The Shanghai Tour Supplement

 

Whether you have guests coming into town, or if you are just looking to experience more of what the city has to offer, check out the exciting offerings from these Shanghai tour companies!

 

 

Dig In With UnTour Shanghai’s Hands-On Dumpling Delights Tour

The folks behind UnTour Shanghai believe that the best way to explore a new city is to eat your way through it, so they’ve created bite-sized tours to help tourists and expats get to know Shanghai, one mouthful at a time. By serving up dishes from choice local restaurants and street food stalls, their tours take the guesswork out of eating well for expats and visitors alike. Whether you’re a curious gourmand looking to explore the city’s buzzing night markets or a hungry vegetarian searching for tofu dishes not flavoured with slivers of pork, the food tour company has an urban eating adventure for you.

To celebrate three years of leading guests to the city’s best-kept secrets and delicious hidden gems, UnTour launched a new four-hour interactive feast in December 2013. Small groups of no more than eight guests are led by an English-speaking guide fluent in Mandarin who tells them what’s on the menú today: dumplings. The “Hands- On Dumpling Delights” tour goes well beyond touristy spots such as Din Tai Fung or Yang’s Fried Dumplings to present jiaozi in their many diverse forms.

 

Essentially China’s comfort food, dumplings have been eaten in the Middle Kingdom for more than 2,000 years and they’ve been perfected by Chinese chefs over the past couple of millennia. The sheer variety of these versatile snacks available in Shanghai is staggering, and the tour offers an edible primer on the regional differences around the country.

As they walk through the leafy, tranquil streets of the former French Concession, guests learn how to slurp xiaolongbao like the Shanghainese, tuck into bowls of steaming wonton soup from the southern port city of Putian and devour plates of hearty boiled dumplings from Manchuria. A guotie tasting offers a perfect opportunity to learn about street food, and there’s an added non-dumpling stop at a family-owned jianbing stall to mix it up.

 

But what really sets this experience apart is an hourlong cooking class where guests make memories along with a plate of shengjianbao. With the help of a Shanghainese chef, guests learn the art of folding the local pork-stuffed bun. From preparing the juicy meatball interior to pinching the dough top to create a leak-free seam, guests – armed with a detailed récipe – take home the skills to recreate their experience at home in their own kitchen. Guests will also tour a bustling wet market to learn how to shop like the Shanghainese.

                

In addition to all the tasty morsels of knowledge served up by the experienced guide, UnTour also provide an indispensable welcome pack. Crammed with information about the best foreigner-friendly (but still authentic) restaurants around town, the packet gives diners hungry for more empowering tools to inspire them to try out street food stalls and hole-in-the-wall restaurants around town. The packet also includes recipes and helpful websites to get guests started on their own path to eating like a local, whether they’re just in town for a couple days or have been living in Shanhai for years.

 

The Hands-On Dumpling Delights tour takes place every Saturday at 10am, and private tours are available upon request. The tour lasts about four hours and includes about three kilometers of walking. Guests meet on the sidewalk outside the Hengshan Picardie Hotel (534 Hengshan Lu, near Wanping Lu) in the former French Concession. The cost is RMB 550 per person and is all- inclusive, including UnTour Shanghai Welcome Pack, guide fees, cooking class and all food and transport during the UnTour. They also send each guest a RMB 200 Uber Code to provide a complimentary ride to the tour meeting point, so guests can arrive in style in the private car company’s sleek black town cars.

 

UnTour Shanghai. Tel: 186 1650 4269. Email: [email protected]. Web: www.untourshanghai.com

 

Become A Chef With Cook In Shanghai

A Chinese cooking class in Shanghai is the perfect activity to send any visitor on, or a great way for you, along with your guest, to learn more about Shanghainese food culture and home cooking. Learning how to use local ingredients, recipes and cooking techniques will give you a real insight into life in the city, which you may have overlooked. You will also be taught how to pick the best and freshest ingredients, and learn about the nutritional value of your dishes, which is extremely beneficial.

The cooking class’ menus are constantly rotating and guests are also able to request which dishes they would like to make. The class begins with a visit to a local wet market to buy the ingredients that will be used later in the day, where you will learn how to select and bargain for your fresh produce. Next up, it is back to the kitchen to prepare the meal. Cook In Shanghai’s teacher will explain the basics of Chinese food covering everything from basic seasoning and cooking methods to the links between food and Traditional Chinese Medicine. After this introduction, the class will learn how to make three different dishes before finally getting the chance to enjoy the fruits of their labour by dissecting the dish over Chinese tea. Finally, all students will be sent home with récipe cards stating the English, pinyin and Chinese characters for the names of each ingredient. We suggest taking notes throughout the class so you are able to recreate the dishes at home!

