National Holiday, Oriental Pearl Tower and an Irish Bar!

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Today was the National Day in China, which meant that much of the city was much quiter than normal. Although there was more cloud than yesterday, we decided to go and see the Oriental Pearl Tower, which is much like the Eiffel Tower is to Paris. It is a huge building (tower), 350m tall and stands in the heart of Pudong, the Financial downtown area of Shanghai. We definitely chose the right day to visit, as there were no queues at all and (much to mummy's delight) we went straight to the lift, which took us to a viewing area at 263 m which was just about bearable for those of us who are petrified of heights. (At this point Joanna forgot the first rule of being scared of heights ... never suggest there might be a higher level when nobody else knows). However, we then took another lift up to 350m, and I was unable to stay for long (due to the fact that the tower was unstable and was rocking apparently), so Sophie and I went back down to the bottom (to save themselves from becoming famous as the only people ever to fall off of the tower) while the brave boys stayed (were abandonned) at the top (with no tickets) and took some pics for us!

When we got back to the bottom, there was a museum underground (probably what makes the tower unstable) showing the changes from old to new Shanghai , which was really interesting. After we had finished at the museum, we headed to an irish Bar (but first we enjoyed what can be described as a kind of Shanghai's got talent show at the bottom of the tower, with spectacles like ... the girl who can balance on a tray on top of 5 tubes ... the gymnasts who wear ridiculously obvious pants underneath their lycra costumes .... the man who wore loads of masks and whipped them off throughout his routine ... and last but not least ... the girls who did some dancing type stuff to songs, sometimes remembering to all wear the same costumes, while looking as if they had nails in their shoes) which we had been told about, called O'Malleys, in the French Concession. As with every city, the Irish Bar was a taste of "home" and we all enjoyed some familiar cuisine. The best thing about the irish Bar, however, was the outdoor play area which the kids loved, and also of course the wine I drank in Happy Hour (amazing how much wine can be sunk in an hour after you've been training teacher style). My god, I miss wine!

We got home quite late as we had to stop for supplies at Carrefour, but we definitely had one of the best days we have had since we have been here!

Enjoy the show (much like we did)!

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Comments

[JoTB]

Irish Bar
Ian is off back to the Irish Bar to win us tickets to the F1 event here on Sunday! That's his excuse anyway! Hope you are both keeping well and lovely to hear from you.xx