We weren’t sure whether we’d be making it to China on our travels as we couldn’t apply for visas before leaving the UK in January (as they needed to be activated within 3 months and we weren’t planning to enter China until June), and then the application process changed on the day we returned briefly to the UK in April and almost scuppered us. But after a few sleepless nights, and by the tightest of margins, we were granted 2-year multi-entry visas with a 90 day stay per visit allowed – collecting our passports from the Chinese Visa Centre in Manchester less than 48 hours before we were flying to The Philippines to recommence our adventures.

An uneventful 2 hour China Eastern flight from Fukuoka in Japan transported us to Shanghai, a destination chosen as (1) it was a cheap & short hop and (2) it would hopefully be an ‘easy’ introduction to China, an opportunity to get used to things and ensure that we could get all the absolutely essential digital technology working before we ventured deeper into China. Also, Steve had visited Shanghai on business about 10 years ago so it was somewhat familiar territory.

Shanghai Pudong Airport is super modern and ultra-efficient, and we’d cleared immigration, collected our bags, met our driver and were en-route to the city within an hour of landing. Steve was all for getting public transport but Debbie put her foot down and ordered a transfer through Trip.com – unbelievable value at £21 for a 50Km journey, and in a very flash SAIC Rising F7 electric car with a driver who was suited, booted and black-gloved (that did concern us a little). Steve was very impressed with the car and discovered that it is marketed in Europe as the MG9, although we aren’t sure if it is available in the UK yet.

Debbie had blown some of her remaining IHG points on 3 nights at Hotel Indigo on the Bund and was hoping that her Platinum status would secure us an upgrade to a river view room. Bingo! A fabulous room on the 22nd floor with a front row view of what we currently consider to be the most stunning skyline in the world (at night especially). Strangely, 2 gas masks (in nicely designed covers) were part of the amenities provided in our room – we’re not sure why.

We weren’t blessed with good weather in Shanghai, and made extensive use of the hotel’s brightly coloured umbrellas, so didn’t see as much of the city as we’d have liked. But what we did experience was amazing. The great metropolis is undergoing one of the fastest economic expansions the world has ever seen, and a very futuristic city has emerged, but with some stunning architectural examples of its colonial past. Shanghai’s residents apparently enjoy the highest incomes in mainland China, and there’s plenty for them to spend their hard end Yuan on – ultra-luxurious shopping malls, 5* hotels and Michelin-starred restaurants are in abundance.

We knew in advance that China is VERY digitally-enabled and now a virtually cashless society. Pretty much everything runs through AliPay or WeChat Pay, and we’d both dutifully loaded the apps, set up accounts, had our identities verified and linked payment cards. Being ultra cautious, we found that we could set up a savings space in our Starling bank account, which we called ‘micropayments’. We created a virtual debit card for it which we linked to AliPay and WeChat, and kept the balance below £100 (with automatic daily top ups) – thus limiting our exposure to £100. There was no way of testing whether it worked until we arrived in China, but thankfully both payment systems worked for both of us and are so convenient – either you generate a QR code which the vendor scans, or you scan a vendor’s barcode and enter the amount, and the money is automatically deducted from your card. Within the apps are a series of mini-apps which then link to other payment systems e.g. public transport, taxis.

After smugly using AliPay a few times we came unstuck – ridiculously on a ferry costing just £0.20 each. We couldn’t get the transport mini-app to work, and this is what’s needed to scan on/off the metro, buses and ferries by generating a city-specific transport QR code. There was no option to pay using standard AliPay/WeChat codes so we were stuck. They would grudgingly accept cash but didn’t have any change (as no-one uses cash), but we only had a 100 Yuan (£10) note and there was no way that Debbie was paying £10 for £0.40 ferry crossing. You’d have thought they might have taken pity on us and let us on the ferry anyway, but absolutely not, so we found a shop that took cash and had change, bought some beers and just about made it for the last ferry back to our hotel. At this point Debbie was wobbling – China was just too difficult with the language barrier, our technology issues and an unwillingness to help tourists, but while awake during the night she managed to sort out the transport app with the help of good old Google and a translator app – and in the morning everything seemed better and she was ready to take on the Shanghai Metro, the world’s longest.

So why were we on the other side of the Huangpu river anyway? We’d taken a journey from The Bund, under the river through the Shanghai Tourist Tunnel – a 5 minute ride in a little maglev pod through an immersive sound and light display – and then wandered half an hour down the opposite bank on the edge of the Pudong area, straining our necks when looking upwards at the magnificent skyscrapers, to the ferry terminal. Once we were transport-technology enabled, we came back to this side of the river by metro – again ultra modern and efficient for the princely sum of 3 Yuan (£0.30 each). So a world leading transport system that puts the London Tube to shame for a fraction of London’s prices!

The Shanghai Tower (3rd tallest building in the world) was directly across the river from our hotel, and when the clouds cleared we got an incredible view of it from our bedroom window, and going up to the observation deck on the 119th floor in the world’s fastest elevator was obviously in our plan. It would’ve been perfect to have got a clear day for it, but sadly that wasn’t to be. At the ticket office they warned us that the fog was thick and there was nothing to see, but it was our last opportunity and so we went up anyway. We might not have got the 50-miles-in-every-direction view, taking in the whole Shanghai metropolis that houses 23 million people, but we did get some views, particularly down to the old city now enclosed by tall buildings and wondered how long it’d be before it too became another skyscraper district.

The Bund is the main tourist draw in Shanghai and it really is a special place, even if you do need to fight through the crowds and dodge the photographers offering to take lovely posed pictures. At night the neon lights of Pudong are a magnificent spectacle and cruise boats ferry passengers along the river to marvel at the sight. Whilst the bright lights may give the most spectacular vista, and the image most associated with Shanghai, the buildings on The Bund itself are impressive in a very different way and reminded Debbie of the city of her birth. In some ways Shanghai is rather like Liverpool – a major trading port history – and the Customs House, grand old offices of the leading banks & trading houses is not dissimilar to the area around the Liver Building.

Just a couple of blocks behind The Bund we stumbled across ‘Old Shanghai’ and the beautiful Yu Yuan, a classical 16th Century Chinese garden – lovely even in the rain. Nearby was a busy but lovely shopping/restaurant area designed in an ancient Chinese style, and where we visited the renowned Nan Xiang Steamed Bun Restaurant. The line was long but moved quickly, and we entered the little door which had given no clue as to the scale of what lay behind – a HUGE restaurant over 3 floors! Greedy pigs who love steamed dumplings, we ordered 3 types – pork, pork & truffle, spicy pork & crab – and a side of marinated duck with Shanghai salad (potato) just in case. Delicious! We also ate ramen in the same area, and a pizza/pasta at a fancy Italian place. Prices were quite high the closer you were to The Bund, hardly surprising, and our budget/clothes weren’t going to take us to any of the riverside places with a view.

Shanghai doesn’t have many obvious must-see tourist attractions, so we didn’t miss out from that perspective, but it seems like a nice city to just ‘be’ in. We could imagine it’d be fabulous to sit outside in a park, or at a cafe, on a nice sunny day and just watch the world go by – but it wasn’t to be for us, June is rainy season and not in a short-burst tropical downpour type of way sadly. We could’ve extended our stay, and shortened our next location, but the weather forecast wasn’t improving so we stayed with Plan A, successfully getting a cab through the DiDi app and heading 23Km out of town (for just £5) to Shanghai Hongqaio railway station for our bullet train to Hangzhou……