Shanghai Ocean Aquarium and Shanghai Zoo

In this post I’d like to write some aspects about two tourist attractions Shanghai has to offer that focus specially on families with children but are still worth of seeing for everybody visiting Shanghai for a longer period of time. If you’re staying only a few days, I wouldn’t recommend to visit any of them, especially not the Zoo. The Shanghai Ocean Aquarium is located just next to the Huangpu River at the New Pudong site very close to the Lujiazui metro station. It is quite expensive with its 160rmb entry fee but the location is awesome and the whole aquarium is very well done and maintained. The aquarium has several exhibits, for example there is an own section for Chinese aquatic animals, South American, Australian, African, Cold Water, Polar zone and deep ocean zone. There are also many educational signboards telling visitors some facts about the specific animals. In its entirety the aquarium is not that huge compared to for example the one in Valencia, Spain but you can easily spend there a couple of hours. One good thing about the aquarium is that it’s completely indoors so during winter time it’s a perfect spot to visit in Shanghai! 

In contrast to the aquarium, the Shanghai Zoo is the complete opposite. It is pretty cheap, costing you only 40rmb to get in, but to get there you need to take a 40-minute metro ride from the centrum. I haven’t been to many Zoos in my life so far but this is clearly the worst I’ve seen. When you step into the Zoo, the first impressions might be quite positive. It looks big and spacious with some parks to hang out and have a picnic in between. However, once you see the first animals, most visitors start with the fish section followed by the lizards and snakes. The water in the aquariums looked very polluted and dirty, most of the lizards looked dead to me and there were some rats running in their cages. In most cases the situation didn’t look any better. Pretty much all the animals were treated very badly, they had nothing to do in their cages and the visitors threw garbage and food towards them. Even the number one attraction, the Giant Pandas looked so bored and unhappy. The zoo would have the potential to be a very good one but it seemed that there weren’t any workers taking care of the complex since it was very dirty. Maybe it can still be successful for the Chinese visitors but it surely is not attracting many foreigners without any improvements. There is, though, one place I strongly recommend you to go after the Zoo visit. We had some tasteful pizzas at a place called PizzaSun located close to the Zoo entrance.