Our guide has a smile so wide it’s uplifting just to look at her.

‘My name is Ping Ping. It means Safe Safe, or Double Safe.’

We’re in good hands for this visit to what will probably become the world’s most important city of the 21st century: Shanghai.

Our journey has been a good one, Virgin Atlantic Upper Class from Heathrow. It’s July the 8th, the morning of my fortieth birthday. I should be excited, thrilled even. It’s my first visit to China as well.  And yet, we still can’t quite get over what we left behind in London: a city shattered by three bombs on public transport. Dozens of people are dead. We only just made it onto the flight. It’s hard to be having a good time. Thank goodness for Ping Ping. This girl has charisma. She is quite a saleswoman for her home town.

‘Shanghai is a wonderful city,’ she smiles at us as we race along a large, empty highway to the centre of the city. No kidding!

I am going to spend the first day of my fifth decade 70 storeys up. Welcome to the Grand Hyatt, Shanghai; reception is on the 50th floor of the Jin Mao Tower, the crown jewel of the new Shanghai, the Pudong District.

This is a strange choice for someone who has developed an irritating aversion to heights which borders on vertigo. KB, however, is firmly in favour of aversion therapy, and I’m determined to go along with it.

The first glance of the panoramic view of Shanghai from the 53rd floor will make you gasp. Sheer awe replaces any kind of fear. Then it’s up another 21 floors to our room. In this more enclosed space, I have to confess to being somewhat fearful of approaching the window. It just seems beyond imagination that we will be sleeping soundly more than a thousand feet in the sky.


Before dinner, we head down to the ground floor for a stroll around Pudong. It’s all brand new, bright and shiny, big and bold - just across the river from the old town. This is where Shanghai is building its world financial centre. At the end of this century, if our species is still here, that’s almost certainly exactly what it will be. Old Europeans may not like what is being built in Pudong, these massive temples serving international trade and business. But I find it oddly comforting, this confident vision of the future. It’s certainly a lot better than the alternative. We have a glimpse of that in the English-speaking Chinese newspapers. There has been some sabre-rattling between the US and China over Taiwan. The Pentagon has produced a report saying that China is a strategic threat to American interests. The Chinese, in the most understated diplomatic language, have called this remark ‘very rude’. We head down to the walkway that runs along the river, and stop off at a bar where we are greeted with a Busby-Berkeley-style line-up of stewards rushing forward to assist. It’s early evening, and we are the only people there. We look across at the famous skyline of old Shanghai. I’m starting to feel this is a very special place and a very special day.

Soon it’s back to the Grand Hyatt and time for dinner at Club Jin Mao, very near the top of the 88-storey building. After a splendid meal of Shanghai delicacies, we move just one floor up to the very top for drinks at the Cloud 9 bar. The fashionable young people of Shanghai fill this extraordinary room. With floor to ceiling windows, it really does feel as if you are suspended in mid-air. We sit by the window and look out. A real cloud floats by. I’ve had too many cocktails to worry about anything now. It’s been one of the strangest 24 hours of my life. Midnight strikes. I am 40 and one day. It’s all downhill from here!

Ping Ping is full of beans the next morning. After all those cocktails, I am feeling my age. It’s also extremely hot in the middle of Shanghai in July. Nevertheless, as we head across the river, I am excited about seeing the old city. We are heading for the Yuyuan Gardens, a 16th century Ming Dynasty paradise with gorgeous pavilions, rockeries, cloisters and gardens. To get to Yuyuan, you have to pass through a little shopping area which is packed with local people out for an afternoon stroll. Once inside, the Gardens are much quieter and amazingly beautiful. Apparently Yuyuan was built up a Ming government official to please his parents in old age. It was almost destroyed during the Opium Wars with the west, but painstakingly restored and re-opened by the communist government in 1961.

We work our way back through the crowds milling around the shops to our car. The sense of just shoals of people coming at you from everywhere, whizzing past at a hundred miles per hour, is with you all the time in Shanghai.

The next stop is the city’s famous Jade Buddha temple, although Ping Ping cheerfully informs us that, officially, the Chinese have ‘no beliefs’. Once inside, it’s clear that at least some people do have those beliefs, as they sit praying at the feet of the main Buddha statue, almost two metres high made out of precious jade. There are a few different statues of Buddha here, my favourite being the Reclining Buddha, who looks very comfortable  chilling out in his own hall.

