CHINA 5A TRAVEL
Shanghai's pink-sphere silhouette on the Lujiazui skyline — a 468-metre broadcasting tower whose glass-floored skywalk, revolving restaurant and museum-of-the-city draw visitors up over the Huangpu River and the Bund beyond.
Completed in 1994, the Oriental Pearl Radio & TV Tower was the first super-tall to rise in Pudong and remains the city's most recognisable silhouette — eleven spheres strung along 468 metres of concrete and steel, inspired by the Tang poem 'pearls large and small dropping on a plate of jade'. When it opened, its observation decks introduced the world to the view that has defined Shanghai ever since.
The visit stacks vertically: the 263-metre main sightseeing sphere, the 259-metre glass-floored Transparent Observatory walkway (walking on air above the river), the revolving restaurant at 267 metres, and — for premium tickets — the new 351-metre 'Space Capital' deck. Back at the base, the Shanghai City History Museum walks visitors through the city's extraordinary century, from treaty-port lanes to the skyscraper forest outside.
Evenings are the tower's own theatre: the structure itself glows in shifting colour while the Bund's stone façades light up across the water — best watched from the glass walkway, a river cruise, or the tower's own promenade.
Highlights
Transparent Observatory (259 m)
A glass-floored circular walkway — the Huangpu, the Bund and Lujiazui's towers laid out beneath your feet.
Main Sightseeing Sphere (263 m)
The classic 360° deck over river and city; sunset into neon is the golden hour to be here.
Revolving Restaurant (267 m)
One rotation per two hours over the whole skyline — book ahead for dinner seatings.
Space Capital (351 m)
The premium top deck for the highest view in the tower.
Shanghai City History Museum
At the base — dioramas and relics telling the city's raucous century of transformation.
Huangpu River Cruise Combo
Ticket combos pair the tower with a night ferry past the Bund's illuminated façades.
Photo Gallery
Comments