FOR CLOSE ON a decade now, China's premier mover and shaker has been reclaiming its stake on the future. Revolutions, cultural or otherwise, tend to slow a city down - or at least take the edge off its nightlife - and for the past decade Shanghai has been making up for lost time. Perhaps that much-vaunted 'Shanghai chic' is still a work in progress, but don't try telling that to the locals; they're determinedly turning their city into the place of superlatives it should have been all along. The result: a neck-craning melange of things old, new and borrowed. And, like any great city, the real attractions are not the kind of things you can put in a list of things to do - such as taking some time out to get lost in the narrow streets of the concession quarters.
The Bund
Nobody is going to dispute that Shanghai's greatest attraction is a legacy of the bad old days when Shanghai had a certain reputation. And there's also the fact that the long awaited face-lift (a wash would suffice for some the buildings) the area deserves has yet to happen. But from Pudong, or from the river, the Bund's hodgepodge of architectural styles takes the prize for Asia's best riverside cityscape. Start with a wander around the interior of the Peace Hotel - formerly the Cathay and apparently little changed in anything but a name - at the northern end of the strip and then continue south past the grand frontages.
Bund Tourist Tunnel
(5888-6000, 9am to 9.30pm daily)
We know, it's a tunnel, but - trust us - there are tunnels and there are tunnels. While some might prefer to be traditional and take a Huangpu River Cruise which, of course, provides views of Shanghai's superlative riverside architecture, it is also possible to take a futuristic trip under the river and gaze back on the 1930s from the other side. Of course, there is also the ferry over to Pudong at a fraction of the price.
