After that it was on to a super fast elevator and into the first large sphere.
The building was built in 1994 and became the first real building in the Pudong area. Before this building Pudong was mostly known as a shanty town. Somebody brilliantly decided to develop this ultra modern financial port right across from the historical financial center. Since then….and as you can see from many of the other pictures from afar…the Pearl Tower has now been joined by half a dozen other sky scrapers. And being built right next to it is the Shanghai tower which will become the 4th tallest tower in the world- the second in China. I recommend Googling to see a picture of the incoming Shanghai tower- it is a cool, swirling design.
Anyway. The first large sphere gives you great panoramas and has arrows pointing to other major Chinese cities. I got a picture of home sweet home! Jill and I hung out there for a bit…and then took a trip up into the SPACE MODULE. The Space Module is the tallest of the towers. It offers slightly better views on less smoggy days- but unfortunately we did not get to go on a 'blue sky' day. Around this time we met two westerners who work for a communication company developing 3G & 4G networks abroad. They had 2 days left before they got to go home. They told us about the glass floor---which we had been previously unaware of. So- back down to the first sphere and sure enough…down a flight of twisty stair cases is the glass bottom deck. It is such a mind trip. It really becomes a battle of your Id & your Ego. The animal-instinct part of your brain says "YOU ARE GOING TO FALL TO YOUR DEATH! DON'T DO IT! YOU WILL GO SQUISH!" And the more developed part of your brains says, "hey man- its cool! Its strong glass- it can hold people!" Even though I don't really have a fear of heights it was a little nerve wracking. A few sweet boyfriends would help their scared girlfriends by literally TOSSING them on to the glass floor.
Jill and I took…ummmm about 1,000,000 pictures up here and I got a great video of walking around. It messes with your head.
Then we took another elevator from the sphere into another sphere….I think…which is where the ROLLER COASTER was hidden. Now- calling it a Roller Coaster might be a bit kind. It is a step above those little caterpillar rides you see for kids at carnivals. But it did have some hills and some speed. It wrapped around the interior of the sphere and if I remember correctly- was space themed.
Then we took the elevator down to the bottom and went to the Shanghai Museum. This museum was put together with help from Madame Tussouds and showed the development and history of Shanghai. It gave you many little vignettes from different time periods- really giving you sense of how the city has transformed in the past 400 years. It also was filled with creepy wax figures- and one random Indian wax figure that showed up in far too many vignettes. I know it was just being historically accurate showing foreigners from other British colonies but he looked slightly out of place and if he had been put there just to make it more politically correct. Then for Jill and I it became "Where's Waldo" of this Indian guy…. (I guess "Where's Raj?"). It turned out to be the LONGEST MUSEUM EVER….it took us 2 hours to get through it. I know a little too much about Shanghai history.
All and all we left feeling like we had TRULY gotten the full price of our ticket.
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