Shanghai: June 5: Pudong

I spent the afternoon on Friday, June 5, 2009, exploring the touristy part of Pudong. Pudong is across the river from Puxi (Shanghai proper) and was developed much more recently. It's filled with skyscrapers. Because it was developed recently, virtually nothing in Pudong was under renovation--quite a contrast to the other side. (Yes, things were being built, but I didn't want to visit those things; everything I wanted to see had already been built and didn't need renovation.)

These pictures accompany the day's narrative.

In the morning, Di Yin and I took a long walk, all the way to Lu Xun Park, doing (mostly unsuccessful) errands. The park's vicinity, including Sichuan Road, is a relatively nice shopping district, complete with women on the sidewalk handing out menus. On the way home, we stopped by a fancy supermarket, Fresh Mart, that carried American goods (at American prices).

After an early lunch, I headed to Pudong.

My first stop there was the Shanghai History Museum, in the basement of the recognizable Oriental Pearl TV Tower. The museum was mostly composed of plastic life-size or half-life-size displays of shops, model buildings, etc. I'd normally think such a museum was crappy (there were few historic artifacts), but the number of these displays wore me down and I got into it. I'd call the museum passable after all.

In intermittent drizzle, I explored Pudong. I saw some of it before an impressive thunderstorm--so dark that it almost looked like night--arrived and I retreated into the Jinmao Tower. The Jinmao Tower is one of the world's tallest buildings, as is the nearby (taller) Shanghai World Financial Center. To kill time, I paid the entry fee to ride to the top to see the view and to browse the small museum. I learned the tower was designed to withstand a 7 richter scale earthquake and a grade 12 typhoon. I took some pictures too, but overall I thought the trip to the top wasn't worth the money (not surprisingly), but I needed to use up some time while it was raining.