It seemed like spiralling madness. Night time and our taxi was travelling at 140 kilometers per hour through the tangle of noodle looped expressways that lead from Pudong International Airport to Hongqiao, the home of Shanghai's second international and domestic airport. The expressways were impressive and seemed to lead in every direction. We marvelled at how our cab driver was able to manouever his car so deftly at such frightening speed across numerous lanes to take what seemed like a never ending series of exits and entries along the 50 km trip to Hongqiao.

This was our fourth visit to Shanghai. And on each visit we have been astonished by the remarkable changes to this amazing city. More high rise, more expressways, more infrastructure and noticeably more wealth. Even by night Shanghai was looking both beautiful and prosperous.

We arrived miraculously in one piece at the Howard Johnson Airport Hotel where we spent a short night before our early morning flight to Urumqi in far north-west China.


The hotel was lovely, quite luxurious and the staff was very friendly and helpful. We would highly recommend this hotel for travellers wanting to overnight in Hongqiao. It is competitively priced, very close to the airport and has its own shuttle service.