't need to go out for even for a date still mention if you're not 310 don't contact me speaking of girls and are you guys students yeah um just just graduated gradu what did you guys study uh dance dance major our major is all of you yeah oh cool very nice very nice and tell me what do you like about shenhai Environ makes it feel relaxed relaxing so since you're learned to dance can you show something show it's my heart

is it doesn't me wow Shen High move fast and stay caffeinated the city reportedly has more coffee shops than London New York or Tokyo shenhai is now home to over were 8,000 coffee shops so we had to have some local coffee the place we went to was called into the forest and they had amazing coffee and what surprised me is that they had edible cups you can drink the coffee and eat the cup afterwards no waste have you guys ever seen edible cups one hi and wow wow are you that hungry ooh it tastes like a cookie yes yes then we decided to go cycling around

the neighborhood for locals it's extremely affordable because you can get a monthly subscription for $3 hello all right I'm following you okay it's so enjoyable just cycle or walk along the tree line streets with an array of bars cafes restaurants and boutiques feel the real character of shenhai and it becomes clear why this is seen as the most livable city in China I'm riding a bicycle in downtown shenhai and that's the best means of transportations you can find you know no traffic jam go from one place to another and it's very very affordable after

that we took a taxi to another trendy neighborhood and I got a chance to talk to the taxi driver with Henry being my translator yeah absolutely what is he like about shenai what you like how much money can you make as a taxi driver uh he's you can't make too much money but the expensive is really high yeah uh 6 to 7K R&B a mon okay does he want to live in Shanghai um forever or he wants to move somewhere else uh yeah he's joking kind of joking about his age he said he's already old enough to move to around that's why maybe pdge is stay in Shanghai okay

wonderful wonderful yeah yeah yeah and the neighborhood we've come to is called cint so you guys see the Starbucks is in a shumin which is a traditional house for shenhai it's traditional shenhai architecture from the 19th century and it's like Stone buildings and you will see them in many parts of the city unfortunately many of them have been demolished over the years but some of them are still preserved as part of the cultural heritage and they're so wonderful once this area used to be a block of old Shuman buildings what is a shikumen Loosely

translated It Means A Stone Gate so this is what they call shumans right yeah it's a good representation of the 19th century architecture that was so ubiquitous in shenhai back then all these nrow alleys and it's so fun exploring them these shumin houses began appearing in shenhai British concession in the 1850s and 60s but now this neighborhood has been turned into one of shenhai most fashionable areas filled with restaurants shops and bars this place is popular at night because there are plenty of bars and uh young people love to hang out right I see

lots of fun already starting surprisingly this area is also the birthplace of Chinese communist party how ironic that one of China's most important communist sites is located alongside one of its most expensive shopping and Eaton areas there's even a name confusion if you look at the name of the subway station it has a double name we visited the site of the First National Congress of the Communist Party of China it's a small Museum located where the people who started the Chinese Communist Party first met to plan its creation you'll learn about the

Chinese history and revolutionary age and the modern PRC as a Russian I was surprised to find so many documents in Russian language that's because the balik Revolution in Russia played a huge part in spreading communist ideas in China nice museum biased of course but those who can read between the lines will find it interesting speaking of interesting okay guys I'm in Moscow all of a sudden but no I'm still in shenhai and this building is called shenhai Exhibition Center and it's built in the stalinist neoclassical style and it was completed in 195 55 to

commemorate the friendship between the Soviet Union and the communist China and in the background you see all those skyscrapers and they look like Moscow City so lots of resemblances I I bet I can trick some people into thinking I'm in Moscow most architecture in shenhai is very modern that's because buildings have a 40 or 70-year lease from the government most of the times they will not renew the lease and build something new instead if you need a break from all the hustle and bustle of the the city I have an incredibly peaceful and beautiful place for

