SWFC

The Shanghai World Financial Center is the tallest building in Shanghai at 1,614.2 ft (492.0m) high. As a reference point for those of you how live in Minnesota or went to our wedding, The IDS Center is only 792 feet (241.4 m) high. For those of you whose math skills have deteriorated like mine, that means that the SWFC is over twice the height of the IDS Center. We have officially given it the nickname as the bottle opener as that is we both thought of went we try to explain it to people. Anne and I decided to visit this building on 11/18. We briefly thought about taking the stairs to the top, but unfortunately that wasn’t an option. Ok, that though never crossed either of our minds but, I wanted you to think we were active (or psychotic) for a second. The center has 3 observation areas. The highest one is on the 100th floor and is 1,555 ft (474m) high. To add to the scariness, the floor has sections of glass where you can see down to the street. We had the pleasure of watching one Chinese women stomp on the glass a couple of times to see if it would break. I guess she didn’t realize that she was STANDING on the glass and would have fallen long enough to write a small essay on why it was a dumb idea to stomp on the glass floor that you're standing on. We were also lucky enough to make our visit when Coca Cola was shooting a commercial using 3 very overdressed people.

Look up in the sky. Is it a bird? A plane? Nope, it’s smog. Believe it or not we went to the SWFC on one of the clearest days we have had in Shanghai. There was not a cloud in the blue sky and if you looked up from the observation area the sky looked as clear blue as it does in Minnesota. Unfortunately the smog never clears below building level which happens to be about 2,000 ft and below. As a result we could only see about 2-5 miles before the smog blocked our views.