Travel
W
hile visiting our daughter
who was studying at
Donghua University in
Shanghai, my husband
and I stayed at the
luxurious Mandarin Oriental in
Pudong. Built in 2013, the property
is also known as the “Art Hotel,” with
4,000 pieces of artwork displayed
throughout the elegant property
showcasing 50 different artists.
This area of Pudong is also known
as “Skyscrapers in Greenbelts.”
The most distinctive and unique
skyscraper is the Oriental Pearl
Television Tower. It looks like
magenta luminous pearls that
shine during the day and night
sky of Shanghai.
While the Bund is located along the
Huangpu River and is the oldest area
in Shanghai, Pudong is newer. Less
than 20 years ago, Pudong was all
farms. This property is in the newer
new Harbour City development.
It’s the only hotel in the area
with a private boat dock for
elegant river cruises.
Guests are welcomed into the
high-ceiling lobby with an impressive
art masterpiece of 71,459 glass
tiles. Each tile is 2”x 2” in size,
displaying a mosaic of a forest.
Nearby are large black stones
carved as ripples in water. Above
are circular light fixtures hung
at angles that represent large
diamond wedding bands.
The staff at this property is
extensively trained in hospitality
to please each guest from check-in
to check-out. We were taken up to
the tastefully-decorated second
floor Club Lounge to enjoy a
beverage and snack, as we were
efficiently checked in and given our
keys to an Executive view suite and
an attached Deluxe Twin room for
my daughters.
The Club Lounge benefits include
breakfast, a light lunch and
afternoon tea during the day.
Evening cocktails and snacks are
available before sunset. Benefits
also include on-call butler service,
concierge service and laundry,
pressing and dry cleaning of two
pieces of garments per day and
unlimited high speed Internet
access throughout the hotel.
Our room oozed elegance with its
soft color palette decor and multimillion dollar views of Shanghai. Our
room had a luxury sitting area and
bedroom with a king-size bed
dressed in luxurious Frette linens.
Inside the closet were silk robes
and plush slippers. Beyond was the
marble bathroom with a soaking
bathtub positioned next to the
floor-to-ceiling windows to take
advantage of the magnificent city
and river views.
I enjoyed the opulent bathroom
amenities by Ormonde Jayne and
plush terry bathrobes by Frette
before touring the hotel with
Cecilia Yang, the Marketing
Manager of the property.
We met on the second floor to learn
more about the local art. Among the
prestigious names in the extensive
collection is Chinese artist Lai De
Quan, a national-level master artist
whose pieces have been presented
to several world dignitaries. “Master
Lai has created 44 porcelain pieces
especially for the hotel,” said Yang.
This talented artist invented a new
technique of glaze painting directly
onto traditional Jingdezhen
porcelain for his panel collection,
Scenes of Jiangnan. “Guests can see
these on display in the guest room
corridors and Presidential Suite,”
said Yang as we walked past one
of the artist’s piec