If you were going to live in Shanghai (which would be a great adventure for a few years), you would want to be in Xintiandi. This is the old French Quarter of the city, which has been transformed into a very fashionable, car-free district stuffed with galleries, cafes, great restaurants and beautifully restored stone houses. Property prices here are high even by western standards. We are dining in one of those chic places, called Ye Shanghai, known for its ‘inventive Shanghainese cooking’. We gorge ourselves on delicious prawns and duck in the bright upstairs dining room, while a jazz pianist tinkles away in the corner. It’s a memorable evening.

Ping Ping is determined for us to see a more traditional way of life outside of the city, so we spend the next day travelling to the old village of Zhujiajiao about two hours from Pudong. Zhujiajiao is a well-preserved water town, which you can sail serenely through on a barge, under a series of bridges which date back to the Ming Dynasty in the 1500s. The narrow houses of Zhujiajiao close in on you from all sides, endless amounts of washing hangs outside. This way of life seems almost untouched by all of the turbulence in China’s history over the past 200 years. I’m sure this is deceptive. We stop at a little tea shop along the way and drink a sweet, green concoction. The owner asks KB where his family is from. He replies Fuchien Province. For the Chinese diaspora, the mother country is still ‘home’, even after a hundred years or so away from it.

We head back to Shanghai via the inevitable tourist shopping outlets. Ping Ping seems determined to take us there, so I get into the spirit and buy a wonderful black silk shirt with dragon patterns on it. This will go down a storm in Shoreditch! We also stop at a massive tea warehouse. Given my addiction to char, I can’t resist buying some splendid and pricey Chinese blends.

Dinner that evening is special. It’s at M on the Bund, the legendary Eurasian location on Shanghai’s waterfront. M has become something of an institution in the city, even though it opened as recently as the late 1990s. You don’t come here for a taste of Shanghai. You come here for a wonderful view of the city, excellent modern European cuisine, and - above all - to celebrate Shanghai’s growing status as a world city. As a ‘thank you’ for being a wonderful guide, we invite Ping Ping and her friend, who speaks perfect English. A highly entertaining evening follows. After dinner, we sit on the terrace and soak in the view of Pudong across the river. Our temporary home on the 74th floor beckons.

On Day Three in the Jin Mao, I realise I am well on the way to conquering my fear of heights. KB’s aversion therapy is working! I understand this when I go to the superb gym and spa at the Grand Hyatt. I jump onto a running machine which is right by the window. You can’t see anything below you except air. It feels like your next step will take you right out into the sky. It’s fun!

It’s our last day in Shanghai, and time for some serious shopping. If the Chinese have ‘no belief’, they are crazy about retail! Nanjing Road is officially the longest shopping street in the world, and we walk most of the way along it on a wet day when - mercifully - the temperatures have dropped. It’s an experience in itself to walk along this street. My favourite was the multi-storied grocery selling the freshest local cuisine and, of course, tea. The manager of the tea department is like a French somelier. She expertly brews several kinds to allow us to choose our favourites. I could stay there all day.

We also stop off at No 1 Department Store, which was one of the few places you could shop anywhere in the pre-reform period. Now it’s stuffed full of goodies over 22 floors, but has retained its utilitarian communist name. It’s somehow strangely appropriate for the best-known store in what will become the world’s No 1 City.

Towards the end of the Nanjing Road, we reach our destination: the concert hall where we are going to see the local acrobats. I know this is something of a tourist cliche, but it’s in no sense a disappointment. The performers have the most amazing skills you will ever see on a live stage. How much dedication and training it requires to get to this level, I have no idea. I think it’s totally beyond the decadent west.

It’s time to for us to leave this incredible city. We leave Ping Ping at the airport. She has been a fabulous ambassador for Shanghai, and highly entertaining to boot. What this city will be like when she reaches her fortieth birthday, I can only imagine.

We flew Virgin Atlantic Upper Class from London Heathrow to Shanghai Pudong airport on July 8th, 2005.
 

Accomodation
*****
Service
****                                                                   
Dining
****                                                  
Location
*****