Shanghai is a first class city with scifi buildings on one side of the river and (beautiful) western architecture on the other. Exchange students who choose shanghai will feel quite at home. They can frequent the little village I went to last night (Xin she jie) where there are no Chinese characters to be found and where you can comfortably speak in English. The stores resemble high end stores in Canada, where not-as-well-known brands like true religion dominate the standard Veblen variety (prada/Armani/Gucci). The beers are all on tap (with one bar owned by Pauliner, brewed in the back instead of imported from Germany). It was nice to see some rather obscure "brands" make it to the forefront. Like stonegrill, a higher end Korean barbecue where a hot stone is the platform and on top are venison, bison, and other game. I went to the Toronto location with a groupon (and didn't think much of it) but surprisingly it is in shanghai too.