you it's called ug Garden welcome to the Garden of happiness it was built all the way in 1559 during the Min Dynasty ug Garden reflects jingan Garden architecture it was built by pan yunduan a government officer who built it for his father as he was approaching old age this Garden has over 40 cic spots including civilians rock formations and ponds a centerpiece is the Exquisite Jade rock a poorest 5ton Boulder when you step out of the garden you'll find yourself in a bustling Marketplace set yuya and Bazaar in an old neighborhood with traditional

architecture and shops selling everything from dumplings to Chinese souvenirs it's always super crowded the city has many other beautiful Parks like Shen Botanical Garden it's the biggest Municipal Botanical Garden in China I don't know about you guys but I love visiting botanical gardens because they show you the variety of the vegetation that's specific to this area and this one has really good reviews so it has a large collection of thousands of plants including some rare species it was almost empty on that day because it was 37 outside so yeah these

cicas are so loud and I'm actually look at me I'm sweating because it's 37 outside okay Sentry Park is another wonderful Park it's the largest park of the city I was staying at Dorset shenhai hotel and this is the view that I had for my room pretty good Sentry Park is great for jogging or walking you will find people doing taii in the morning there's also a great track around 5 km which goes around the park and it's busy with Runners and joggers at all times of the day another cool Park is people Square Park but what makes it really unique is the

marriage Market yes a marriage Market paren sometimes times even grandparents who have the anxiety of their unmarried Offspring come here to trade information on their children and find a perfect match they come here to kind of advertise and find a partner for their kids and they advertise their children by state in which college they went to they are height their age and you know just basic information about them and if the other part is interested that's how they match and maybe form families it never hurts to learn a little bit of Mandarin nean sheny

yes hi you can speak English you can speak English people square is the largest Square in the city and it's close to the park it's surrounded by buildings like the shenhai municipal government the shenhai museum and many others in the past it used to be a horse racing course the main shopping district of shenhai is the East nanen Road nin donglu in Chinese so this place is like the commercial center of Shanghai so many stores shopping malls everything and it's always crowded it is the world's longest shopping district around 5.5 km long and it attracts

over 1 million visitors a day it's a street filled with shops eateries and lovely restaurants tucked away from above the street level hello guys hello guys what's your name uh my name is and my name is Tiki okay myl name is is okay she's my my girlriend I'm studying in tongi University and my major is uh aircraft aircraft manufacturing engineering so you you know what uh to that's impressive so it's it's it's very hard uh it's maybe I'm not not that uh that smart and it's really hard for me really impressive so you can you uh comedy comedy oh comedy

comedy yeah it's very interesting I what do you want to do when you graduate I can uh I don't think that kind of uh question right very clearly now okay so you'll see later yeah I will St later s okay okay what's what that I don't know what's the means of the S thank okay okay go I'm so bad how do you say how okay I'll improve my Chinese if you want to shop with some jewelry clothing or electronic gadgets that's the place to be you'll find all the major designers and manufacturers this road leads to the bun so expect a wave of other people to accompany

you but don't worry there are police officers to direct pedestrian traffic okay in a situation like this you have to regulate traffic because otherwise these cars would have no chance see that crowd and this is my crowd okay we're going in different directions see that crowd is going this way we're going this way West nangin Road is different it's not so crowded and it's more upscale with Lux residential highrises and trendy nightlife it's like North Michigan Avenue in Chicago or the Fifth Avenue in New York City Henry and I went to a popular local

restaurant let's see what we had for dinner if you see the QR code it's on every table and yeah just say scan and I open my we TR you see this picture you like this food you just click this button and then it's on the way these are shom ball also a very famous traditional like Shanghai style food so there's a soup inside it pork and a soup inside it so notice very full so they are soup inside it we dip a little bit of vinegar to suck the soup yeah yeah yeah yeah you see the soup is coming outside so but sometimes if you don't be careful it might be uh

like yeah too hot to eat so yeah chicken chicken yeah so in my country we don't really eat them why not why not very nice very juicy yeah you SE Chinese called CH cuttlefish and urchin okay let's add some vinegar sure let's rich rich flavor very good seafood we stir it first just to make sure everybody gets a fair piece and uh yeah U when kids are sick parents will ask you to eat kongi they so it's like soup yeah it's like a healthy way to get some food and energy so this one's called mango pamelo Sago and it originates from Hong Kong it's excellent It

