More Gold Coast beaches and skyscrapers

 

Note the lifeguards' ute. The beaches were all closed following a string of drownings caused by the wild seas.

 

Note how some people snuck back in regardless, as soon as the lifeguards looked away.

 

Below: the view from distant Springbrook

Paradise! (Still, sort of)

 

Brisvegas

View from a bottle opener

The Shanghai World Financial Centre, aka the Bottle Opener, is the world's fourth tallest building, at 492m. I knew it had an observation deck, so off I went to enjoy the view.

At the time I wasn't actually sure which of Shanghai's top three was in fact the SWFC, and thought it was probably the tallest - the wobbly looking screwdriver/egg whisk one. But no, everyone seemed to be heading for the bottle opener one.


It turns out the Screwdriver  is in fact the world's second tallest building, at 632m (after Dubai's Burj Khalifa, 828m). It's properly called the Shanghai Tower, and isn't fully operational yet. I'm not sure if there's going to be an observation deck, but I wouldn't be surprised.

Anyway, I got to go up to the current world's highest observation deck, which is in the world's fourth tallest building (because the Burj's one is only half way up it).

In fact the Bottle Opener has three separate observation decks. The lowest one, at 423m, hardly seemed worth the bother, but I did the other two (439m & 474m), which are directly below and above the open hole. There are glass ceilings and floors and things!















The views are stunning indeed.

Call that a skyscraper - THESE are skyscrapers!

When I last visited Shanghai, the land across the Huangpu River was flat swamp. That was 30 years ago.

Look at it now!

I was keen to check out this amazing megalopolis again, and it didn't disappoint. Shanghai is somewhere right up there in the 'World's biggest city' stakes. It depends on how you measure it, of course, but it's usually in the top two or three, and its population is roughly that of the whole of Australia. If you went for 'World's visually most stunning central business district', it would possibly get the very top spot.

It's got the current world's second and fourth tallest skyscrapers, and gee, what a colourful, constantly changing Disneyland light show they present every night!

If you go up one of the skyscrapers, there are hundreds of other skyscrapers in every direction, pretty well as far as you can see.








You also look down on walls of pint sized, common or garden skyscrapers like these.



The funny looking multi coloured TV tower (The Space Module) is closer than some of the others, so it looks bigger than it is. I took a special interest in the group of three here: the Shanghai World Financial Centre (The Bottle Opener), the Jin Mao Tower (The Eggbeater, or The Syringe), and the Shanghai Tower (The Screwdriver, or The Egg Whisk).

Parramatta: going up in the world

For 30 years I've been hearing about Parramatta being the real centre of Sydney, as in the geographical centre or demographic centre of gravity (though actually that's Concord). It's certainly been accepted for a while as the most appropriate place to think of as the capital of western Sydney.

Well in recent years it's started to look more and more inevitable that one day it will be quite legitimately looked on as central Sydney proper. The existing Sydney CBD is towards the far east of the metropolitan area, and is small and congested, and very hard to get to for huge numbers of those who have to go there daily. Several cities around the world grew too big for their historical centres, and adopted new ones more appropriate to their modern needs.

OK, Parramatta's skyscrapers aren't that big yet, but they're working on it. There's even a plan to build the tallest building in Australia. I think it's supposed to be about one centimetre taller than the one in Melbourne, but there's some argument with the aviation authorities. OK, the roads are congested, and the additional heavy rail links keep getting promised and cancelled in a very Australian 'State vs Federal' party political way.

There are several light rail routes being proposed, radiating out from the place. You never know, they might even happen. If so it'll be one at a time, and they're being thought of as competitive projects rather than a unified network that has to be in place early on in the growth process. Why is Sydney so incapable of doing planning? One way or another Parramatta probably will become Sydney's main centre. We might as well accept that and do it properly.

Such were my thoughts as I strolled around the place yesterday morning, enjoying the old and the new, and enjoying too the fabulous blue sky winter day.