View from the top of the JinMao Tower...

One of the taller buildings in Shanghai is called the JinMao Tower.  It has 88 stories, and the observation deck is on the 88th floor.  The boys took a trip to the top to see how far you could see on a fairly clear day...
  This is Pearl Tower...

  and a view of the river.  The area on the other bank is called the Bund.

The boys took turns using the binoculars to look at different buildings around the JinMao Tower.
   

Derek pretended to touch the top of the antenna on top of the Pearl Tower...

 

This is a close-up view of the Shanghai World Financial Center, which is 101 stories and is located right next to JinMao Tower.  It's commonly referred to as the "bottle opener", for obvious reasons, and we've been to the top of that one already as well!  It was considered the tallest building in the world in 2009, but I believe another taller building has been built since then so it's now #2.
 

Inside the JinMao Tower is a hotel.  This is a view from the top of the JinMao Tower down through the middle of the tower, where the hotel rooms are around the outside.  The boys both thought it was dizzying to look down...


A view from the bottom of the tower looking up...


Very impressive, two tall towers...SWFC on the left, and JinMao on the right.  Soon enough, that base of a structure in the lower right of the picture will be 1/3 taller than the SWFC and will be the tallest building in the world.  We'll continue to watch progress on that one, though we're pretty sure it won't be completed by 2014.  Then again, things go up very quickly here in Shanghai, so it's possible...


Next building we need to visit is Pearl Tower, which has either 2 or 3 observation areas and a ride inside...

and the adventure continues...