Can I just do Shanghai from Beijing starting tomorrow and be back in Beijing on July 16 2014 at 9 am to catch the flight.

Hi Farid

Greeting from Peggy, Top China Travel

According to my opinion, it is an very very urgent tour because tomorrow is July 14th. And if you need to catch the 9am flight in Beijing, you need to back from Shanghai to Beijing on July 15th.

Let me list the transportation time between Beijing and Shanghai.
High-speed train: around 5 hours transferring, the earliest one is G11 departure on tomorrow's 8 am. And you will arrival Shanghai around 13:00.
Flight: around 2 hours transferring, the reasonable one is HU7607 departure on tomorrow's 9:25 am. (Although the ealiest one is departure on 6:25 am but I'm afraid it is not reasonable for you to catch it now.) And it will arrival Shanghai around 11:40 am. But we need to caculate the airport check-out time. So when you begin your Shanghai tour, it will be around 13:00 as well.

And you need to catch July 16 flight in the morning, that means you need to back to Beijing on July 15.
High-speed train: the latest one on July 15 is G156, departure shanghai around 17:00, arrival Beijing around 22:00
Flight: the latest one on July 15 is CA1886, departure Shanghai around 22:00, but you need to get to the airport on 20:00. Arrival Beijing on 00:20 (July 16th).
For catching international flight, we suggest at least 3 hrs early to prepare to the airport.

So cut out the transportation time and sleeping time, it will be extremely urgent to have a Shanghai 1 day tour.

So I suggest you to give up this plan and have 2 days in Beijing for more sightseeings.

Peggy