Nature
The Shanghai garden is a the most beautiful garden in the world.Covering 81.86 hectares, the garden has a diverse collection of Chinese plants, including 3500 species of local regional flora from the Middle and Lower Yangtze River are located in the gardens.The Penjing Garden is 9.9 acres in size.A penjing museum was added in 1995. The 5000 square metre Tropicarium was opened to the public in 2001. It is a conservatory with 3500 species of tropical and subtropical plants.
Top 10 things to see in Shanghai
1. The magnetic-levitation trainThis train ride from the international airport to the city is the a great thing to see in Shanghai. The train reaches speeds of 267 miles/hr, and the trip takes less than eight minutes. You'll be feeling a bit whiplashed, but that sense of disorientation hints at the fast-paced city that lies ahead. As of now, the Maglev doesn't extend to the rest of the Shanghai because it is just a prototype so the airport run is the one place you can enjoy the ride. Single ride tickets cost 50 yuan.
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2. Fuxing ParkShanghai is made for walking. Start your own walk in Fuxing Park smack-dab in the colonial-era French Concession, with its shady sycamore trees and stuccoed villas. In the park, you'll find grannies in pajamas belting out Chinese opera, and Mao-suited men taking their caged birds for a stroll. His house, which contains period furniture and books, reminds you of what Shanghai felt like during its first heyday. Afterward, wander the nearby lanes — past elegant mansions now subdivided into several families' homes, complete with outdoor wok stations and billows of hanging laundry — to get a sense of street-level Shanghai today.
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4. Shanghai MuseumGiven its much-vaunted 5,000 years of history, China's museums are, in general, a sorry lot. Exhibits are badly lighted, the English information often a jumble of incomprehensible nouns. But that still doesn't excuse the pathetic state in which most of the country's national treasures are displayed. The Shanghai Museum, located on People's Square, is a welcome antidote to all that's dark and dingy. You don't — and shouldn't — try to digest it all in one go. My suggestion: Pick one section, whether it's calligraphy or jades or ceramics, and dig in.
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3. Din Tai FungThe soup dumpling, or xiaolong bao, is to Shanghai what the chicken wing is to Buffalo. A delicate dumpling skin is wrapped around a juicy pork filling (or, in luxe versions, crab), and like magic, the dumpling also contains a shot of tasty broth. But be warned: All those famous local places listed in guidebooks promising to delight you with an authentic recipe? They're underwhelming. The sad fact is that the very best xiaolong bao in Shanghai are to be found in a sterile mall built by a Hong Kong developer. It gets worse. These dumplings come courtesy of a Taiwanese restaurant chain called Din Tai Fung No matter. Tell your friends you partook of Shanghai's greatest culinary joy. You don't have to mention the whole Taiwanese-made-in-a-mall aspect of the tale.
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9. JishiTrue Shanghai food is a world away from what you get at home in paper take-out cartons. The best place to try local eats is Jishi. The place is tiny and always crowded. The English menu is long and relatively incomprehensible. At the very least, order the following, even if you're dining solo: radish pickled in soy sauce tofu skin with mushrooms cucumber with aged vinegar sweet-and-sour spare ribs and minced dried tofu with wild greens. Those are the appetizers. Now, for the main courses: red-braised pork with bamboo shoots fish smothered in scallions and a stir-fry of Yunnan ham with an untranslatable Shanghai vegetable that tastes like a cross between asparagus and green beans. If it's crab season, definitely order the crab with vermicelli sheets.
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10. Vue BarShanghai is a vertical city, so you should climb up and enjoy the view. The aptly named Vue Bar, located on the 32nd and 33rd floors of the new Hyatt on the Bund, offers tremendous vistas of both the historic waterfront and Pudong, the futuristic business district on the other side of the Huangpu River that looks like it was designed by George Jetson. Members of Shanghai's gilded class like to lounge on the daybeds or, in the summer months, take a dip in the whirlpool on the terrace.
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