Time allocation Beijing & shanghai
 

For those who have been to both shanghai and beijing, which city did you prefer and how much time would you spend in each excluding day trips?

I've been to both-spent 2 days in Shanghai and 4 or 5 days in Beijing. I much preferred the latter to the former. I think you could easily fill a week in Beijing. I think 2 days for Shanghai is more than sufficient.

I too have recently been to both (Nov2011). I totally agree with shelleyk.

There are many more historical sites to visit in Beijing so you need more time there. However, as a city, I prefer Shanghai as do my my fiends who have lived in both places.

Oh, Happy Trvlr, I wish I had "fiends" in Beijing and Shanghai too!!! My apologies - it's a wonderful typo!

dgunbug,we've been to both cities twice, once in unpleasantly hot July, and once in pleasant Oct.,early November.
We enjoyed both places, but I would go back to Beijing in preference to Shanghai.

1. We travel independently, and Beijing is just so easy. There are many posts on this topic. One fare for the Metro and buses, rather than distance based public transport fares. They say bus travel is difficult for non Mandarin speakers, but we always found someone to help in both cities. The second Beijing visit, we used buses more than the underground, so that we could see more, but we avoided peak hour travelling.

2. After a total of almost two weeks in Beijing, there are still more places I would like to see, and places to see again. In Shanghai, I could watch the traffic on the river for days, and maybe go back to the Shanghai Museum, but not much else. We had a total of 10 days here, two of them at Expo.

3. Shopping - I thought was easier in Shanghai, but we are not big shoppers. We took a public bus to JiaJiaJiaou water village, where I saw quilts filled with silk for sale- that may be the exception. We didn't feel like going to other water villages, or Suzhou, after this trip, though we would have had time. The first visit, we stayed right on the river near the Garden Bridge, and did use taxis and buses, the second, our hotel was near People's Square, and we mostly walked everywhere.

4. If you stay somewhere longer, you always find unexpected and delightful things. We caught the ferry across the Huangpu River, from Puxi to Pudong.It's a longish walk from the ferry to the Pearl Tower, and we needed a loo. I was surprised to find the seat covered with plastic wrap, I thought to make things easier for cleaners, but was amazed to see the wrap rotate and thus replace itself with each flush! Now that's clean!

Thank you all for your input. Carrabella - happily we will be there in pleasant October/November. This will be our first Asia trip that we may have pictures without sweat dripping off us! I think we may just make reservations for the first 5 nights in Beijing and then decide once we are there if we want to remain longer or move on. When in India, we regretted that we could not move on to our next location at certain points in our trip and from what I have read in several China trip reports, it is easy to get hotel rooms and much cheaper at the last moment. Still...what a dilemna...always too much to see and not enough time.

I spent 2 days in Shanghai in September and would have liked another day. We had time for The Bund, but not Pudong, and our time was rushed at The Bund. The Shanghai Museum was the single most impressive museum I think I've ever been to, and I could have easily spent a 1/2 day there. We spent about a half day in and around Yuyuan Gardens, which was pretty but extremely crowded. I'd have loved a river cruise at night to see the skyline lit.

We spent 3 days in Beijing and I would have liked at least another 2. Did not make it to the Summer Palace or any of the museums on Tiananmen Square but did see Forbidden City, Temple of Heaven (could spend a half day here just people watching!) and got out to the Wall at Badaling.

I live in Beijing and keep discovering new places. you can spend 2 weeks there and stay busy. but generally you can see the key attractions in 5 days.
Prior to living in Beijing I have travelled extensively in China and I would generally not plan too much so as to be flexible. You can always get flights at he last minutes and good hotel deals. I would only book the next leg of the trip after arriving somewhere. Depending on the weather and how I liked the place I could stay longer or cut it short. It is not a problem to do this in China as long as it is not a major holiday. I like to have a general plan, list of places to see, but keep the timing flexible.

JPDeM - thank you for your comments. Could you tell me when in October the holidays are over? Is it safe to arrive in Beijing the second week, avoiding the holiday crowd?

October 1st is the National Day. This year it's a Monday. Everybody should be back at work by Monday 10/8.

We returned from a trip to Beijing and Shanghai just a couple of weeks ago. I would agree with most people that there is more to see in Beijing, but Shanghai is an awesome city. After much deliberation over wether to tackle Beijing on our own or hire a guide, we decided to hire a private guide. And I was SO glad we did. There were 3 in the group; myself, my husband and 19 year old daughter. I found her on Viator (her name is Vivie Pan) and we all learned so much from her. We were in Beijing for 4 nights, but really only had 3 1/2 days to see the sights. She was able to organize our days according to what we wanted to see, picked us up at the airport, gave good advice on restaurants etc. Her command of the English language was great. Having her made the trip much more relaxed, enjoyable and educational. She welcomed us in Beijing and when we left we felt like we were saying goodbye to a good friend. We felt the fees we paid for her knowledge and insight was more than worth it. In 3 1/2 days we were able to; spend 1/2 day at the Mutianyu Wall, see the Summer Palace, Tian'anmen Square, The Forbidden City, the Lama Temple, rickshaw tour of the hutongs (including visiting a resident of the hutongs), The Temple of Heaven, The Beijing Zoo to see the pandas, the Capital Museum, the 798 art area and the night market. We also asked for a quick stop at the pearl market and Dr. Tea which were spontaneous requests but glad we did.
One other piece of advice is that it was MUCH easier to get around the Beijing on the weekend than during the weekdays. The traffic is incredible in that city, and the metro is very crowded.
On the other hand, Shanghai is incredibly easy to get around on the metro. It's a fun metropolitan city, but not a lot of historical site seeing since it is such a young city compared to Beijing.
I am working on a trip report with what I felt were some of the highlights of the trip and our favorite restaurants. Hopefully will post it soon.

I am looking forward to your trip report.

Do not go week of October 1st unless you want to see seas of people: http://www.chinasmack.com/2011/pictu...out-china.html
Shanghai is not really a younger city than Beijing, they just tore down everything. Unfortunately, not much left of the old Shanghai except if you visit the Shanghai history museum.