Two big moments have arrived. First, we have left the USA on our long planned, extended travel. We aren’t sure when we will return to the country. At some point we surely will, but we’ve got relatively solid plans in place that could take us through the end of 2027 (and more ideas are right behind).
The second big moment is DJ’s start of college at NYU Shanghai. We knew this moment would arrive eventually though it’s hard to believe it’s now come and gone. To some degree it was almost anti-climactic. Lots of prep though the summer of 2026 along with lots of travel to see family, a flight out of Newark to Shanghai via San Francisco, and then boom. He is off managing his own life, with Hillary and I as mainly spectators.
At any rate, our time in Shanghai was a bit of a blur. We where there for a mere 6 days, including day of arrival and day of departure. Still, we got a lot done and still had a chance to do some tourist stuff.
For this post, I’m mainly sharing pictures as it went by so fast. As I write, we’re sitting in Istanbul trying both to rest and recover before the Camino de Santiago while also seeing just a tiny bit of the massive amount the city has to offer.
Shanghai Botanical Gardens
Just a few kilometers north of DJ’s dorms is the massive Shanghai Botanical Gardens. It features three, very large, multi-level greenhouses. On top of that there are acres upon acres of gardens outside on the grounds. Did I mention the city built an entire mountain (okay not extremely high but still) that serves as underground parking garage with the gardens, hiking trails, and a waterfall on top of it?
Move In Day at NYU Shanghai
Sunday, August 23rd, 2026 – We prepared ourselves for miles of lines, inefficient processes to handle cell phone service and bank accounts, and not saying goodbye to DJ until mid to late afternoon. Happily that wasn’t the case.
We arrived at the dorms about 9 AM to find hundreds of people already there (they were supposed to open at 9). Despite no signage on which line DJ was supposed to get into, they all moved quickly, he was redirected accordingly, and got his ID badge within 20 minutes or less.
Likewise, getting up to his room on the 20th floor of a 26 story building, with one elevator to ferry every new student, their families and their baggage, was surprisingly fast. Give or take 15 minutes or so.
The rest of the day flew by as well. Meeting his resident advisor, temporary registration with the local police (all online), getting back to campus by bus, choosing one of three phone providers and getting a local plan, and choosing from one of six banks to fill out forms and make the appointment at the local branch to formally establish the account — all were much more efficient than we had expected. We were saying goodbye before noon.
Oops…. Forgot something. As it turns out, DJ had forgotten the base of his water pick in his hotel room. The staff were nice enough to leave it for us in our room so the next day we took one last ride up to his dorm to give it to him and say goodbye, again…
More Shanghai Exploration - Just the two of us.
We still had some time to explore Shanghai after DJ moved in and started orientation. So we took the time to explore a reasonably close “ancient town” the afternoon after moving DJ in. Then the next morning, before heading to the airport, we explored some of the sights suggested by Nomad Mania.
Xinchang Ancient Town and Nanshan Temple
There are a number of “ancient towns” around Shanghai. Consider that Shanghai itself covers a massive area, larger than the state of Delaware. So visiting something “in” Shanghai might still take hours to get there, even by car.
Xinchang Ancient Town was relatively close, only taking us about 30 minutes by Didi (think Uber) to get there. The town was packed with domestic tourists, full of shops selling all kinds of food and crafts, and maintained what appeared to be reasonably authentic character from an era gone by.
At the south end of the ancient town is Nanshan Temple – another of the thousands of Buddhist temples across China though this one relatively quiet despite its moderate size.
After our time in Xinchang we discovered that even though we were in Shanghai, we were so remote that we couldn’t get a Didi back. Instead, we had to walk 45 minutes to metro and then take about an hour worth of subway on two different lines to get back to our hotel.
Nomad Mania Made Us Visit
I’m kidding really, but as always, Nomad Mania provided ideas for several things to do on our final morning before heading off to Shanghai Pudong Airport.
We took the subway out to People Square, wandered Nanjing Street for a bit to kill time and then arrived for an early lunch at Lao Zheng Xing, a Michelin starred restaurant with affordable prices, focusing on Shanghai food. We enjoyed dumplings, beef, and a wonderful crab dish.
Next we visited two different Art Deco style theaters, built in the 1930’s in Shanghai, during a period of major change for the International (mainly British and American) and French Concessions, and are still in use today.
We had a good day exploring new parts of the city and effectively staying busy until early afternoon. So much better than spending a many hours at the airport hotel.
I’m sure we will be back to Shanghai eventually. At the very least we expect to return for DJ’s graduation in 2030. Shanghai is an amazing city, full of complexities and rapidly growing, changing, and evolving. We look forward to returning not too far in the future.