Lujiazui / Pudong, Shanghai

This Tower is considered as the symbol of Shanghai and it is such a popular spot for tourists. Personally I have a few suggestions when you visit there.

1. Avoid weekends and holidays - otherwise you will spend a whole day standing in the queue.

2. There are quite a few kinds of tickets. I would suggest you buy the ticket with buffet inside the 2nd top ball (also includes visit to the top). It isn't much more expensive than the visiting tickets, however, you can get to sit at the spinning restaurant and have more time to enjoy the wonderful view of the city. The food is not too bad.

3. Go when the weather is clear and sky is blue. Otherwise u may not see much when u get up there.

You can also get a great view from Jin'mao building, that's right next to the Shanghai World Finance Center (SWFC).. however.. the unique thing about SWFC is that u can try sky-walk on the 101th floor. How cool is that! The floor there is made of glass and u can see through it all the way down to the ground. The window wall over there is facing 45 degrees outwards.. u can lean over the window and feel yourself about to fall! Yikes!

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The Shanghai World Financial Centre Building in Pudong is the highest building in China and the second tallest in the world at a height of 492m (1,614ft). It opened on the 28th October 2008 and the Observation Deck at the highest vantage point at 474m (1,555ft) opened a couple of days later. Unfortunately I visited Shanghai a few months before it opened in May 2008 when it was still being constructed as you can see by one of the photos I took from the neighbouring Jin Mao Tower.

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The Jin Mao Tower (literally "Golden Prosperity Building"), built in 1998, is an 88-story landmark skyscraper in Pudong. Until 2007 it was the tallest building in China, the fifth tallest in the world by roof height and the seventh tallest by pinnacle height at 421 m / 1,380 ft. The building's anchor tenant is the five-star, 555-room Shanghai Grand Hyatt hotel which occupies floors 53 to 87. You can take an express elevator to the 88th floor observation deck where the views are shear magic but go in the morning when the sun is still in the east as you'll get a better view of the Bund. I suppose, now that the neighbouring Shanghai World Finance Building has been built (it was still unfinished when I visited in May 2008), that not many people will bother coming up this tower.

Admission: Y70.

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This rather vulgar 468m (1,535ft) tall TV tower has become the symbol of Pudong and, probably, the most photographed building in Shanghai. Construction began in 1991 and the tower was completed in 1995 making it the tallest completed tower in Asia, and the third tallest tower in the world after the CN Tower in Toronto, Canada and the Ostankino Tower in Moscow, Russia.

The tower features 11 spheres, big and small. The two biggest spheres, along the length of the tower, have diameters of 50 m (164 ft) for the lower and 45 m (148 ft) for the upper. They are linked by three columns, each 9 m (30 ft) in diameter. The highest sphere is 14 m (46 ft) in diameter. The tower has fifteen observatory levels. The highest (known as the Space Module) is at 350 m (1148 ft). The lower levels are at 263 m (863 ft) (Sightseeing Floor) and at 90 m (295 ft) (Space City). There is a revolving restaurant at the 267 m (876 ft) level, a 20-room hotel called the Space Hotel, restaurants, exhibition facilities, the Shanghai History Exhibition and a shopping mall. Be aware that it isn't cheap to go anywhere inside:

Admission: Space Module - RMB150, The Upper Sphere & Shanghai History Exhibition - RMB135, the Upper Sphere (on its own) - RMB100 and Shanghai History Exhibition (on its own) - RMB35.

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If ever a scene defined a whole country then this surely must be it, looking away from The Bund over the Huangpu River to the district known as Pudong (literally "East of the [Huang]pu"). Before 1990 this area was just a boggy farmland but since then it's become one of the success stories of the whole country in terms of financial and commercial progress. China has realised that greed really is good and has exploited all that capitalism has to offer with relish. Pudong has become a "New Open Economic Development Zone" and is home to the Lujiazui Finance and Trade Zone, the Shanghai Stock Exchange, and a skyline that includes the symbolic Oriental Pearl Tower, the Jin Mao Building, and the Shanghai World Financial Centre.

Completed in 1998, the graceful pagoda-like Jinmao Tower - with 88 occupied floors and a height of 421 metres - was until recently China's tallest building, before being usurped by the Shanghai World Financial Center next door. The top floors (53rd to 87th floors) house the Grand Hyatt hotel and there is an observation deck on the 88th floor. The lower floors are occupied by offices, and there is a food court in the basement. As an excuse to visit, pop into the Grand Hyatt's lobby to see its vertigo-inducing barrel-vaulted 21-storey atrium before you stop for drinks in Cloud 9, one of the world's highest bar.

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Across the Huangpu river from the Bund is the wonderful sight that is Pudong, the financial district. The towers are visible throuhout the city but, as you top the stairs by the river the view is awesome. Traffic on the river seems never ending.
The "Christmas tree decoration" is the Oriental Pearl tv tower and the large one to the right is the Jin Mao tower, see later tips.