Shanghai is a city with a long history. In the longest development, it has formed its own unique city scene and varied cultures and arts. Up to now, a lot of cultural relics beginning in the Tang and Song Dynasties, many museums and contemporary memorial halls are well preserved.

The most impressive street of Shanghai is the Bund. It is in every sense old Shanghai's commercial heart, with the river on one side, the offices of the leading banks and trading houses on the other. Nanjing Road is the center for theatres and cinemas as well as one of the most crowded shopping streets in the world. Besides, the Oriental Pearl TV Tower, the Chenghuang Miao and Yuyuan Garden are also a must in Shanghai.

There are a lot of tourist centers in urban districts and suburbs of Shanghai, which form many tourist areas, tourist lines and special interest tourist items. The five gardens, Yu Yuan (the Garden of Leisurely Repose), Gu Yi Yuan (the Garden of Ancient Splendor), Qushui Yuan (the Garden of Bending Brooks), Zuibai Chi (the Pond for Drunken Li Bai) and Qiuxia Pu (the Garden of Autumn Sunlight) and so on, are ready to welcome the visitors with new features. At the side of Dianshan Lake, the newly built Grand View Garden begins to take shape.

The Bund at Night

The Bund (Waitan), Shanghai's busy waterfront promenade, overlooks the Huangpu River and Pudong business district. Its stately art deco and historic European buildings house the government's State Departments of Trade, Finance and Banking.

Popular with tourists and locals alike — seniors perform Tai Chi exercises and dance to traditional Chinese music each morning at sunrise. At night, colorful neon lights illuminate the Bund and Pudong.

The Bund is most spectacular with one side of the boulevard lined up with buildings of "Old-fashioned American big city" style. These used to house banks, trading houses and exclusive clubs.

Oriental Pearl TV Tower

The skyline's prominent Orient Pearl TV Tower, a new landmark of Shanghai,is the tallest TV tower in Asia and third tallest in the world (after Toronto and Moscow)with a height of 263 metres. It faces the Bund across the Huangpu River. Be sure to visit its observation deck and revolving restaurant — the water and Shanghai city views are stunning, especially at night.

The tower is equipped with tourist service facilities, including eateries, shops, recreational including eateries, shops, recreational centers and a hotel. Open 8:30-21:30.

Oriental Pearl has eight globes lining vertically in a design that reminds one of a Tang Dynasty poem that compares sounds played on a plucked instrument to "a string of pearls dropping onto a jade plate."

The globes are for sightseeing, dining and hotel accommodations. The 20-room Space Hotel is located in the five small balls between two large globes, 140 to 230 metres above the ground. It does give people a feeling of being on a spaceship. Up here, guests can sit in sofas and enjoy a bird's-eye-view of the city aloft from the bustling life in the streets.

Each ball has a suite and three standard rooms on two levels connected by a winding stairway. The suite has a private lounge overlooking the Huangpu River and a booming Pudong. Three other rooms share two lounges facing the main section of the Bund and the city's old districts.

If you decide to stay, make sure to rent a telescope at the reception desk so you can zoom in on the city's interesting spots. Apart from great views, the hotel offers all the conveniences of a four-star hotel. The only drawback is that it has no restaurant.

Due to fire-control restrictions, the tower has no kitchen, Guests can go to a buffet restaurant below or dine out. The food in the buffet restaurant is cooked on the ground and delivered by elevator. Yet you still can have room service for breakfast or night snack, which hotel staff prepares downstairs and delivers to your room piping hot.

Guests also have the privilege of a reserved elevator. It can whisk you up to your floor in less than one minute. However, you need to call the operator before leaving your room.

Yuyuan Garden

Yuyuan Garden, maybe the most celebrated classical Chinese garden in Shanghai, is located in the northeast of the old town with an area of fives acres.The garden each year attracts countless visitors at home and abroad.

