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).