Go Big Or Go Home
HA! P.T. Barnum ain’t got nothing on Shanghai. While he was busy futzing with elephants, high wire acts, and bearded ladies, the Chinese have been working on their grand scheme to undermine Barnum’s operation and truly create The Greatest Show On Earth. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, feast your eyes now on the Shanghai Land Subsidence Monitoring Show!!!
Ohhhhh. Ahhhhh.
But wait… there’s more!
We got duped into the most ridiculous tourist trap of the trip today! The Bund Sightseeing Tunnel is the most tacky, overpriced, sightseeing scam ever. It is however — as far as we could tell — the most efficient way to get to the other side of the river. And I was able to salvage some of my dignity with a few over exposed photos.
Once we escaped from that tube of terror, we emerged on the other side of the river where we got a close up view of the Oriental Pearl Tower which is the third tallest tower in the world.
I guess when you have 20 million people living in a city, you learn very quickly how to build vertically. And learn they did. After the clouds smog parted I was able to get a shot of the top of the Shanghai World Financial Center, which up until this time last year was THE worlds tallest skyscraper at 1,614.2Â ft.
It’s the one on the right that looks like a bottle opener. It’s neighboring building only looks taller due to the angle. But you can see who’s really the boss from across the river.
We grabbed a bite to eat as the GoodYear blimp floated down the river.
Or for those of you that can read Chinese, here’s the translation on the opposite side.
Since we couldn’t find any other way to get back across the river on foot, and we already paid for the round trip ticket, it was back through the seizure shaft.
We started to walk down The Bund, but after being constantly harrassed by the plethora of street vendors we just gave up and went back to the hotel to try and brush up on our Chinese phrases. As it turns out, it’s REALLY difficult to do anything in this country without a decent understanding of their language. Everywhere else up until this point you could squeek buy with simple English. Not in China. I guess when you’re the most populous nation in the world you don’t really need to learn another language. But don’t fret my fellow Americans, we have a strong foothold here… in a little franchise called KFC. First we take over their chicken, then their language! Muaahahah! 😉