With four floors and 11 galleries displaying priceless treasures, even a tour of the highlights can be something of a cultural marathon. I had been told that the city's nightlife was still finding its feet, but when we arrive at La Fabrique, it's like walking on to the set of a Bond film. An abstract neon arch three-storeys tall welcomes us into a vast, minimalist space where video projections flash in time to club tracks spun by DJs from Brazil and France, as the newly rich locals splash out on pricey cocktails. A neoclassical building revamped by architect Michael Graves, it is home to Giorgio Armani's glittering new boutique, and the internationally acclaimed chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten's eponymous French restaurant where I sample the exquisite tasting menu and a couple of the 5,000 fine wines, in the company of China's first-generation millionaires.
It's time to get back to ground level, before vertigo, visual overload and the jetlag start kicking in. The Bund, a taxi-ride across the river from the hotel, is the district where colonial architecture, Art-Deco mini skyscrapers and rationalist apartment blocks have survived the demolition ball Three on the Bund is the most fashionable address in town. In a couple of years, there will be a Park Hyatt next door, in the elegant, screwdriver-shaped Shanghai Financial Centre which, at 1,614ft, will be the world's tallest building. But even more impressive is the vast, golden, honeycombed atrium documented by the photographic artist Andreas Gursky, so futuristic you may wonder if you're wearing a virtual-reality headset, viewing a backdrop from Buck Rogers or a scene from Star Wars. Over drinks in Cloud 9, the lounge bar on the top of the building on the 87th floor, my hosts make it clear that the record-breaking building boom is far from complete. In a matter of seconds, the lightning-fast lift brings me to the reception on the 54th floor, where polished staff dutifully wait for the inevitable stream of expletives and exclamations as I encounter the view of the city. Checking into the Grand Hyatt (you guessed it - this is the highest hotel in the world) is a perfect introduction to the city.
This area is the size of Singapore, and the hub of the fastest-growing economy on earth. Fifteen years ago it was just marshland and paddy fields, then, in the early 1990s, it was declared a showcase of "market socialism", and a quarter of the world's construction cranes began transforming it into the Manhattan of Asia. A Maglev (magnetic-levitation) train which transfers passengers between the city centre and the slick, new international airport at speeds of up to 270 miles per hour, making it the fastest railway line in the world. But most impressive of all is the district of Pudong, my first port of call.