Our Highsnobiety travel adventures get back underway once more, this time with a trip out east to the buzzing metropolis of Shanghai — China's sexiest city.

With a swarming population of well over 20 million, Shanghai is a place that's not for the feint of heart. Like most of China, development in recent years has been rapid; its skyline marked by eye-popping skyscrapers and majestic malls.

Despite its new-found reputation as a modern mecca, Shanghai still retains a fierce sense of tradition: Boujee ateliers and fancy restaurants can sometimes cut an incongruous figure next to gnarly hawker stalls and run down street food stands.

Keen to capture this fascinating dichotomy, shutterbug Lester Jones headed out to the Pearl of the Orient. Once arrived, he turned his lens to key elements of Shanghai’s identity that help to illustrate it’s progression as a constantly advancing global hub, while still showing signs of clinging onto its rich heritage. Each image (and each juxtaposition) has been carefully curated to offer a commentary on the city and it’s fusion of identities.

Peruse the gallery above, and then take a look at what we discovered after venturing even further east to Korea.