People's Park - Shanghai, China
Some sort of display going on today in People's Park
Our hotel - Radisson Blu
Looking down Nanjing Road
Busy weekend streets on the Pedestrian Walkway
A view from the Park Hyatt Hotel
A view from Park Hyatt Hotel - a little hazy today
The circular walkway in the financial district
Lujiazui area
Oriental Pearl Tower
Oriental Pearl Tower - perspective
World Financial Tower, Observatory Tower, Shanghai Tower (left to right)
#10, #2 tallest buildings in the world with Observatory in the middle
Shanghai World Financial Tower
After getting to our hotel last night around 3am after the 4-hr flight delay - we all decided to sleep in and meet at the hotel lobby at noon. Much needed sleep! The last couple of days have taken a toll with the prolonged travel. It was critical to get some rest this morning.
Our hotel is located in a popular section of Shanghai - across the street from the People's Square metro - the busiest metro in Shanghai. We would later learn that the metros in Shanghai are very spread out - sometimes having 20 exits that could span over a 1/2 mile area or more. We walked around the People Square Park for about an hour and then walked the popular pedestrian street (Nanjing) down to the Bund. Tons of folks were out today - small trains transporting toursits up & down the street. Food, shopping, atmosphere - action everywhere.
The Bund is the waterfront area in Shanghai that separates the newer, modern, skyscraper downtown from the older, more historic section of the city. The Bund generally refers to the section on the older side of the river. The second tallest building in the world, the Shanghai Tower, highlights the incredible skyline.
World's Tallest buildings:
(1) Burj Khalifa - Dubai, UAE
(2) Shanghai Tower - Shanghai, China
(3) Abraj Al-Bair Clock Tower - Mecca, Saudi Arabia
(4) Ping An Finance Centre - Shenzhen, China
(5) Lotte World Tower - Seoul, South Korea
(6) CN Tower - Toronto, Canada
(7) One World Trade Center - New York City, USA
(8) CTF Finance Centre - Guangzhou, China
(9) Taipei 101 - Taipei, Taiwan
(10) Shanghai World Financial Center - Shanghai, China
See above list - 2 of the Top 10 tallest buildings in the world are located in Shanghai. The skies were pretty hazy today - but you could still see the grand scale that is the Shanghai skyline. We spent some time just taking in the views/atmosphere. We then decided to get a bird's eye perspective by having a drink at the Vue Bar on the 52nd floor of the Park Hyatt Hotel. We had a great table allowing us to enjoy the waterfront below as we had a snack and a couple drinks. Next, we took the metro over to the Lujiazui area (specifically developed as the new financial district of Shanghai - following the allocation of Lujiazui as a special investment zone in 1992, the development of Lujiazui's skyline began. This was largely driven by Chinese state owned enterprises investing and developing within the area, with the inaugural landmark, the Oiental Pearl Tower, being completed in 1994. Currently, there are more than 30 buildings over 25 stories high with commerce as their leading function, and over 504 domestic and overseas financial and insurance corporations located in Lujiazui)
There was an elevated walkway that provided terrific views. As we walked out of the metro station onto the walkway, the city lights were just coming on (7pm). Awesome! Watching the Oriental Pearl Tower light up was kind of like seeing the Eiffel Tower light up at night.
After completing the circular walk, we strolled further along the raised walkway toward the Shanghai Tower and the Shanghai World Financial Center (the 2 tall buildings listed above). These 2 buildings, along with the Jinmao Observatory made an amazing photo. We continued to walk until we had the 3 towers in a perfectly aligned symmetrical viewpoint (Randy was proud of this shot). Great stuff! One of the most impressive skylines in the world - and certainly one of the best I've ever seen in all my travels.
It was getting late by now. After a quick stop at the Dairy Queen, we caught the metro back to our hotel - the Radisson Blu Hotel. We went up to the skydeck for a nightcap and listen to some live music. Nice performance in Shanghai!
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