The glittering J Hotel, housed atop China’s tallest building, The Shanghai Center, the third tallest in the world, curvaceously soars 128 floors over the world’s most stunningly glorious futuristic cityscape in an opulently Las Vegas-inspired flight of fancy. With a Shanghainese restaurant on the 120th floor, it’s currently the world’s highest hotel. Indeed, it’s a hotel of China luxury travel superlatives, whether you count the tiles of the Italian mosaic walls in its presidential Shanghai Suite,  » Read more »

China invested about US$900bn from 2008 – 2023 in a national high speed rail network of over 26,000 miles (40,000km), about 13 times the length of Japan or France’s network. Like theirs, trains are designed to run at between 120 – 220mph. In 2021, during the Covid period, this mammoth infrastructural investment brought in US$104 billion in revenues, representing (according to the Paulson Institute and World Bank) a return of about 7% in lower-carbon generating interconnectivity.  » Read more »

24 years ago I co-founded Imperial Tours, an inbound luxury tour operator in Beijing where I lived for 20 years. As a result of Covid, I was trapped outside China from November 2019 until three weeks ago when I returned for the first time. This article describes my experience of how China has changed during Covid. The Status Of Westerners In China I first moved to Beijing in 1997 to study Chinese at Beijing Language and Culture University.  » Read more »

Even a cursory look into the culinary delights of the Middle Kingdom will reveal countless references to Xiaolongbao. These bite sized delights, traditionally filled with pork and soup, are a must try on any China itinerary. Xiaolongbao are often, wrongly, called small dragon dumplings because of the middle sound “long” which means “dragon”. However, the written Chinese character makes it clear that this “long” is in fact, “steamer basket”, thus making them “small steamer basket dumplings”.  » Read more »

“How large is China?  I have 7 days in China and would like a luxury tour to Beijing, Xian, Guilin, Shanghai and Hong Kong.  Is this possible?” As an Itinerary Designer at Imperial Tours, I have been asked this question (or a similar variation) countless times. My initial response is that technically it is possible if one wishes is to zip from city to city with very little time in each destination. But I then continue to explain that China is a large country;  » Read more »