We arrived in Shanghai yesterday, after a trouble-free journey. We were impressed with the empty motorways leading from the airport into town, but this all changed when we reached the centre. Traffic jams, a total disregard by cars and cabs for pedestrian lights, and crowded one-way streets being brought to a halt by throngs of scooters and motor-bikes going the wrong way, all made travel here somewhat slow.

Our hotel room has a great view over the People's Square with its gardens, museum and exhibition buildings to the surrounding skyscrapers - the only downside being the popping of our ears every time we descend in the lift.

The first impression of Shanghai is that this is the future. The massive size of the City, the wealth of new civic buildings and skyscrapers and the amazing amount of construction going on mirror its position as a rising financial centre. Both the volume of property sales and the price of property more than doubled in the last year. It has set itself the goal of becoming the world financial, economic, trade and tourist centre! One suspects though that this boast will be fulfilled. As well as the many transport systems being built in and around the city, a deep sea port is being constructed for container ships which will have a 30k highway going out across the sea to connect the man-made port with the mainland.

If the vision for the future of China is quite scary in its objectives and speed and size of development, a visit to the Shanghai museum was a humbling reminder of the amazingly developed civilisation that existed here when Britain was still in the dark ages and Greek civilisation had yet to rise. The amazing displays of ceramics and bronzes are unparalleled even in the great collections of Byzantine and Greek artefacts in London and Athens

And yet the towering skyscrapers are cloaked in a grey mist of pollution so heavy that it is unusual to be able to see the famous towers of Pudong, less than a mile away.

Shanghai has a population of 20 million and the population and its resources can be marshalled to specific purposes in a way that is alien to the individualist cultures of Europe. Great ranks of identical apartment blocks house line the approaches to Shanghai, many of these housing people moved out of traditional homes into modern flats. Over 900,000 homes apparently have had their flat roofs replaced with pitched roofs. And yet, it is Britain which watches its population with cameras on every street corner, and increases its surveillance efforts at every effort. Here, cars, trucks and bikes routinely break the traffic regulations and the talk is of easing regulation.

The recurring theme of a visit to Shanghai is reconstruction. The famous Bund is inaccesible at the moment due to reconstruction, a vast exhibition centre is under construction. Yet there are still signs of earlier cultures, particularly in the suburbs with the street markets, bicycle carriers and the remarkable surviving Buddhist temples.

We leave Shanghai on Monday for the freezing temperatures of Beijing, currently -5C