GUIDE TO PHOTOGRAPH SHANGHAI part.1 — CESAR MENDEZ

Shanghai, one of the most prosperous cities in China, its rapid development during the 90’s has made this city an amazing place to live or to visit.

Follow me on this series of blog posts where I will be sharing my knowledge about Shanghai, a place where I had the great pleasure to call home for more than 3 years, a place full of contrasts, a place that saw my first child born, full of memories, good and bad, this is Shanghai.

As you can notice from my intro, Shanghai holds a very special place in my heart; it was the summer of 2013 when I first arrived to this enormous city, it was a humid and a very hot day, it was documented as the hottest summer of the past 150 years; I was used to hot, I come from a small town in the northeast of Mexico where temperature sometimes reaches the 50 degrees Celsius (122 F) and in combination with the humidity that the Gulf of Mexico delivers through its winds and crashes with the mountain chain (Sierra Madre oriental) that are located just behind my home town, these geographical conditions creates this perfect environment that makes it feel like a furnace. But Shanghai wasn’t that extreme of conditions, but there was something that made the heat of that summer unbearable, I don’t know if it has something to do with the haze problems that China resents so much or something else, but I felt it really strong, but like I said, I’m no strange of the heat, so, after a couple of weeks I was already used to it.

The weather during winter time it can get chilly winds, but on my almost 4 years in Shanghai I never experienced any extreme cold weather, on an average winter the temperature dropped around -5 degrees Celsius (23 F).

Moving around Shanghai is very easy, is one of the most well-connected cities that I have use its public transportation. I recommend the subway as your main way of transportation, it is cheap, avoids traffic jams and practically you will find a metro station anywhere within the city in less than 500-meter radio, it literally can take you anywhere in SH in a matter of minutes.

The newly opened Shanghai Tower deck view

The downside part of it, is that it could get super crowded in rush hour during Monday through Friday, and if it happens to rain heavily or a typhoon hits the city, avoid it as much as you can, on my personal experience, I happened to be on a very popular walking street called East Nanjing Rd. when this massive storm hit the city, it started flooding the metro stations and they were forced to stop the service meanwhile the storm passes, so the crowd was fighting to get into cabs but there weren’t enough for everybody, impossible to catch one, we decided to walk back home under the rain, we had no choice, after an hour walk a taxi cab stopped to get us, but he wanted us to pay him 200 RMB (by the date was value around 25 USD), I was still 3 kilometers away from my home, but I decided not take the cab because of the driver attitude trying to rip us off, luckily for us the storm got weaker, so I decided to check the next metro station and it was back on operation.

There are many famous places to visit in Shanghai, from cultural places like monuments or museums, to a more family environment like taking a walk in one of the many parks within the city, the culinary side where you can taste from local food or almost any type of food from all around the world that you crave, for nightlife lovers you will want to visit the most famous nightclubs in the world, or if you love to explore, like myself, you could just get lost walking around the ex-French concession, Lujiazui, YuYuan Garden or the bund.

So, if you are new to Shanghai, I recommend you to start exploring the essentials of SH, but what to do first? I usually take my decision depending on how the day looks, as you may know, most modern Chinese cities have a heavy haze problem, and Shanghai is not the exception, but its not always bad, in fact, I have the feeling that lately the situation its been improving a little bit, and it’s getting easier to have clear sky days, so, when I see a clear sky day I rather go city scaping, I go to Lujiazui, this is the Pudong part of Shanghai or the new part if you like, not so long ago there was not a single skyscraper on this side of river, but now it has become the ultra modern financial center of Shanghai, a never ending changing skyline, every year there are new towers being build. There are many buildings with a viewing deck, the most famous are the Pearl Tower (The Chinese TV tower), The JingMao Tower (very Chinese looking building) and the World Financial Center (aka WFC or the bottle opener) and by the date of this blog post the newly opened Shanghai Tower (the second highest tower by the date).

China Art Museum, one of the largest art museums in Asia

Looking at the Bund from the Pudong shore

My personal favorite is the WFC, personally I think it has the best view, of all the towers that I previously mention, this is the farthest to the east, so you get an amazing vantage to point where you can see the JingMao just beneath and the Pearl tower on the shore of the Huangpu river and then the Bund and the rest of Shanghai, a stunning view!

If the day is not that great (hazy day), then, you could try to visit the West Nanjing Rd., here you’ll find an amazing golden roof top temple called Jing’An Temple, is quiet and relaxing to visit. Just a couple of blocks from the temple there are many shopping malls, maybe you wouldn’t want to buy anything, Shanghai is super expensive, but inside you can find also supermarkets and restaurants if you like to chill after your visit to the temple.

Light haze over Shanghai, viewing the Jin Mao Tower from the Shanghai World Financial Center from 474 meters

East Nanjing Road, also known as the walking street

If you like the Chinese gardens you can visit the YuYuan Garden, is located south from the Bund in a place called Old Shanghai, it is basically a series of old traditional Chinese buildings filled with shops of all kinds, you’ll find souvenirs, traditional Chinese art paintings, tea houses, street food, you name it. It is a very popular place, so this makes it super crowded, and somewhere inside this maze there is a small pond with a zig zag bridge that crosses through and leads you to the YuYuan Garden entrance.

If you are into shows or cultural events, there are many events hosted in Shanghai like the WTA Shanghai Draw, Shanghai Auto show, China Grand Prix Formula 1, music concerts, and many others for you to choose.

As you can see, Shanghai is filled with a variety of activities for everybody to enjoy, I just named a few of them but the reality is that I’m not even scratching the surface.

I highly recommend everybody to come and experience Shanghai in your own skin.

Throughout these posts I will be talking more on detail about my favorite sites to photograph this vibrant and exciting city, so if you like to know more about Shanghai come and visit the blog to find the latest updates that will help you to get the photos that you always wanted.

Till the next time.