Padd Solutions

Converted by Falcon Hive

So.... Wednesday morning grabbed the subway to the people's square. 
^ Chinese people doing what Chinese people do best - being numerous.

^ My brunch. Fast-food; China style.

^ This is a pizza hut in Shanghai. Pizza hut here is super, super, super pimp. And the menu was awesome. More like a general American diner than an italian / pizza place. I had ribs and waffles. I was a happy man.

^ Again, super nicely decorated.

^ Me looking happy to be in a Pizza hut! I HATE pizza!

^ Again... check the decor! In a PIZZA HUT! hahahhaa. I <3>

^ Jackie Chan endorsing more Canon goodness. :D

^ Found a Uniqlo store in one of the malls. Uniqlo are awesomeness. Its like the Japanese GAP.... maybe.

^ And... outside the TV tower. Next post - Photos taken INSIDE the TV tower! :D
Final set of photos from Tuesday! Argh! Its actually Friday now, and I'm only just finishing Tuesdays blog post. I'm so far behind, but every waking hour im in my hotel - I'm blogging / sorting photos! I don't even have time to edit the photos; they're all just straight as they come off the camera.

^ Outside the SWFC. You may have gathered; but it's a pretty tall building!

^ Foggy night. Even the low skyscrapers were glowing.

^ I love love love love the exterior skin of the building.

^ and how quickly it disappears into the mist! So comic-book-esq!

^ Love it!

^ The lobby! Again, super comic-book-style!

^ Me standing with the Oriental Pearl (TV Tower) visible behind.

^ Looking back towards the SWFC.

^ It started raining HARD on the way back.

^ Ended the night how I end pretty much every night in China. Tsingtao. :)

Thats tuesday wrapped. Onto Wednesday!

So, finally made it inside the observatory. A ticket to all three observation floors (97, 99 and 100th floors I think) is 150RMB - £15. Could have gone just to the 97th for £8 - but if you're gonna do something; you gotta do it right. (or something like that.) We were warned that because of the fog, you may not be able to see much, yadda yadda, blah blah.

Inside was so, so, so surreal. The decor was super high tech and "glowy." There were so many staff, and we were the only visitors. Corridoors lined with immaculately dressed men and women in their purple / lilac uniforms. This in itself was an awesome experience.

One of the greatest parts of the evening, and a part I wasn't allowed to take pictures of was the pre-show presentation. It's kind of hard to explain. But:

There was a ~1.6meter model of the tower (300:1 scale!!) with lots of lights on it. The model basically lit up and looked all very pretty at first. Very good. But then the model started revolving. It got faster, and faster, and faster. Through the use of strobe lighting, they could flash the lights above the building on when the building was facing exactly the same direction on every revolution, giving the illussion the building wasn't spinning. Simeltaneously, they could use the lights mounted to the model to make some really awesome effects, as if the building had lights flying around it. Its all very hard to explain, but very, very rad to watch.



Googling it I found one image of someone who was obviously feeling covert with their phone camera. As you can see, a stationary model and red lights flying around it. It was mesmorising! Very geeky! :D Me and Tim were in awe, Aya was boreeeeeeed. :P

Then up in the very awesome elevator. It went all the way from the ground floor to the 97th. ~420meters. ZOMG my ears were popping like crazy. The speed of the lift was nuts too! We did the 400meter climb in around 30 seconds. So that would be...  13 meters per second / 30mph!

^ At the top it was foggggggy, and very surreal. Looking down on the city as if it were a model village.

^ In this shot you can see the "gap" between the top and bottom floors of the observation section. The opening that creates the bottle-opener effect.
^ Looking through the glass floor onto the streets below.

^ Me being taller than the world's tallest hotel and the TV tower.

^ Me being 474meters tall. :-P

^ Aya being aya.

^ Awww fake flowers on the observation deck. I really like the pink lighting >_<
^ Reflection in the chrome walls. Woop!

^ Tim and Yaya. I really like the lighting of this one. Lit from underneath....so it should look pretty evil... but its quite warm and fuzzy. :)

^ All three of us reflected in the chrome. Its all about throwing the peace sign. :D

^ The abandoned observation deck.

^ On the way down from the 99th to the 97th floor.

^ Pretty wierd seeing a sign for the 100th floor!

^ Floor 94. I like their minimalist deco.

^ The elevator measured in meters as appose to floors. Again, going down there was serious ear popping!

