Initially together with Elise I wanted to visit the skywalk in the Shanghai World Financial Center (SWFC) the so called bottle opener with its iconic look that looks actually like a bottle opener. The second tallest building in the city with 492 meters. Unfortunately it’s observatory is closed. So we went for the Pearl Tower instead. The iconic TV tower is a mix of brutalist and sci-fi architecture. We wanted to catch the sunset and had plenty of time. However, we didn’t calculate the crowd.
After looking for the ticket office we needed to wait 20 min for security check, another 20 min for our elevator. The pearl tower has different levels with different attractions, on the very top the space capsule at 351 m. Followed by the restaurant and cafe. The 2nd obervation deck 263 meter and the he skywalk at 259 meters
The lower large sphere also has an observation deck, at a height of 90 meters as well a rollercoaster finishing off with a museum at the basement. Different elevators take the crows from the different queues up to where they wanna go. Another wait for 30 min, and there goes our sunset…
A bit claustrophobic in the maze of queues and hundreds of people. Finally we got up and saw another line of people so naively we again waited patiently to get out to the platform only to understand that this was the line for people wanting to going down!
We were quite mad that moment but nevertheless went out on the skywalk with its glass bottom for some thrilling walks.
We enjoyed the last light of the day giving way for the city lights of the night. It was a nice moment still we felt a bit locked in and wanted to go down as did the hundreds of other Chinese tourists.
Another 30 min or so in the last queue of the day, we only wanted to get in our cozy cab just for us, no other people up close, no foul smell of food, no screaming kids only us the cab driver guiding us through busy traffic.
In Europe we are very blessed with the space we have and our mentality also is different. In China everyone wants to participate on the opportunity and not wants to be left behind. We realised that again with our visit.
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