Shanghai and Zhouzhuang
A visit to China’s greatest and most prosperous city and to an old canal town nearby, the ‘Venice of the East’
I ARRIVED at Shanghai’s Pudong Airport after an incredible 12-hour-plus direct flight from Auckland, New Zealand, and immediately sought to catch the famous Pudong Airport maglev train, which cruises at 300 km/h and used to go as fast as 431 km/h or 268 mph, into town.
(Unfortunately, because of SIM card and VPN hassles I’ll explain and clarify for the help of other visitors at the end, I got sidetracked and ended up catching a taxi instead. But I definitely want to catch the science-fictional and super-duper maglev sometime.)
With a population of 25 million in the city proper and 30 million in its wider urban area, Shanghai is the biggest city in China, and also the most developed and prosperous. It is right in the middle of the coast of the Chinese mainland, a fact that probably accounts for its prominence.
Plus, also, the fact that Shanghai is on the Huangpu River and the smaller Suzhou River, which feed into a network of canals collectively known as China’s Grand Canal.