Group classes start from RMB 299 per person. Classes include a wet market tour, ingredients, recipe booklet and a maximum of six students per group. On Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday, classes start at 2pm and last until 5:30pm. On Tuesdays and Thursdays clases start at 10am and last until 1pm.

 

Visit www.cookinshanghai.com or email [email protected] for more information.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Explore New Frontiers With Newman Tours

If you can read Chinese, you'll find that the man who commissioned Yu Yuan Gardens was notorious for all the wrong reasons. If you know where to look in the French Concession, you can find stunning Art Deco interiors and winding back alleys steeped in colonial history. And if you have a few weeks to spare, you can bring yourself fairly up to date on all the latest theories about what the future has in store for China. The trouble is, however, that most of us can't read Chinese very well, wouldn't know where to begin a search for Shanghai's hidden architectural gems and simply don't have time to keep up to date with the piles of books that are published each year about China's future.

That is where Newman Tours come in; perfect for newbies in town, expats desperate to learn more or visiting tourists. Newman Tours can help their guests really understand the city we live in on a deeper level. For the last four years, their team of bilingual researchers and native English speaking guides have been putting together informative and entertaining tours that help time-limited tourists and exhausted expats to better understand China's history, culture and potential future. This is the perfect trip to send your loved one out on for the day if you are busy, or join in with a cultural, hassle free activity.

Newman Tours draw upon both Chinese and English resources to find the most accurate and interesting content. This content is then turned into an easy to follow set of narratives by Newman Tours’ team of native English speaking guides, all of whom have degrees in Chinese Studies and speak excellent Mandarin. As such, you can ask almost any question, or even test their knowledge, and receive a clear and well-informed answer. Guides also use iPads with illustrative photos, videos, interactive games, including Chinese Chess, and Astrology readings, to enhance their tours. They also include activities such as Water Calligraphy, Chinese Fortune Sticks and Chopstick Pickpocketing.

 

Also available, are family friendly experiences such as Kung Fu, Ghost and Gangster Tours, for example. These are particularly good for parents who want their children to learn about China in a unique and interesting way in order to keep their attention throughout.

For guests who are short of time for any reason, Newman Tours' Tailored Best of Shanghai Tour enables guests to see the very best that the city has to offer in the most efficient way possible. A guide will pick guests up from a location of their choosing in an air conditioned private vehicle with seatbelts and a Chinese chauffeur; take them to see the highlights of whichever of the tours they like; and then drop them off wherever they want to finish. First time visitors normally opt to see the highlights of the Bund, French Concession and Ancient Shanghai Tours, but those who have already seen the most famous sites can instead choose from the Bird & Flower Market, Antiques Market, Jewish Ghetto, Marriage Market, Shanghai Museum, Shanghai World Financial Centre, Delicious Chinese Meal or Gangster Tours.

 

Tours start from RMB 190 per adult and are available on a public or private basis all year round. Newman Tours also offer tours in and around Hangzhou, Suzhou, Beijing, Xi’an and the ancient water town of Zhujiajiao.

Contact [email protected] or visit www.newmantours.com to learn more.

 

Travel Shanghai In A Vintage Sidecar With Insiders

Shanghai is a city that one must earn: you can live here a decade and still sometimes stumble upon an old lane near to your block that you never knew existed or an amazing hole-in-the-wall dumpling stall which you had not noticed before.

 

However, the guys at Shanghai Insiders have been doing their homework for you and will take you off the beaten track to show you different aspects and regale you with anecdotes about the city. Everybody in Shanghai should experience an off the beaten path adventure with Insiders at least once, and it is an impressive tour for any out-of-town guests. The spectacle of the skyscraper loving, fast paced, modern metropolis, juxtaposed with a vintage sidecar steeped in Chinese history weaving in and out of enchanting shikumen or art deco areas, is sure to fascinate anyone. Furthermore, feeling the sturdy, vintage sidecar’s engine chugging below you, with the wind blowing in your face, is sure to excited even the most cynical of passengers; just make sure to wear multiple layers.

The concept of their tours is that there are no tours: Have a chat with your private Insider just before the journey starts and they will tailor make a route to meet your expectations, áreas of interest and knowledge of the city. Most of the Insiders on the team are long-term expats who have joined the company purely to get to know the city better and to share their existing love for it.

