Megan Shank dot com

(For the forthcoming “To Shanghai with Love” travel guide.)

On tiptoes, we scurried through midnight’s halls past portraits of famous dead men who had once slept here. Occasionally our fingers, still chilled by the October night of strolling along the Huangpu River, interlaced. Stifling giggles, we pulled them apart. Quick stops to tug at a hip, to breathe warmth upon an ear, and we were off again. Only the 137-year-old teak-wood floors acknowledged our presence—we young lovers wild with delight. Around the halls we went, listening to the radiators pop, cracking open antique windows for the scent of the wet air, dancing in the tinted glow cast by spotlights on stained glass windows. Love comes with great courage, and courage enables curiosity’s finer impulses.

Fortunately, the Pujiang Hotel, a mammoth Victorian Mansion at the north end of the Waibaidu Bridge, possesses secrets for the adventurous to discover. Originally founded in 1846, it is the oldest Western hotel in China. It bumped best during Shanghai’s 1920s jazz age when gangsters, diplomats, starlets and socialites swung late into the night in the Peacock Ballroom. The hotel claims such distinguished guests as Ulysses S. Grant, Bertrand Russell, Albert Einstein, Charlie Chaplin and Zhou Enlai. These high times and famous guests are recorded by the sepia and black and white photos that bedeck the wide main halls.

Within the deepest recesses of these halls, my partner and I stumbled into detours to narrow winding staircases where views of the river spread out in a wide arc. On the sixth floor, we found a lonely bathroom with a deep claw foot tub. We were poor bohemian things back then, working odd jobs and traveling around China. We had been sharing a single bed in the student dorm, which had access only to a public shower room. To celebrate our serendipitous luxury, we bought some cheap lemon dish soap and had a private bath.
From the tub, you could see the old Russian Embassy. The visage of a stern little guard in a green suit two sizes too big bobbed atop the citrus foam.

After that first trip, I stayed at the Pujiang Hotel three more times—sometimes with my partner, sometimes on my own–before ultimately moving to Shanghai. If the first trip had been one of passion, then the others were those of passing. I had entered a place in my life where I was attempting to more fully realize my potential. The hotel was too.

Each trip, I noticed something had been tweaked, polished, buffed. Abjured by the renewed interest of Japanese tour groups, management seemed determined to make the place more swanky, less spooky. Those rickety staircases were boarded up and nailed shut. Light flooded nooks and crannies where once even shadows dared not tread. The sixth floor was completely renovated and outfitted with LCD televisions and beige carpet. The teak’s creak now muted to a muffled squeak. In the meantime, I found a good job—good enough to afford the hotel’s new prices. They discontinued offering student hostel beds–rather a pity since they were the first hotel in China to do so. But places, no matter how much they change, hold indelible memories.

Recently, pining for my partner who had returned to the States to complete a doctorate, I revisited the hotel where we had first expressed our love nearly six years ago. The lobby buzzed with happy people. Each time the bellboys opened the mammoth doors to incoming guests, the rainy draft seized and shook red lanterns hanging from the eaves. The rush of sweet perfume, the click of sharp heels and the wet slap of umbrellas closing followed. In the ballroom, a wedding party of one hundred raised faces rosy with laughter and spirits, snatched at wedding cake with chopsticks and threw pink balloons at whoever was unlucky enough to be up next for karaoke.

And despite the newly installed brightness of the little third floor museum, a young couple canoodled on a bench amidst the historical hodgepodge, making their own memories.

–Megan Shank

The Basics

-15 Huangpu Road Shanghai, intersecting Daming Lu. Tel: 021-6324-6388, www.astorhousehotel.com. Rooms 680-3800RMB.

Dinner, Dessert and Drinks

While the Nostalgic Old Bund Bar in the hotel has reasonable drink prices and palatable pizzas, it’s best to get out and explore the neighborhood.

Dinner
Across Daming Road catty corner from the main entrance is a zippy little Hunan Restaurant. At Shanghai Xiangyage Restaurant (37 Daming Lu) order fennel lamb ribs (48RMB), dried hot pot mushrooms (48RMB) and a spicy black bean duck (45RMB). Top it off with ice-cold beer or soda (8RMB). Tel: 021-6364-7198.

Dessert
Need a little something sweet on the palate? Grab a yummy view and a fresh mango ice-ice cream packed with creamy fruit (25RMB) at Swaka on the Bund. Tel: 021-5308-1891

Drink
Head a little farther up the Bund and cross the street for a visit to Glamour Bar for delicious cocktails and equally fabulous mocktails, a 1930s setting, and, quite often, arty music sets. 6/F, 5 M on the Bund near Zhongshan Dong Yi Lu.

Historic Hotels

Staying at a vintage boutique hotel in Shanghai not only adds to the romance of your visit, it also puts you in the heart of some of the city’s choicest locales for strolling, shopping and relaxing.

Rui Jin Guest House
An elegant guesthouse set within one of the most lovely private grounds in Shanghai.
118 Ruijin Er Road, near Fuxing Zhong Road,
6472-5222

Old House Inn
Cool twisting staircase and Ming-style furniture.
No. 16 Lane 351 Huashan Road, near Changshu Road, Metro Line 2 Jing’an Temple Station, 6248-6118

Hengshan Moller Villa
A castle originally built by a Jewish merchant for his daughter.
30 Shaanxi Nan Road, near Yan’an Road, 6247-8881, www.mollervilla.com/en/main.asp

Donghu Hotel
Quiet 1930s elegance within enclosed grounds.
70 Donghu Road, near Xiangyang Park, Metro Line 1 Shaanxi Nan Road Station, 6415-8158

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