Day Nine

We had the whole morning to tour around Shanghai but...of course nothing was open due to the Asian conference of heavy hitters. In fact, when we wanted to leave the hotel, we couldn't, as the Pakistani President was about to leave also, so the entire hotel was in shut down mode. Finally he appeared with his army of body guards and rows upon rows of big black cars...after they all roared out of the driveway everyone's shoulders relaxed and life returned to normal.

We had an hour to spare before we needed to go to the airport so we headed over to the Oriental Pearl Tower - a rather "Meet the Jetsons" type of architecture which is 121 floors tall. (We could see this building outside our hotel window as it was across the river, and at night colorful neon lights sprinkle up and down the tower.) We road the elevator way up to the Observatory's Sky deck where, if it hadn't been cloudy and rainy, our view would have been magnificent. As it was, we could still see far across the city. Bill bravely stepped onto the 360 degree wrap around glass bottomed panel...not me!

First you wait in a short line, then are escorted to the elevator.