It seems that while we have been away, CP Construction have expanded somewhat, opened a new office in Shanghai, and are now tearing up most of the city! That was a bit of a shock :).
Anyway, today is a free day here in Shanghai, so we decided to take a tour of some of the sights. We started by walking round to the Jade Buddha Temple. This was again more of a tourist attraction than a temple, but the Jade Buddha itself (no photos) was beautiful. We then battled with a non-english speaking taxi driver to take us to Yu Yuan park. In the end we agreed on the corner of Henan Road and Renmin Road… close enough.
After walking around the park for a bit, we got onto the tube for a visit to the Maglev train. We bought round trip tickets and after travelling thirty miles to the international airport, and thirty miles back, we were back on the tube within 30 minutes. That was one fast train ride! The Maglev train reaches speeds of 431kmph, but only sustains this for just under a minute due to the short distances involved. I can’t believe nobody else has picked up on this idea for improving public transport everywhere.
Our next stop on our tour of Shanghai was Pudong, the East side of the Huang Pu river, which has only existed for 20 years. This was where we saw Shanghai from above. In the late afternoon, we went up to the main observation ball of the Oriental Pearl TV Tower, apparently the tallest tower in Asia… From here we could see most of Shanghai, especially due to the good weather today. We then followed that up with a visit to the Cloud 9 bar on the 87th floor of the Jinmao Tower. Now that is one expensive bar, but there was no entry fee like everywhere else so it almost balanced things out. In this part of China it gets dark really early so we were able to see the night skyline of Shanghai, and I was able to test the capabilities of my camera. Took some great shots, albeit through glass so they do have some odd reflections. Here endeth our whistle stop tour of Shanghai, so thoroughly tired, we headed back to the hotel for somme well deserved sleep.