Shanghai Shortlist

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Over at The Observer, they just took a trip to our favorite Chinese city on the make, Shanghai and returned with plenty of tips. Of course, adhering to the proud traditions of the travel writing genre, there are plenty of references to a mythical past of opium, brothels and rickshaws, but some treats are buried amidst it that make us wonder just why we haven't been over to Shanghai yet:

We arrive at the hotel with time enough to drop off our bags and strike out at random into the old French Concession neighbourhood, where we spend the evening in a German brauhaus full of expats listening to a Filipino band play Abba songs. 'Does this mean all the foreign parasites are back?' Ranald asks, as we tuck into Australian rib-eye steaks with nachos and sauerkraut.

Best little known tourist attraction highlighted: The Propaganda Poster Art Centre. Best well known tourist attraction highlighted: The Shanghai Grand Theater, with "a fine, colourful evening of tumbling, vase-juggling and dubious employment practices involving unfeasibly flexible six-year-olds, crowned by a thrilling quartet of motorcyclists roaring in different directions round a spherical cage the size of a double bedroom."

View from the new top of the world, Ma! [The Observer]

[Neal Ungerleider]

Previously: Measuring Up to the World's Tallest Skyscrapers, Socialite, Meet Socialism, Equal to Ten Men, Shanghai Starbucks Snatched, Biting It in Shanghai