.....times of refreshing.....

 We have reached the last destination of our trip and we were in metropolitan Shanghai. Well, somehow I felt more at home here, probably due to the sky-rise buildings and city centre here, which sounds more like Singapore.  However, the jam was dreadful here as we were stuck most of the times at the highways. This is really one crowded and busy place and no wonder we were told to wake up earlier to start our excursion at 8am, to avoid the jam.

Perhaps one of the popular places to visit in big Shanghai is the Oriental Pearl Tower, standing at 468 metres and gave us a bird eyes view of at least a large part of Shanghai including the HuangPu River. It was a great time there amid it rains for the first time during our excursion which we felt we were quite lucky. Thus, we gotta carried our umbrella as well as zip up our jackets and hoods down.

A rainy morning in Shanghai with the beautiful tower in the background

It was indeed a wet day!

Inside the tower, it was quiet and we were queuing to take the lift up to its two high deck of  the observatory tower

Views of cosmopolitan Shanghai from the observatory tower

A view of the HuangPu river on a rainy morning

Another view from the 360 degree tower. Look at the highways from top!

More panoramic landscape of the massive city

Check out the pedestrian walkway below

Another view of the HuangPu river

After we were done at the highest observatory deck, we took a lift to go down to another observatory deck and there was fresh air coming in from the side windows. Thus, we got to buckle up our zips to keep ourselves warm as well as enjoying walking on a glass panel.... almost around 263 m.

Yours truly standing on top of the wiorld

The family unites on top of the world

A comparison of all the tallest towers in the world. KL tower was one of them,

After we are done with the breathtaking views, we were brought back 'down to earth' to an exhibition section which tells the history of Shanghai. It was a good eye-opener for me as I read from one exhibits to another, and I am almost running out of time to finish the entire two floors as my tour guide started calling us...LOL. According to wikipedia, Oriental Pearl Tower exhibition room is divided into five section titled: "Trace back to Huating", "Style and Features in the Town", "Sketch of the Port-opening", "Foreign Settlement", "Old footsteps in Shanghai"

I am amazed by how lively the dummies look like. They really look very real!

My kids entered a CGI kinda room or virtual reality where there's a green background. When we look at them from the screen, they were projected onto an old Shanghai street. They have so much fun there!

There are a lot to see here and these models are just some of them, showing Shanghai during the old days.

And, here's a family portrait ...

It was a great visit to the tower, and the tour guide always proudly said, if we don't visit the Oriental Pearl Tower , then we haven't visited Shanghai yet...LOL.