I made my first trip to Shanghai in 2003, a journey that involved a train, a bus and a boat down the Yangtze River from Kunming, Yunnan province.
Shanghai seemed quaintly charming to an English teacher living in Fujian province, yet impossibly grand and intoxicating. Eight years on - aeons in the life of the rapidly expanding mainland - and the city, particularly the historic Bund, is even more spectacular, having been reborn in a former image.
Take the Peace Hotel, which began life as the Cathay. Overlooking the Huangpu River, it was completed in 1929 by Victor Sassoon, a British citizen of Iraqi-Jewish descent who founded a Shanghai business empire built on real estate. The luxurious property epitomised the art-deco style of the day. Bouts of political upheaval took their toll on the Cathay and the rundown hotel was renamed by the communist government, after it came to power in 1949.
Last August, following a US$60 million-plus, three-year restoration, the hotel reopened under the management of international chain Fairmont Hotel & Resorts.
Through the hotel's revolving doors is the octagonal lobby, with its domed-cathedral-like feel. The stained-glass atrium roof had been hidden behind a fake ceiling, erected when the space was used as a shopping centre, but copper-tinted light once again spills down.
On the eighth floor is the Dragon Phoenix restaurant. Its decor, reminiscent of the Forbidden City, was designed to appeal to tourists. To protect the elaborate ceiling motifs from harm during the decade-long Cultural Revolution, which ended in 1976, restaurant staff covered them with plain paper. Today, guests dine under the blue and gold ceiling, among red and mint-green columns.