Booked & Boarded: Shanghai

On my first evening in Shanghai, I found myself beside the Huangpu River watching ferries move between the banks. Around me, tourists lifted phones for photographs before drifting back into the crowd, commuters surfaced from the metro and headed into the streets, and river traffic continued through the fading light. The scene felt less like a destination than a place of passage. The crowd never seemed to hold the same shape for more than a few moments.

The following morning, I left my hotel with no particular urgency. Shanghai is a city that rewards time on foot. A few blocks can carry you between entirely different moods. One moment you are crossing a busy intersection surrounded by office towers. Next, you are walking beneath plane trees on a quieter street where apartment balconies overflow with plants and cafés are beginning to fill with regulars.

I was carrying a paperback that travelled with me throughout the trip, a memoir of travel through China. I rarely managed more than a few pages before something pulled my attention elsewhere. The book appeared and disappeared throughout the day, emerging over coffee, on a park bench, or while waiting for a traffic light to change. Reading while travelling often feels less like immersion and more like keeping a familiar companion close at hand.

That morning led me towards the former French Concession, officially the prettiest place to linger in Shanghai. Cafés spill onto footpaths, bicycles lean against walls, and residents move through routines that feel largely unchanged by the presence of visitors. There is something reassuring about places that continue to belong to the people who live there.

I stopped at Shimmer, a small cafe, and sat near the window longer than planned. Outside, the street provided a steady procession of small observations: people walking dogs, delivery riders balancing impossible loads, students meeting friends before class. Much of what I remember from Shanghai belongs to moments like these, when there was nowhere specific to be and no reason to hurry.

From there, I wandered towards Garden Books. Independent English-language bookstores have become increasingly rare in many cities, which perhaps explains why I spent so long browsing the shelves. Fiction sat beside travel writing, contemporary history, memoir, and translated literature. Some titles felt familiar, others entirely unexpected. Readers moved quietly between sections, occasionally leaving with a single book tucked beneath an arm.

Bookstores reveal a different side of a city than museums or observation decks. They offer a glimpse into what people are reading, discussing, and thinking about. In Shanghai, that felt particularly true. Even when language created obvious limits, there was still something revealing about the books displayed most prominently, the whispered conversations unfolding between shelves, and the steady stream of people arriving to browse rather than buy.

By mid-afternoon, the day’s plans had dissolved completely. A bookstore visit became a walk through neighbouring streets. A search for lunch led to another coffee. Later, I found myself reading a few pages at Café del Volcán before looking up to discover that nearly an hour had passed. By then, I had stopped paying attention to where I was supposed to be heading.

As evening approached, I drifted back towards the river.

The Huangpu appears repeatedly in accounts of Shanghai, and for good reason. Ferries cross between the banks carrying commuters alongside tourists. Cargo vessels move steadily through the water. Sightseeing boats trace familiar routes as the skyline begins to illuminate itself. The river seems to gather together countless journeys already underway.

Standing there, it was easy to imagine how many different lives had entered the city this way.

For generations, people have arrived in Shanghai carrying different expectations. Merchants, students, journalists, entrepreneurs, refugees, and travellers all encountered the city from their own particular circumstances. Some remained. Others stayed only briefly. Looking across the water, those histories felt less like distant events than part of the city’s everyday atmosphere.

The idea returned throughout the rest of the trip.

It appeared in railway stations filled with passengers hauling suitcases towards departures boards. It appeared in cafés where conversations unfolded in multiple languages. It appeared in bookstores filled with ideas that had crossed borders before arriving on local shelves. Again and again, Shanghai felt connected to elsewhere.

Yet despite its scale, the city rarely felt overwhelming.

What surprised me most was how often it invited pause. Not in any dramatic sense, but through small decisions repeated throughout the day. Staying for another coffee. Browsing a bookstore for longer than intended. Taking the longer route back simply because a particular street looked interesting. The city seemed to reward curiosity more than efficiency.

On my final evening, I returned once more to the waterfront. The light was fading, and the river carried reflections from both banks. Around me, people gathered for the same reason they always have: to watch boats crossing the water and the city shifting gradually from day into night.

Standing there, I found myself thinking less about what I had seen than about the countless others who had stood in the same place before moving on. Not famous figures or historical characters, but ordinary people whose lives briefly intersected with the city before continuing elsewhere. Readers carrying books. Travellers carrying bags. Workers arriving for opportunity. Students arriving for study.

Shanghai did not feel like a place to be fully understood. It felt like a place to be briefly held within. For a short time, I became part of a story already unfolding long before I arrived. Then I left, the ferries kept crossing the river, and the city carried on.