^ Inside of the elevators changed colour. So awesome.

^ Nice funky yellows.

^ A pretty odd selection of floor numbers. Afterwards, Aya pointed out the irony of the braile. Would a blind person really be going to an observation deck...?

^ More funky purple interiors.

^ The lobby of thw main SWFC. The place stunk of money. 

^ More lobby shots.

^ Tim posing on the escalator.

^ The hand dryer in the toilets! Very rapid hand-drying action.

^ Electric toilet seats! Heated seats, with numerous washing options! Tim informs me it was quite the pleasure.

All in all the SWFC was awesome, and well worth the £15, despite the fog!

Next post will be the walk home from the SWFC.
Okay, so after returning to the hotel for a few hours, we decided we'd head out to the Shanghai World Finanical Centre. I'd done my usual research of every minute detail on my laptop, I'd menatlly planned the route to the right subway station, the lines and changes we had to make, the closing time of the SWFC observatory, ticket prices, etc. Before departing I thought I'd grab a few night practice shots from my balcony.

^ This bright building provides a good way of knowing roughly which way is "home" when you're half-way accross the city.

^ I think everyone should be forced to use the same lightbulbs.

^ I figure this building must be ran by hotel management, as the majority of people are using the same bulbs. ( yeah... I actually think about stuff like this... :(    )

^ I quite like the colours in this one.

^ and one last one of our "beacon".

^ Walking towards the subway station. Neon lights bouncing off the wet floor is always a goodie.

^ One thing about Shanghai is just how quiet it is. The roads at night or day are quieter than Stafford. Its bizarre! Even the pathments are narrower than other Chinese cities, and less occupied.

^ I quite liked this shopping mall with all the escel...escal....escol... ... moving-stairs on show.

^ Jackie Chan endorses Canon over here. This should finally settle the Canon Vs. Nikon debate.

^ A tree!

^ In the subway station. Gotta love a country where you have to tell people not to spit.

^ I really like; A) People on mass transit systems. Everyone is always in their own little world, and its always curious to wonder what they're listening to, where they're going, what they're thinking. B) I really like the lighting in the subway stations. C) I really like the shade of purple they use for metro line 4. So, I really like this shot. Interestingly, there's no playstations / xboxs here... but the PSP is pretty damn popular! I see 10x the amount of PSPs on the metro here than I did on the London underground.

^ Came out of the subway on the other end. I didn't bother remembering the route from the subway station to the SWFC as I figured I'd be able to see it and just walk towards it. Easy peasy. However, half way there I realised "oh wait, how will I get back to the subway station?" Meh, nevermind! :D

^ Quite a pretty building. One suprising thing was just how quiet it was. Both in terms of people and.... "stuff." We were fairly close to the major downtown part of Shanghai, and it was just like the outskirts of a small British town. No shops, no hotels, no high-risers, nothing. The speed at which the city goes from skyscrapers to nothing is impressive. Anyway, kept just walkin towards the big ass building. (SWFC.)

^ Ummm... I'm gonna run out of captions for "Photo of some skyscrapers" really fast.

^ Although; this one was interesting, because it was under construction.

^ Ummm... yup. Ran out of descriptive powers. I could make a comment about how I should have taken my UV filter off, as that street light is pinging a bit too much. But like, one person would even notice that. Oh, hey Mr Shepperson! :D

^ Its a skyscraper!

^ This was an intersection slap bang between all the skyscrapers, and there were just no people around, and a handful of cars.

^ Getting closer now! SWFC on the left. World's tallest hotel on the right. I think it's called the Park Hyatt.

^ ALL THE SKYSCRAPERS ARE FALLING OVER, AHHHHH, ITS LIKE CLOVERFIELLLLDDD! Oh... no... just the camera. 

^ Ka-pow! More skyscrapers. And more lens-flare!

^ Starting to look foggy at the top of the SWFC. I really dig the Park Hyatt though. The exterior shell looks like something from Gotham City.

^ A nice little lake / park inbetween all the buildings.

^ Yeah, *REALLY* Can't see the observatory now.

^ More skyscrapers! Fancy that, eh? Although that building on the right has some lights dotted around it that they use as a simple low-res screen. One of the patterns it cycles through looks a bit like space invaders. 200meters of space invaders. I'm into that.

^ And, finally made it to the base of the SWFC.

Next post - inside the SWFC!