Dubbed as the New York of Asia, Shanghai should definitely be in everyone’s bucketlist. We rode the bullet train from Beijing to Shanghai and arrived on a rainy afternoon.

Here are the spots that we visited in Shanghai for three and a half days:

Shanghai Circus World

For our first night in Shanghai, I booked tickets through Viator to see the Shanghai Circus World. The tickets were only USD 23.90 each and it had high ratings on tripadvisor so I said why the hell not. It had high ratings for a reason because the show was spectacular! I actually felt all sorts of excitement while watching the show. The ticket says it all, Miss it and you miss Shanghai. 😉

There are also more expensive tickets if you want to sit in the front center but the view was actually already good from where we were sitting. The place is quite small so I think that you don’t really need to splurge on the more expensive tickets.

I’m not going to post videos of the show (because you have to see it yourself ;)) but just imagine that all these guys drove their motorcyle inside the huge ball below. I have never seen anything like it in my life and it was super amazing!

Yang’s Dumplings

This actually appeared a lot when I searched for must-eats in Shanghai. We had a Yang’s Dumpling branch near our airbnb apartment so we just ate here for breakfast. I actually love their dumplings! I wasn’t a fan of how the dumplings scald my tongue (It was very hot.) but it was delicious and it’s definitely worth a try. Also, plus points for their cool store interior!

Shanghai Disneyland

We had a magical day at Shanghai Disneyland on our first full day there. I wrote all about it here.

Shanghai Old Street

It was raining in the morning of our last day in Shanghai but it didn’t stop us from visiting Shanghai Old Street. It’s actually an area of shops which sell everything from souvenirs to food to toys to clothes to just about anything.

The best part about it is that everything’s super cheap and you can haggle at almost all of the stores. I actually bought magnets in Beijing for RMB 15 each and I thought that it was already a good deal. I was wrong. I found some shops selling souvenir magnets here for only RMB 5.  Some of the shops inside were a little bit more expensive than the ones outside just beside the streets.

We planned on going inside Yu Garden but it was raining and I didn’t feel like we would be interested in it so we just skipped it. We just went around the area and looked for interesting food options.

Our feet took us to a mini-foodcourt that sold these. lol These are soup dumplings and those are straws where you can sip the soup. It was super hot and I regret ever ordering it because it scalded my tongue. lol

This was the street where I found the cheapest souvenir magnets. The street’s called Jiujaochang Road and we even found a toy store here that sold a lot of interesting stuff. We spent more than half a day here and we really enjoyed going through the shops and haggling with the vendors.

The Bund

From the ancient Shanghai Old Street, we went to modern Shanghai. The Bund is truly a wonderful sight to see. I felt like I wasn’t in Asia while I was there. It was a little foggy when we were there so some of the buildings were covered by the fog but nonetheless, the view was still beautiful.

I wish we had more time to stroll around the area but our time was limited because the rain started to pour heavily and we had to go indoors. This place was such a tourist trap but it’s definitely still worth visiting.

Nanjing Road

A few blocks from The Bund is Nanjing Road. It’s a whole street of shopping malls which carry a lot of international brands. I actually enjoyed walking through the whole street and I especially love the lights at night.

We found this restaurant which served crawfish and seafood. I loved it there but it was a tad bit spicy for me. My mom enjoyed it very much though.

We ended our trip with a super delayed flight to Manila because of weather conditions which resulted in us missing our connecting flight to Cebu. It was quite stressful but after almost 24 hours of waiting and traveling, we finally arrived back in Cebu.  Good thing there’s now some direct flights from Cebu to Shanghai through China Eastern Airlines and Cebu Pacific. I really wish it was already offered when we went to China!

For tips on how you can apply for a China Tourist Visa in Cebu, just click here! 🙂