Feels So Fresh like I'm eating real fruit so in us when I would study abroad notice people love to hand out have parties Make some noise but here you know in China or in Shanghai you know working day night like here people love to just sit here together order some delicacy delicious food and also very important have a tea to chat and to talk and although now it's almost 8:00 p.m. here in a working day as you can see there's still so many people in this restaurant maybe people have just already finished their dinner but they just love to sit here have

some teach chat and just make people feel relaxing and you can sit here for like a long time yeah yeah as long as there tea 3 hours right yeah yeah yeah find normal after this wonderful dinner we decided to go for a walk and enjoy this beautiful evening when the sun sets it's the perfect time to go on a river cruise on Haan pool you can take a fancy cruise with a dinner like this dragon ship or just go for a basic one for 150 renman B to get to the upper deck and get a better view is another 100 renman B this has got to be one of the most impressive

skylines I've ever seen it's incredible on one side you see the Modern Skyscrapers of L way and on the other the historical neoclassical and Art Deco buildings from the 1920s so captivating soly all right back to the bun wow just look at the cars no wonder shenhai is the wealthiest city in China see this coffee shop luck and coffee is a Chinese coffee company that was founded in 2017 it now manages over 9,300 stores and is surpassed Starbucks by the number of stor stores in China the Bund is so busy I've never seen crowds like that that's what happens

when you find yourself in a city of 26 million people I decided to visit one of the local restaurants I got some spicy beef I got some spicy beef Plum juice it's very sour very fresh I love it and I did not expect this I ordered uh just a sour and spicy soup but they brought me a whole bucket there's no way I can finish that this portion is a huge if you get the impression that there's too much food in this video you got to understand that life revolves around food in China they even say have you eaten instead of how are you there are so many showrooms

of local car manufacturers some cars look super super mod of course they're all electric by the way it pays to have an electric car in shenhai you pay nothing for a green license plate but for a regular one that is a blue plate it's somewhere between $5 to $220,000 just for the plate did you know that chenh highes dialect is unique from a Mandarin Chinese let's ask Henry so Henry I have a question I've heard that people in shenhai have a specific accent is that true kind of some people can just judge where your from by hearing to your accident so that's

amazing yeah can you give me a couple of examples how it's different from say uh the language in Beijing Beijing is like a r uh let me try my best okay kind of kind of even we call on same thing with a different name so like uh a grandpa they say it la la la yeah yeah but here we say why so that's kind of different what about Cantonese you speak Cantonese you understand Cantonese uh not really not really yeah but they also have some accent I can sometimes tell yeah yeah see if you have enough time you can take a trip to ju jaajo Asian Town heads up it's

pretty far away it took me 1 hour and 40 minutes by Subway if you go by Diddy it's going to take you about an hour we are in Ju Joe and it's a small town on the outskirts of shanhai it's very beautiful so picturesque it has a lot of waterways and 36 Stone Bridges and you can get a boat ride to enjoy a fantastic evening on the water of course it's a tourist town there's lots of restaurants cafes and whatnot it's a nice chill place no traffic no motorcycles and you can spend half a day trying local food and taking pictures I guess you can call it the

