I have been to Shanghai a handful of times. I used to live within a few hours bus or train ride of the megapolis, affording me good chances to go there and explore and I’ve always found Shanghai to be an interesting mix of colonial history and new China, but also am usually put off by the city’s crowds, heat and general mayhem.

A lot of guidebooks will tell you that visits to Shanghai and Hong Kong ought to be done at the end of a trip to the Middle Kingdom since they afford less of a view towards “the real China”. I’m just not sure that’s true. I think Shanghai is really at the helm of China’s existence in the world today. It is messy, modern, dirty, smelly, exciting, busy, bursting with technology, haphazard, sometimes ugly and always beautiful. What better way to describe a country of nearly a billion and a half?

My boyfriend and I spent a hazy night on the train from Lishui, the small town where we live and teach, and arrived to Shanghai early, very early, on Saturday morning. It was Qing Ming Festival, meaning everyone and their dog was at either a temple or a hillside tomb paying homage to their deceased ancestors. The subway was pretty quiet save for the odd laowai in running shorts listening to an iPod.

We spent most of our 2.5 day trip to Shanghai walking. Despite the sprawling subway system (3 lines added since I was last there in 2007), most of the stops only get you around peripherally. Usually there is still a 15 minute walk involved in getting just about anywhere.

We sped to the top of the Jinmao Tower, foregoing the Pearl TV Tower since I’d been there a gazillion times before (ok, twice, but standing in line there twice is enough for three lifetimes). There was no line at Jinmao and it’s higher than the pearl. We had drinks at the rooftop bar of the Captain Hostel, overlooking the lights of the Bund and I’ve made a vow never to go back to the actual Bund again. it sucks. It is crammed with people and hawkers and stupid toys and crying children and boats and smog and cars and more people and more hawkers. Does anything about that scream fun to you?

We trudged through a lot of rain, as it was aptly rainy most of Saturday. We tried to get into the Face Bar at the Ruijin Hotel, where I have enjoyed many an expensive drink in its swanky Southeast Asian atmosphere on several occasions, but it was for some reason closed. We also found the elusive Irish bar - cliche, but the 60 kuai almost-pints of Guinness were totally worth the walk.

That was about it in Shanghai. Honestly - it is a city worth experiencing. It really is. But I’ve just never gotten accustomed to its size and overwhelming mass. Perhaps an apt metaphor for China itself - a place impossible to grow accustomed to.

*note: this entry originally appeared on my personal blog, gypsytracks.