HOMECOMING: SHANGHAI — AYC Inspired

The beautiful night time skyline at the Bund

Every year, I aim to take one big adventure. This time, a homecoming was sure overdue.

I was born in Tianjin, located in northern China. Despite being a tier 2 city, Tianjin is home to nearly 16 million people. For context, New York City's population is half that at 8 million. Even after moving to the states all those years ago, my family and I are still close to our relatives in China. In our family, we've always maintained a close connection to our ancestral culture, and we are so proud of it.

When I had a chance to come home this time, it dawned on me that I could not only visit my family but also visit Shanghai and Beijing, two of my favorite cities. Each has a different character; if Shanghai was your fashionable socialite cousin, Beijing is the more traditional grandmother who has countless stories to share.

Every time I return to China, the country has accelerated light-years beyond what I was ready for. For example, FinTech has exploded in China, and payments made via WeChat or AliPay is now so widely adopted that some farmers at vegetable markets now only accept those as forms of payment. They'll simply pull out a QR code for their account, the customer scans the QR code via their WeChat or AliPay apps, and transfer the appropriate payment. National institutions like museums and tourist attractions (including the Great Wall and The Forbidden City) only accept digital payments, often times putting QR codes all around the entrance that will lead you directly to their online ticketing site. It's as if every vendor in the states started accepting Venmo! The only problem with the system is that it makes visits to China extremely challenging unless you have a Chinese ID or bank account. Whereas credit card adoption is extremely common in the States (even Apple Pay is everywhere these days), China has largely jumped the hurdle from cash to digital payment while skipping over credit entirely. Thank goodness we had friends and family in China to depend on; the cash we brought (thinking we'd primarily use credit) was not nearly enough!.

Our itinerary was 4 days in Shanghai, 4 days in Tianjin, and 4 days in Beijing. To travel between cities, we took the high speed rail (somehow incredibly prolific and reliable in Asia). In Shanghai, we stayed in Pudong, just east of the Huangpu river. The hotel was fabulous and the surrounding areas were extremely metropolitan, but it felt more downtown (where people work and not where they stay) than I would’ve liked, so I would probably choose somewhere in Puxi next time. Of course, we went to famous touristy places like the Bund, Tianzifang, the French Concession, Yuyuan Garden, etc. Despite being really crowded, I’d highly recommend going if it’s your first time in Shanghai. Each are highly immersive experiences that can only be found in Shanghai and there’s tons of great food around. Speaking of food, the culinary scene in the city was amazing! If you didn’t know already, each region (and in some cases, cities!) have their own specialties, and in Shanghai, some of my favorite regional fare include 小笼包 (XLB soup dumplings) and 生煎包 (basically pan fried soup dumplings - I’d especially recommend Yang’s dumplings). These are a MUST try for anyone thinking about a trip to Shanghai.

Below are a few photos from our stay in Shanghai. It really is a magical city and I can't wait to come back!

*One quick note - I wish we took more pictures in Shanghai, but the camera we brought bricked right before the trip :(. Long story short, we ended up experiencing what it's like to negotiate camera service fees and we got the camera fixed! So there's more photos to share from Beijing in my next post :D

The cutest little pupper smiled at us on the street :)

One of the many museums for art in Shanghai. The “organ pipes” on the outside move clockwise and counterclockwise! Such a cool piece of architecture. They were featuring Yayoi Kusama at the time but it was closed the day we tried to go :(