Venice of shenhai but I felt like it was a little bit touristy and overcrowded I can only imagine what it's going to be like during the weekend unfortunately the staff at many boat places did not speak English and were not very helpful or friendly got off work any other place no shenhai is not short at museums but if you have to choose one go for shenhai Museum it has a comprehensive collection of Chinese artifacts from the ancient times to the modern times but there's a trick even though no ticket is required you got to book it in advance and you have

you got to have a reservation which I don't and I only have 2 days left in shenhai and everything's been booked so I went to shenhai Natural History Museum instead it's a great museum but it was crazy crowded though which I think is often the case in China I particularly enjoy dinosaurs and many animals of the past especially the gigantic extinct animals can you imagine a bear of this size like the monster bear or the sabl too tiger now that's a good kitty of course you cannot visit shenhai without visiting its wonderful temples like Jade Buddha temple

it was founded in 1882 with two Jade Buddha statues imported from Yanmar by sea the temple now also contains a much larger recline in Buddha made of marble donated from Singapore another famous temple is jingan Temple it's located on West nin Road among mon flashy malls and residential buildings and this is the famous Jee and Temple and the original one was built all in 247 ad but back then it was located near suo Creek and in 1216 it was relocated to its current Place another famous temple is lonat Temple first built in 242 ad it is the oldest Temple in

Shan high and has a long history of over 1700 years it has a lot of unique architectural features of that time like the pointed rooftops and pagodas Central attraction of the temple is of course the six tiered pagodas which rises above the surrounding buildings a great place to see China meet in Western culture is the National Cathedral Church of China it has double spires and it's designed in the Neo Gothic style and it was built between 1906 and 1910 the church building was heavily damaged in 1966 at the opening of the cultural revolution red guards

from Beijing vandalized the cathedral tearing down the spires in the ceiling if you decide to travel within the country best go by train you can come to shenhai hona railway station and take a fast speed train to Beijing it only takes 4 hours and 30 minutes to to cover 1100 km the train travels at 350 km an hour the China's currency is the renman B which means people's money also known as the Yuan few people bother with cash these days most people use WeChat pay or alipe like I said it's a good idea to install those apps in your phone and use services

such as didy that is China's Uber and bike rental apps you'll find rows of dockless shared bikes in most streets and they're a great way to get around town how much money do you have to make to live comfortably in Shanghai if you ask me 20,000 R&B to the it's it's a minimum thing to live comfortably because the rent would easily run to like 5,000 or more and you need like 3 4,000 something for uh food and other expenses if you're not driving if you're driving you need like 30 35 yeah so 35 if you're driving if you have an house it goes even higher it

also depends on the area where you are planning to live so if you there are uh areas like minhan chingu those are basically the closer you get to the downtown of Shanghai the more expensive you need to spend the city feels incredibly safe everybody's so polite and humble nobody's eating food or jumping the turn Styles in the subway but my biggest complaint was the motorcycles riding on sidewalks that just seems so dangerous but you know notice during like downtown Sun Road they don't have a land specific spefic for bicycles because so tight limited so

you see some people have to ride it on the payments or some El some see that's my biggest that's my biggest complaint yeah especially the food delivery guys they ride like crazy they ride crazy they can kill you they rush time I'm worried for my safety honestly that's another way like us sometimes we get a benefit from them because we can order some food and they were delivered within 30 minutes for you yeah but but I don't like the part they break the rules yeah yeah now let's talk about stereotypes right do Chinese people really smoke a lot well some

do and some don't but the stereotype about Chinese people spit in public is true my taxi drivers never hesitated to spit out of the window I've noticed how many more young people are interested in learning English and practicing English these days hello hello what are you doing in shenhai uh I'm uh my home is in the Shanghai oh very nice very nice are you student you go to school school when you graduate in the future what do you want to be what kind of job a liar a lawyer okay very nice very nice okay uh all a English teacher our English teacher yeah

your English is good continue learning English okay yeah thank you thank you so much thank you very much hello one oh what's your name I'm B I'm I'm 8 years old I like to eat chocolate you love chocolate yes thank you thank you she here shenhai is so technologically advanced I've seen robots delivering food at hotels robots making ice cream and coffee and people purchasing drinks from vending machines by scan in their faces I was visiting in July and let me tell you it gets hot in the city during my stay it was between 37 and 40 C luckily many places we

have to stand in line are air condition all right I hope you guys enjoyed this video by shenhai let me know what you think in the comments down below and my next video is going to be about the capital of China Beijing stay tuned every