nanjing road
3 min readShanghai’s most famous thoroughfare, Nanjing Road spills from its eastern terminus on the Bund and past the People’s Square to its western extreme by the newly remodeled Jing’an Temple(jingansi). Divided into East, Middle and West sections,it’ s at times pedestrian shopping street, a winding tree-lined road, and modern thoroughfare cutting between some of Shanghai’s most posh hotels.
Once known as the premier shopping street in China and Asia, colonial Nanjing Road stood in stark contrast to the rest of agrarian China. The hottest fashions from Italy were imported regularly and the road was full of shops selling some of China’s finest silks.
Massive department stores were built, the most famous being the Great World and Wing-On,where shopping was only one of the activities enjoyed amongst gambling and sing-song halls,game parlors, bars and freak shows.
Originally named Bubbling Well Road after a small stream that once ran beneath it,Nanjing Road became China’s most famous strip and may now regain this crown. Modern hough not as elegant as the old ones, still line the street and exert a tremendous to over Chinese and foreign visitors alike. During holidays, it’s jostling to have their photo taken in front of the Nanjing Road sculpture at the two ends of the pedestrian street. mple metro station, the redesigned Jing’an Park (jing’an) features upscale restaurants and charming teahouses. By morning, Shanghai’s elderly flock there to practice Tai Chi as the young stumble home from the bars.
All day long people while away the day taking in the scenery or chat on its numerous benches.
Directly across the street stands the Jing’ Temple. Dating back to the19 9th century, it was once one of Shanghai’s richest and most frequently visited temples. Located on the busy intersection of Huashan Road and Nanjing West Road, this small temple manages to filter out the cacophony of the street and creates a small niche of tranquility.
Continuing west is the Shanghai Center( shanghai shangcheng), home to the ai’s Portman Ritz-Carlton, and one of Shanghai’s masterpieces of modern architecture. Featuring three towers, it fully utilizes its space yet provides numerous vistas that dramatically change with your line of sight. Home to nimerous uinscale shops and restaurants, it has one of Shanghais’ first Western-style- supermarket, Western medical clinic and branch of the HSBC Bank tha Built in 1955 with help from the Soviet Union, the Shanghai Exhibition Center (shanghai zhong) facelift over the past few years and now stands blasted monument to Sino-Soviet friendship. Once home to the Hardoon Gardens, which It by a Persian millionaire, the Shanghai Exhibition Center is as prime as Shanghai real estate get Continuing east, the shopping malls and hotels of modern Shanghai’s commercial greatness arise. Plaza 66, CITIC Center, Meilong Zhen, the Hilton Hotel, and the J. W.Marriot, none budget options, provide numerous choices for dining and shopping lok for try the Shanghai Jingde Artware store on the corner Nanjing and Shaanxi Road. A wide array of potte: and porcelain is for sale, much of it originating in Jingdezhen, one of China’s tra ditional pottery centers.
