The Bund
The Bund (which means the Embankment) refers to Shanghai’s famous waterfront running along the west shore of the Huangpu River, forming the eastern boundary of old downtown Shanghai. Once a muddy towpath for boats along the river, the Bund was where the foreign powers that entered Shanghai after the Opium War of 1842 erected their distinct Western-style banks and trading houses. From here Shanghai grew into a cosmopolitan and thriving commercial and financial center, Asia’s leading city in the 1920s and 1930s. Many of the awesome colonial structures you see today date from that prosperous time and have become an indelible part of Shanghai’s cityscape. Today, a wide avenue fronts the old buildings while a raised promenade on the east side of the road affords visitors pleasant strolls along the river and marvelous views of both the Bund and Pudong across the river. Pudong’s new skyscrapers and modern towers — constituting Shanghai’s “21st Century Bund” — may dominate today’s skyline, but the city’s core identity and history are strictly rooted in this unique strip on the western shore. For years, the Bund was the first sight of Shanghai for those arriving by boat.

Huangpu River Cruise
The Huangpu River (Huangpu Jiang) is the city’s shipping artery both to the East China Sea and to the mouth of the Yangzi River, which the Huangpu joins 29km (18 miles) north of downtown Shanghai. It has also become a demarcating line between two Shanghais, east and west, past and future. On its western shore, the colonial landmarks of the Bund serve as a reminder of Shanghai’s 19th-century struggle to reclaim a waterfront from the bogs of this river (which originates in nearby Dianshan Hu or Lake Dianshan); on the eastern shore, the steel and glass skyscrapers of the Pudong New Area point to a burgeoning financial empire of the future. The Huangpu’s wharves are the most fascinating in China. The port handles the cargo coming out of the interior from Nanjing, Wuhan, and other Yangzi River ports, including Chongqing, 2,415km (1,500 miles) deep into Sichuan Province. From Shanghai, which produces plenty of industrial and commercial products in its own right, as much as a third of China’s trade with the rest of the world is conducted each year. A boat ride on the Huangpu is highly recommended: Not only does it provide unrivalled postcard views of Shanghai past and future, it’ll afford you a closer look at this dynamic waterway that makes Shanghai flow.

Jade Buddha Temple
Though an active Buddhist monastery today (devoted to the Chan or Zen sect, which originated in China), the real emphasis at this temple, Shanghai’s most popular with visitors, is squarely on tourism. What the busloads come for are the temple’s two gorgeous white jade Buddhas, each carved from an individual slab of Burmese jade and brought to Shanghai in 1881 by the monk Huigeng, who was on his way back from Burma to his hometown on nearby Putuo Shan (Putuo Island). A temple was built in 1882 to house the statues, but was destroyed in a fire and rebuilt at the present site in 1918 with swirling eaves characteristic of the Song Dynasty architectural style. Northeast of the main Daxiong Bao Dian (Treasure Hall of the Great Hero), which contains golden images of the Buddhas of the past, present, and future, the Cangjing Lou houses the first of the two treasures: a lustrous, beatific, seated Buddha weighing 205 kilograms (455 lb.), measuring 1.9m (6 ft. 5 in.), and adorned with jewels and stones. The other Buddha is found northwest of the main hall in the Wofo Si, where a less impressive but still beautiful 1m-long (3 ft. 4 in.) sleeping Buddha reclines, his peaceful expression signaling his impending entry into nirvana. Opposite it is a much larger, coarser replica donated by the Singapore Buddhist Friendship Association in 1988.

Jinmao Tower
This tallest building in China is, quite simply, sublime. Built in 1998 as a Sino-American joint venture, the Jin Mao is currently the third tallest building in the world at 421m (1,379 ft.). Blending traditional Chinese and modern Western tower designs, the building, which boasts 88 floors (eight being an auspicious Chinese number), consists of 13 distinct tapering segments, with high-tech steel bands binding the glass like an exoskeleton. Offices occupy the first 50 floors, the Grand Hyatt hotel the 51st to the 88th floors, while a public observation deck on the 88th floor (“The Skywalk”) offers views to rival those of the nearby Oriental Pearl TV Tower (its admission charge is also lower). High-speed elevators (9m/31ft. per sec.) whisk visitors from Level B1 to the top in less than 45 seconds. The view from there is almost too high, but exquisite on a clear day. You can also look down at the 152m-high (517-ft.) atrium of the Grand Hyatt. Enter the building through entrance 4.