Yu Yuan Garden was first built in 1559 and the construction lasted for 19 years. It appears much larger on account of skilful landscape gardening - with paths winding through charming pavilions, delightful grottoes, beautiful lotus ponds, quaint bridges and trickling streams. The art of decoration also finds expression in the brick engravings and wood carvings everywhere in the garden which reflect the style of southern China in the Ming and Qing dynasties. The beautiful scenery can be compared with the four famous gardens in Suzhou.

Built in a style that Suzhou gardens often take, Yuyuan garden is characterized by exquisite layout, beautiful scenery and the artistic architecture. Each pavilion, hall, stone and stream in the garden can express the quintessence of South China landscape design from Ming and Qing dynasties.

The bounding wall in the garden, decorated with dragon's heads and paved by scale-like tiles on top, looks like a huge wandering dragon. People named it Five-dragon Wall. More interesting is that each dragon in this wall only has four claws. Legend goes that when the wall was first completed in the Qing dynasty, like the dragon in royal palaces, they all have four claws. The feudal ruler, regarding it as a sign of irreverence and rebellion, then cut one of the claws of each dragon.

There are totally 30 scenic spots scatter in this garden. Five-dragon-wall subdivide the garden into six spots including Grand Rockery, Ten-Thousand-Flower Pavilion, Hall of Heralding Spring, Hall of Jade Magnificence, Inner Garden, and Lotus Pool.

The garden is acknowledged as "an architectural miracle in the region south of Yangtze River".

Gu Yi Garden

Gu Yi Garden is located at Nanxing Town, jiading Country of Shanghai. It was first built in the Ming Dynasty, with a history of more than 400 years.

The garden has its unique style with exquisite pavilions and chambers, artistic studies and long corridors, pebble paths and winding streams, old twisted locust trees, and flowers of all seasons. It is one of the scenic spots in Shanghai.

Nanjing Road

Nanjing Road is China's longest commercial street,lined with big department and specialty stores, upscale boutiques, and a variety of fine restaurants, enjoying the reputation of "China's No.1 Street", runs through the heart of downtown Shanghai. It's also a fun place for sightseeing and people-watching. Once supreme, it's looking a bit frayed and has slipped a few notches to the emerging luxury option of Huaihai Lu, but laden shoppers still traipse past its cathedrals of commerce, gawped at by gaggles of out-of-towners.

Even back in the past dull era (and let's face it, that's long gone), Nanijing Donglu had a distinctly 'shop 'til you drop' feel about it. Nowadays, Esprit, Benetton and McDonald's have shouldered Marx and Mao into the draughty halls of little visited museums - which was where the capitalist state was meant to end up.

Jade Buddha Monastery

Jade Buddha Monastery is located at Anyuan Road in the west of the center of Shanghai city. Built in 1882, the 8th year of the reign of Guang Xu in the Qing Dynasty, it is a Buddhist Monastery.

It covers a total area of 8400 square meters. The monastery has three halls namely the Heavenly King Hall, the Grand Hall and the Abbot's Chamber. This famous Buddhist Monastery houses two jade statues of Sakyamuni. One is in a sitting position, and the other is a reclining position, Both statues are of great artistic value and are regarded as treasures of Buddhism in our country.

Site of the 1st National Congress of the Communist Party

The Site of the 1st National Congress of the Communist Party is located in the quiet leafy roads of Shanghai's former French Concession.

On July 23, 1921, 13 delegates from Marxist, Socialist and Communist groups from throughout China along with 2 Russian advisors met to found the Chinese Communist Party. In attendance was its most famous junior member Mao Zedong. This group met for 8 days in this unassuming brick house, until discovered by the French police. The delegates fled and adjourned to a boat on Nanhu Lake in Zhejiang province to conclude their discussions.

As well as a faithful recreation of how the house looked in 1921, the site is also attached to a museum. Providing plenty of background to the early history of the Party, the museum also features a lifelike waxwork recreation of the momentous meetings.

And there are many other scenic sites.