The futuristic city of Pudong

The weather improved today, at least I could see the top of the buildings.........still no sunshine. Anyway time to pay a visit to the futuristic part of Shanghai, Pudong.

The metro took us to Lujiazui station, a big station btw really close to the impressive Oriental Pearl Tower. The tower once the tallest building in China today it remains as the most iconic building in Pudong. The design is futuristic resembling a rocket ship. Lots of people around, being Saturday people come for a stroll around here.

Even though the Pearl Tower has a platform view we decided to go to the SWFC instead, main reasons: less crowded, the tallest building in China (3rd in the world) and also we wanted to have photos of the Pearl Tower which is not possible if you are inside the Pearl Tower obviously.

[PHOTO_ID_L=jinmao-tower.jpg] The SWFC is located on Century Avenue adjacent the Jin Mao tower, another impressive super building second only to the SWFC, together these two buildings are the roof of China, also next to them the Shanghai tower (under construction) will be the tallest building in China when completed (630m), the place will be spectacular with these 3 buildings.

Anyway back to SWFC, nicknamed the bottle opener due to its shape, has 3 observation platforms at floors 94, 97 & 100. After queueing for 10 minutes and paying the entrance fee we entered a room with a scale model of Pudon, then another room with a promotional video of SWFC and then to the lift (one of the fastest in the planet). The lift took us to the 97F and from there by escalators to the Skywalk on 100F. At 474m Skywalk is the tallest observation deck in the world and offers the best views of Pudong, Time for photos.........

Leaving level 100F we went down to level 94F where a coffee and souvenir shop are available. There were some restaurants on level 1 but the prices were higher than the SWFC so we went to a nearby mall adjacent the IFC2 tower where there is a food court on basement 1.

After our lunch we walked to the Oriental Pearl tower, bought some souvenirs at the retail shop and then went to the controversial Bund Sightseeing tunnel. For some this is a must do, for others is just ridiculous, I find it quite interesting a sort of mixture between Queenstown's Gondola and Infinity on the Gold Coast, my only problem is that the ride is just too short.

Anyway the train took us to the other shore of the Huangpujiang river where we spent the afternoon taking photos of Pudong skyline and the Bund.

Back on Naijing road we had something to eat and then back to the hotel, our stay in Shanghai and China was coming to an end.Read more