Longhua Temple
Shanghai’s largest and most active temple is one of its most fascinating, featuring the city’s premier pagoda, Longhua Ta. Local lore has it that the pagoda was originally built around 247 by Sun Quan, the king of the Wu Kingdom during the Three Kingdoms period, but today’s seven-story, eight-sided, wood and brick pagoda, like the temple, dates to the Song Dynasty (A.D. 960-1279). For a long time the tallest structure in Shanghai, today it’s pretty (tiny bells hang from the eaves) and just a little delicate, and can only be admired from a distance. The extensive temple grounds, on the north side of the newly created pedestrian street, are often crowded with incense-bearing supplicants. There are four main halls (only a century old), the most impressive being the third, Daxiong Bao Dian (Grand Hall) where a gilded statue of Sakyamuni sits under a beautifully carved dome, flanked on each side by 18 arhats (disciples). Behind, Guanyin, the Goddess of Mercy, presides over a fascinating tableau representing the process of reincarnation: a boat in the bottom right corner indicates birth, while death awaits at the bottom left corner. The fourth hall, Sanshen Bao Dian, features three incarnations of the Buddha. Behind the third and fourth halls is a basic but popular vegetarian restaurant (11am-2pm). Longhua is also famous for its midnight bell-ringing every New Year’s Eve (Dec 31-Jan 1), which takes place in the three-storied Zhong Lou (Bell Tower) near the entrance. The tower’s 3,000-kilogram (3.3-ton) bronze bell, cast in 1894, is struck 108 times to dispel all the worries said to be afflicting mankind.

Peace Hotel
This Art Deco palace is the ultimate symbol of romantic colonial Shanghai. Built in 1929 by Victor Sassoon, a British descendant of Baghdad Jews who’d made their fortune in opium and real estate, the building was originally part office/residential complex known as the Sassoon House, and part hotel, the Cathay Hotel, one of the world’s finest international hotels in the 1930s. Sassoon himself had his bachelor’s quarters on the top floor where he threw lavish parties for the city’s top denizens. Stroll through the wings of the finely restored lobby, then take the elevator to the gorgeous eighth-floor ballroom. You can walk up to the roof and the garden bar for a superb view of the Bund, Nanjing Lu, the hotel’s famous green pyramid roof, and the Huangpu River. Unfortunately, this same view once enjoyed by the world’s celebrities in the 1930s now comes with a cover charge of ¥50 ($6.25; one soft drink included), though it’s not always enforced.

Shanghai Urban Planning Exhibition Hall
Filmmakers and science-fiction writers have imagined it, but if you want to see what a city of the future is really going to look like, take yourself over to this museum on the eastern end of People’s Square. Housed in a striking modern five-story building made of microlite glass, this is one of the world’s largest showcases of urban development and is much more interesting than its dry name suggests. The highlight is on the third floor: an awesome vast scale model of urban Shanghai as it will look in 2020, a master plan full of endless skyscrapers punctuated occasionally by patches of green. The clear plastic models indicate structures yet to be built, and there are many of them. Beleaguered Shanghai residents wondering if their current cramped downtown houses will survive the bulldozer (chances are not good) need only look here for the answer. The fourth floor also offers displays on proposed forms of future transportation, including magnetic levitation (maglev), subway, and light-rail trains that are going to change even the face of the Bund. The rest of the building includes a U-shaped mezzanine with photographic exhibits of colonial and contemporary Shanghai, a temporary exhibit hall on the second floor, and a cafe and art gallery on the fifth. There are restaurants and retail outlets crafted in the style of 1930s Shanghai on the underground level that connects to the Metro. The museum is well worth an hour of your time.