The pop-up ice-skating rink right underneath the Lujiazui skyscrapers is on until the end of February — no break for the holidays. Curlicue your way around the rink in the open air. This one is especially good because the rink in Mercedes Benz Arena is closed for the whole holiday, so if you want to go ice skating, do it here.
teamLab Borderless Shanghai is the second museum from Japanese art collective teamLab, an interdisciplinary group of artists, designers, mathematicians, engineers, and programmers self-labelled as "ultra-technologists."
At more than 6,600 square metres, teamLab Borderless Shanghai houses about 50 artworks; some of them are brand-new and never-before-seen. A number of the digital works here are incorporated into three-dimensional spaces, giving visitors a tangible feeling of being in a parallel universe.
Bring a blanket and a thermos of mulled wine or hot chocolate and, if there’s a sunny day over the next week, go spend it outdoors, when everyone is else at home. Open every day.
Our art writer called this new five-year collaboration "the most significant artistic exchange between France and China to date." Go see what all the fuss is about with these two exhibitions. Closed for four days but re-opens on January 28 with normal hours.
The city does not shutdown critical services during the holiday, like the fire brigade, the police and blacklight minigolf. They break at 6pm on 24 but that’s all the rest they need to serve you, the public citizen, with ultraviolet minigolf entertainment for the holidays (10am-10pm). Not "sporty" enough? Then try the game of real men, the sport of ultra-humans: bowling. Orden, on Hengshan Lu, doesn’t close for even an hour over the holidays, running their usual 24-hour schedule for those 3am pin-hounds. Still not "sporty" enough? Go smash some softballs at sports emporium Cages, which closes 24-26 but re-opens on 27 for a limited schedule (noon to midnight) and then returns to normal hours on 28.
The Puxi side of the Huangpu starting at the Qinhuangdao Ferry Terminal, near Banyan Tree Shanghai on the Bund, and continuing east beyond Yangpu Bridge was once an industrial zone home to the Shanghai Shipyard, wool warehouses, the Shanghai Soap Company, China’s first paper mill and the Yangshupu Power Plant, whose 105m tall chimneys still tower over the river.
Something you can only do in one place in Shanghai: Costco. No one knows if it will be stuffed to the outer aisles with bargain-hunters or if it will be empty, as people eat through the stuff they』ve already hoarded (unlikely?), because it’s the American warehouse shopping brand’s first year in China. If you haven’t been, maybe it’s time to see what the treasure box holds. Open from 9am-5pm on 24. Closed on 25. Re-opens on 26 from 9am-9.30pm.
The Power Station of Art is open during their regular schedule for the holiday (Tuesday to Sunday, 11am-7pm, with last entry at 6pm), and have four exhibitions going: Passing Through Architecture: The 10 Years of Gordon Matta-Clark; Emerging Curators Project; Jean Nouvel, in my head, in my eye…belonging…; and The Return of Guests: Selections from the PSA Collection.
Mingxin Massage and Subconscious Day Spa are both open throughout the holidays like normal, and, hey!, we have deals on both of them over on SmartTicket.cn
The history professors of Historic Shanghai are staying in town over Chinese New Year, and doing two walks. On January 26, it’s Disappearing Old City – Xiaonanmen, which tours an exceptionally atmospheric part of the ancient Chinese city, now slated for demolition and re-development. The tour takes in the hidden treasures and stories in the maze of twisting lanes, the ghosts of temples, overgrown gardens, the curve of ancient creeks, and the haunting remains of a 16th century garden and library (pictured above). Then on January 29, there’s a 2pm walk through Laoximen, another very old neighbor that is facing imminent redevelopment. Walks are 250rmb each for non-members.
The Shanghai Art Museum has a free exhibition titled A Blessing Over the Sea: Cultural Relics of Jian Zhen and Murals by Higashiyama Kaii from Toshodaiji. On display are 68 murals painted by Higashiyama Kaii, a celebrated 20th century Japanese landscape painter, and antiques from Chinese Buddhist monk Jian Zhen’s life, dating back to the Tang Dynasty. At the invitation of Japanese monks, Jian Zhen made five hazardous ocean voyages to Japan until he finally reached the capital Nara in 754, at age 66. Highlight is Kinki Sharito, a pagoda-like gold reliquary with a turtle. Designated as a National Treasure of Japan, the reliquary contains the ashes of previous masters that Jian Zhen carried all the way to Japan. Open every day from 9am-5pm (last entry at 4pm).
Space Plus covers 12,000 square meters of megaclubbing territory. Taxx for comparison, which is one monstrously large club, is 3,000 square meters. Space Plus has 400 employees and are still understaffed. But no rest for the weary; club kids need to party after being stuck at home, watching TV with the parents all day. Space Plus is open every night.
The main draw is the Main Room. Facing directly onto the riverfront (and the parked yachts of billionaires), the cavernous hall of drinks cabinets and 8-10k minimum check tables is fitted out with a gigantic Funktion One sound system and surrounded by LED plates. When it's all on and running, complete with lasers, dancing holograms and flashing roof installation, it looks like the inside of Armin Van Buuren's head...
Tank No.5 shows The Art of The Brick, an exhibition of 89 artworks built with LEGO bricks by American artist Nathan Sawaya. He is the only person in the world to combine the titles of LEGO Certified Professional and Master Builder. The dude has built Lego versions of classics like the Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo, and a whole bunch of original creations. The show closes 24-25 but is otherwise open as usual.
Our two favorite bathhouses, Newstar and Cheersum, are both open the whole holiday, 24 hours, no break no closure no clothing. Lounge around in pajamas after a hot shower, a hot soak, a hard bodyscrub and a heated floor. Newstar is the more packed, family-friendly of the two, with tougher bodyscrubs and hot sauna huts (pictured); Cheersum is a little more upscale, less kid-friendly (though they sneak in), but geared more towards men, with a much larger and more opulent bathing area than the ladies get.
Spread over two floors in the palatial Global Harbor mall at the Jinshajiang Lu station, Joypolis has two sides – an arcade and a digital amusement park. You can ride bucking horses on virtual tracks, step over alarm-system lazers like you're breaking-and-entering, race against friends on a treadmill as Sonic characters, and spin around in a Transformers orb until you throw up. There's so much to do here, and it's all soaked in expensive-looking colors, giving the place a look and feel unlike any other arcade. And it doesn’t close during the holidays.
Chinese New Year is peak, peak, peak time for Disney visitors, so make sure you follow our suggestions about fast-passes, VIP entry and all of that, or risk spending the day doing nothing but standing in line. Open every day.
The Shanghai Tower Observation Deck, on the 118 floor, is open every single day from 8.30am-10.30pm.
Join the Masses at the Lantern Festival, the Traditional End to Chinese New YearThis isn’t during the "holiday" holiday, per se, but if you want to round out the full, traditional two-week celebration, this is how you do it: with tens of thousands of other people thronging Yu Gardens for yuanxiao jie (元宵節), the Lantern Festival, on February 8. But you don't have to wait until then. The decoration for the festival has been up since January 10 and will stay up until February 11.