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Program 1: Cruise on the HuangpuRiver
A spectacular view of The Bund can be admired while you take a cruise on the Huangpu River during sunset, with champagne and jazz. You will get a glimpse of Shanghai today and yesterday. On one side of the river are Western style architectures dating back to the early twentieth century, and on the other, the landmark Oriental Pearl TV Tower and China’s tallest building Jinmao outline a new landscape of Pudong. The river tour takes about two hours. Chinese or western style buffet will be served.
In the 1930s, Shanghai became a bustling metropolis, the fifth largest city in the world, a city of an international legend and splendid modernity (“Paris of the Orient”). A brief tour to the Shanghai Film & TV Shooting Base, the most popular studio ground for movies about Shanghai in the 1930s, is simply a tour through the tunnel of time, and an experience of the old Shanghai comprising of trolley buses, jugglers, trendy people in 1930’s dresses, old lilong (lane) flanked by traditional Shikumen-style houses adjacent to fair European-style houses, beautiful Catholic churches and rippling Suzhou Creek, etc. A gala banquet, combining Chinese and Western culinary arts and accompanied by old Shanghai songs or acrobatic show, will fill the evening with romance and delicacies.
Spending a whole day strolling in some of the 23 museums in Shanghai would be a feast for the eye and mind. The biggest museum in Shanghai is the Shanghai Museum at the People’s Square, the city’s cultural zone. Known as one possessing “half the world of China’s antiques”, the museum displays 120,000 items in several showrooms that would almost make you lost in the long passage of China’s civilization. Standing across from the Shanghai Museum is the Shanghai Museum of Urban Planning, where you will be fascinated by a clear and broad picture of how the city developed in the past two decades. Other places worth visiting in the city include the Shanghai History Museum, the Shanghai Grand Theater and the Yuyuan Garden.
Even during the 1960s-70s, Chinese in other parts of the country would flock to Shanghai shopping, because “Made in Shanghai” brands always stood for high quality and there was always a broad spectrum of merchandise to choose from. Now with foreign brand swarming in, the image of Shanghai as the heaven for shoppers has been getting even glossier. Shanghai is where you can shop to your heart’s content. There are Dongtai Road for antiques, Xiangyang Market for fashion and souvenirs, and Nanjing Road and Huaihai Road , where major shopping avenues lined up by retailers of all kinds, for everything on your shopping list.
Tour 4A: Suzhou – a City of Classic Gardens
The cityscape of Suzhou still remains almost the same as it was planned and developed about some 2,500 years ago. About 60 classical gardens in Suzhou appeal tourists with their sophisticated layout and the exquisite art of gardening, which reflect a unique urbane culture that has nourished the city for centuries. No wonder Suzhou is praised as “the Paradise on Earth”. Silk products and embroidery are the best souvenirs you must not miss. Known as “A pearl shining in the Yangtze Delta region”, the city is only one-hour car ride from Shanghai.
Taking a leisurely Chinese “gondola” along canals through the “Eastern Venice” and admiring the two-story traditional houses, most of which date back to the late Ming or Qing Dynasty hundreds of years ago and are still inhabited by local families, you can immerse yourself in the atmosphere of rusticity. Mingling with the crowds, you can watch the locals crochet luminous-colored slippers or weave homespun clothes and sample some of the local delicacies from the street vendors. The town is 40-minute car ride from Shanghai.
Paired with Suzhou, Hangzhou is also known for its heavenly appeal. Its beauty is attributed to the legendary West Lake, which has been an inspiration to a large number of poets and painters throughout centuries in China. Around the lake are wooded mountains and many historic relics worth seeing. A trip to the Tea Museum and the Dragon Well Village，a small village nestled in the mountain that grows the most famous tea in the country -- Dragon Well Tea, is a must for visitors to Hangzhou. The place is about two hours by train and three hours by car from Shanghai.
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