Today was "kitsch Day" on Shanghai in 3 days with Trina Chow.
Pudong from The Bund
I took a cab ride over to The Bund this afternoon. The Bund is the waterfront promenade along the Huangpu River. It's lined with gorgeous buildings, built as early as the 1880s, which were former headquarters of foreign banks and institutions. The Bund has a great view of Pudong, which is considered to the future of Shanghai.
Inside The Bund Tourist Tunnel
I thought it would be cool to cross over to the Pudong side of the River to get a view of The Bund from the other side. I decided to take the Bund Tourist Tunnel which my guidebook describes as "Easily the most entertaining way to get over to Pudong...". Why not?! You ride through the tunnel (which is 2,213 feet long) in glass-enclosed capsules. Sounds cool, right? okay, the kitschy part is the tunnel is filled with strobing lights, neon, projections, strange blow-up figures, etc., It's very hard to describe. There was audio, too, but I wasn't sure what it was trying to convey. I periodically heard words in English like "Meteor Showers" or "flying lights". The ride was certainly less than 5 minutes each way, and turned out to be a pretty economical, and yes, entertaining way to get across the river.
Here I am! Looking at The Bund from Pudong
Once I was on the Pudong side of the river, I strolled along the promenade looking back at the Bund. I took a fairly lengthy walk around Pudong, (which is also where we had dinner Monday night) and eventually found myself inside the ginormous SuperBrand Mall. (10 stories!) Again, I got overwhelmed, but I managed to find a bakery that featured cream puffs!
Mmmmm...
The best cream puff ever
When I was back outside, I found myself facing the Oriental Pearl Tower. The Pearl Tower is a 1,535 foot TV and radio tower, and a Shanghai Icon. It hadn't even occurred to me until now that I should probably take the ride up to the top. I figured why not. I'm here. It's there. Let's do it.
The Pearl Tower
So I paid my 100 RMB ($12.00 USD or so) and took the elevator up to the top bubble. I've got to say, it was pretty cool, and I'm really glad I did it. Although it was very overcast/smoggy today, it was a great view of the city. Kitschy, yes, but it was cool, too!
View from the top. You can see the pink of the middle bubble (the pink part) at the bottom of the photo.
After spending an hour or so on different levels of the Pearl Tower, I decided to head back to The Bund via the Bund Tourist Tunnel again. It was just as odd and surreal as the first time.
I walked around The Bund for a bit, admiring the architecture, then finally found a cab to take me back to the hotel. (not an easy thing to do during rush hour!)
Here's how high i was! I'm looking across to the Grand Hyatt Hotel. Dick has been up to the 87th floor of it.
Now I'm back at the hotel, and waiting for Dick to come back from work. We're having dinner tonight with some people in his group. I think we're going to a restaurant in The Bund. Today is "Bund Day"!
We leave tomorrow morning for Tokyo. I wasn't sure if I'd have time to write more tomorrow morning, so I thought I'd better get it all out of my head now.
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