As I live in Shanghai, the quickest way to Ningbo, for those without a car, is to hopped on a bus at the Shanghai South Railways Station’s long distance bus terminal and head across the newly built Hangzhou bridge. This journey should take about three hours (or two and a half if you’re lucky with traffic) and the proximity makes Ningbo a nice place for a weekend break.
If you go north along line 6 into the far reaches of Pudong, you will pass MinYa hotel. It’s a slightly out of the way place for a five star hotel but this wholly Chinese owned and run hotel is trying its best to break into Shanghai’s very competitive five star hotel market.
The hotel, which opened just before the Olympics, includes two Chinese restaurants and two Western, one of which serves an all day buffet. Being a Chinese run hotel, there is also a whole floor of private dining rooms for businessmen to entertain their clients.