The Split

We all woke up a little before noon and checked out nearly on time, then discussed plans. The original idea was to climb Huà Shān, one of the five sacred mountains of Taoism, but the weather forecast was awful – snowstorms and temperatures far below freezing – and we didn't want to risk getting trapped for days in a one street village surrounded by impassable mountains. (At this point I suggest you reflect on the movie Identity for a minute or so. You can continue reading as soon as you’re done.) So we elected to scrap that and go directly to sunny Yunnan. The others left immediately, but I decided to stay in Shanghai for one more night, mostly because I really wanted a chance to take the picture on the right.

You might remember how, three days ago, I implied that the Grand Hyatt Shanghai was the highest hotel in the world. I lied: it's only the second highest. The highest, if you can believe it, is the Park Hyatt Shanghai right across the street, inside the Shanghai World Financial Center pictured above. Four elevator rides and fifteen minutes later, I was in its lobby booking a room for the night.

Lujiazui is one of the rare places where you don't need a helicopter to see one of world's tallest buildings from above. The Shanghai World Financial Center boasted at the time the highest livable floor of any completed building in the world and still houses the highest observatory on Earth. It puts many people in mind of a giant bottle opener, a suggestion that is very hard to disprove, but it certainly is the most elegant bottle-opener I have ever seen. Contrary to most other supertall buildings, the SWFC reaches its full height without cheating: it has no spire or antenna, thus walking to its highest floor really brings you to the very top of the 490m building (in comparison, the Willis tower becomes 85m shorter if you don’t count its antennas.)

In the spirit of gathering all important facts about China, I had a sudden urge to check whether the belief that all Chinese women have small breasts is justified, coupled with a completely unrelated desire for a sandwich, and thus went to Hooters for lunch. The inescapable conclusion from this brief visit is that 1,5 billion people allow for a lot of statistical variation. (Trivia: until recently, the world's tallest living man was Chinese.)

Next stop on my list was the Oriental Pearl Tower. I'm a sucker for cityscapes and really high observation decks, and this one didn't disappoint. The tower offers the very best views of the entire city – although to be fair that's mostly because it is one of the rare places where you don't see the eyesore that is the tower itself. It also sports a spectacular panoramic glass skywalk that is largely open to the elements and that I heartily recommend. It is very effective therapy for anyone under the delusion that he's not afraid of heights.

I went swimming then took another walk and a few night photos before going up to the SWFC observatory. Finally satisfied that I'd seen and photographed Lujiazui's gleaming spires from every possible angle, I accepted that my time in Shanghai was eventually coming to an end, and headed back to my hotel.

Anyone's first visit to Shanghai is bound to be at least partially traumatic. The city's insane growth has left visible scars, notably the scattered construction plots and unending roadwork – in the last decade, Shanghai built 1,500 miles of road, or about three Manhattan's worth of streets. Growth has also been shockingly unequal: even if an average Shanghainese worker could devote his entire yearly income (about €4,700) to purchasing a home, he'd only get about 2 square meters of residential property. But all in all, I liked Shanghai a lot. For the first time on this trip, I found a city where I could imagine myself living. It is changing incredibly fast, and is undoubtedly the most visibly dynamic city I've ever seen, but yet many of its neighborhoods retain something of an easy-going flair. Its proximity to the sea also makes its climate milder and its air less polluted than the rest of urban China. Eden on Earth it certainly isn't, but it is a really nice and exciting place, and that's really all I'm looking for in a city.