 

Until the end of March, Insiders run hot wine tours, which include free mulled wine on all two and four hour expeditions. Tours are by sidecars only and are kid-friendly with adult and children’s helmets available. During the colder months, fur hats and heated seats are also thrown in.

Multilingual guides, insurance, Taittinger champagne (RMB 400), pick up point of your choosing, a video of the tour using a GoPro (RMB 550) and corporate branding are all additional extras.

 

Prices are charged by sidecar (two passengers plus one Insider) and start from RMB 800 for one hour, RMB 1,500 for two hours and RMB 2,000 for four hours.

 

As Insiders are such fans of Talk Magazine, they are promising to throw in a nice surprise for any readers when making a booking in March and April (mention Talk when making your booking people!).

Insiders also offer Xi'an getaway weekenders where guests stay overnight in a cave dwelling that the company has just purchased. During the weekend trip, guests also get to visit a panda rescue centre, see China's oldest Christian monument and indulge at a surprisingly good winery. Two day to four-week tours in Yunnan by jeep or sidecar are also available, however, we suggest booking early as Insiders limits itself to 60 tourists per year to ensure that they do not leave a negative impact on the environment or remote communities that they visit. Sustainable tourism at its best.

 

For more information call 138 176 169 75 or email [email protected]

 

 

 

 

 

Enter The Dragon (Trip)

If you have guests visiting you for a prolonged period, you may not have the time, or indeed

the energy, to take them on a guided tour of the country – enter The Dragon Trip! You can send your visitors off to explore the rest of China, safe in the knowledge that they are being looked after on a fully comprehensive and value for money trip which calls in on the most interesting and exciting sites in the Middle Kingdom – backpacker style.

The people over at The Dragon Trip promise the possibility of waking up every morning to a new China. We suggest one of their 18-day tours starting and ending in Shanghai. Guests are accompanied by an English-speaking guide on every step of the journey, and it is certainly not your typical guided circuit with tourist traps around every corner. The company was founded by a young, British backpacker who felt that there was a lack of opportunities for visitors, who didn’t speak the local language, to experience an authentic adventure outside Shanghai’s urban-glitz; he therefore started a company dedicated to showing tourists, who want to experience China through a fresh lens - “real China”.

The Dragon Trip guarantees travellers an exhilarating and transformative experience. With seven stops in total (Shanghai – Yangshuo – Sichuan – Xian – Shaolin – Beijing – Hangzhou and other tours also including Fujian, Macau and Hong Kong), activities range across the board, and across the country. Camp out on a deserted portion of the Great Wall, spend some time honing Kung Fu skills in Shaolin or enjoy breath-taking scenery and heart-stopping thrills, including deep water soloing, in Yangshuo. With each destination connected by night train, guests cover over 6,000km without wasting any daylight travelling; and discover the numerous cultures and dishes along the way. Don’t know what’s on the menu? The Dragon Trip will have you ordering for yourself in no time with the free Mandarin language lessons en route. To top it all off, the tour is fun – really fun. In fact, The Dragon Trip will ensure that any night is properly celebrated, Drunken Dragon style; perfect for enthusiastic and outgoing travellers who have perhaps come to the country on their own but who are looking to make friends.

If you live and work in Shanghai and don’t have two and a half weeks of free time to join your out-of town visitors on the tour, but this adventure has whetted your appetite for a tour of China, it’s not a problem! You can join your visiting friends during their tour, or just give yourself a weekend away! Escape Shanghai for one of the highlights such as a BBQ and camp-out at the Wild Wall in Beijing (RMB 888 not including transportation to Beijing), or if you’re feeling like an eco-getaway, a trip to Yangshuo’s adventure laden cliffs and rivers (4 days for RMB 1,488, all inclusive from Shanghai).

 

Well known amongst the backpacking circuit for affordability, The Dragon Trip sets off every Monday from the Phoenix Hostel, Shanghai, from March to November.

A variety of other tours are also available. Contact

[email protected] or visit www.thedragontrip.com for more information.

 

Shanghai to Shanghai featured in article (18 days) with

seven stops: $1,436

HK to HK round trip (25 days) with ten stops: $1,788

HK to HK round trip (16 days) with seven stops: $1,270

HK to Beijing (15 days) with seven stops: $1,198

Beijing to Beijing (18 days) with six stops: $1,436