A glorious monument to overproduction

February 2, 2009: Kenty and Tess have come and gone, and their admirable touristic fervour led me to experience the Real Shanghai, from a foreign visitor's perspective, for the first time.

First up was Yuyuan, the Mandarin's Garden, right near my place though i'd never gone inside.

Nice fishes they've got there.

From that rather desolate collection of crazy paving and courtyards (this may be a bit unfair as the day was very cold, but with its courtyard walls it's certainly designed to receive minimum sun) we hit up the world's highest observation deck, in the World Financial Center or whatever that massive building known as The Bottle Opener is actually called.


(Its non-identical 'twin' tower, the Jinmao Building across the road, is one building i really like.)


My cheapness meant we didn't go all the way to the top deck at 474 metres, only to the 430 metre one. Kenty, who seemed keen to spend RMB in a way somewhat resemblant of foreign sailors in Old Shanghai (the analogy doesn't actually extend to cheap hookers) wanted the extra 44 metres, and Tess seemed nonplussed, so my convoluted pseudo-mathematical protestations about the exponentially-decreasing significance of additional height beyond the pollution line won out.

We got there about half-past four and the sun was still above the above-mentioned pollution-line. However the astonishingly lame, compulsory, "Intro Show" on the basement floor - which consisted of a one=metre scale model of the tower embedded with LED lights, spinning around and around - was there to save us from seeing the city in its full, sunlit glory. When we reached the observation deck the mists were rolling in and the sun had all but disappeared into the haze.




Nonetheless we had spectacular views of the Sim City known as Pudong. (For the uninitiated that's the east side of the river, which has been almost entirely constructed since the mid-90s.)


Next up came Kenty's moment of glory, the Shanghai Tourist Tunnel. I'd never even heard of it, and his introduction to the idea of us going began, "I know it's crap but...." But despite the bitter wind, my scepticism, and Tess's continuing nonplussedness, he nonetheless emphasised repeatedly his burning desire to see it, due to its being there for tourists. And despite the total fluke required to actually find the entrance, tucked away in the forecourt of some big hotel, and despite its consisting of only 2 elements - WackyWavingInflatableArmFlailingTubeMen and more of those surplus LED lights from now-defunct Guangdong factories (I guess this is what's respectfully termed "the early signs of over-production"), i think anyone who says the Shanghai Tourist Tunnel is crap just isn't opening their mind (or maybe camera lens) long enough.



Bravo kenty, for speaking out for the unpopular cause.