Content
1. Ann’s Ramblings
2. Blog Update
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Ann’s Ramblings
How are you today?
I’ll bet you thought that I forgot about you, didn’t you?
Well, I’m really sorry that I haven’t been in touch with you over a week. Last week, I went to Shanghai China for a business trip, for some reasons, I couldn’t get on to the Internet, so that’s why you didn’t hear from me and also you didn’t receive MBA’s newsletter.
After came back from the trip, in my email box, there are over 500 emails waiting for me to read!! After a quick view and I found Marlonsblog is very interesting. There are so many good “How To” tips and advices toward to Internet and affiliate marketing. So get on there today, okay!
Back to my Shanghai trip then, Shanghai is the largest city of the People’s Republic of China and the seventh largest in the world. It amazed me a lot; there are so many high rise modern buildings with have those unusual designs. They are sophisticated, fresh and innovative. This city serves as one of the nation’s most important cultural, commercial, financial, industrial and communications centers.
I stayed at Novotel Atlants Shanghai; it is located at financial district, which is on the east side of the HuangpuRiver, called Pudong, officially known as Pudong New Area. It is the newer part of urban and suburban Shanghai and it has emerged as China’s financial and commercial hub.
From my room, I can see the HuangpuRiver, Oriental Pearl Tower, Lujiazui Finance and Trade Zone, the Jin Mao Building and some other skyscrapers. The view is so nice especially in the evening when all the lights on.
Speaking of the Jin Mao Building, if you have been to Shanghai, I am sure you know and saw it already. It is an 88-story landmark skyscraper in the Lujiazui area of the Pudong. It contains offices and the Shanghai Grand Hyatt hotel. It is a centerpiece of the Pudong skyline along with the Oriental Pearl Tower.
The Jin Mao Building is the tallest building in the PRC as of 2005, the fifth tallest in the world by roof height and the seventh tallest by pinnacle height. But it will be surpassed in 2008 by the Shanghai World Financial Center. I saw this new financial center that just right next to Jin Mao building, looks like it is almost finish construction.
Lucky me – I got a chance to have a drink with some business associates there, and we went up to 56 floors, where are a collection of restaurants. As an outside guest, this is the highest floor you can go. If you are the hotel guest, you can use your room key go up till 87 floors. After I asked staff knows that the 88th floor is not part of the hotel, it houses the Skywalk, a 1,520m² indoor observation deck with a capacity of 1,000+ people.
Surprise me, it was so crowded, I saw people from different countries sat there chatting, smoking, drinking and talking – Westerners, Indians, Japanese, Chinese and other Asians etc. When I looked up above of my head, wow, amazing – roof of the hotel, the design, the color and the shape are all incredible, for me, it is really a piece of art. I am extremely impressed by its structure.
You know, I am really curious about these whole things; to learn more about this amazing building. I did some search and here are the things I found, it says -from Wikipedia,
The building is located on a 24 000 m² plot of land near the Lujiazui metro station.
It was designed by the Chicago office of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. Its postmodern form, whose complexity rises as it ascends, draws on traditional Chinese architecture such as the tiered pagoda, gently stepping back to create a rhythmic pattern as it rises. Like the Petronas Towers in Malaysia, the building’s proportions revolve around the 8, associated with prosperity in Chinese culture.
The 88 floors (93 if the spire floors are counted) are divided into 16 segments, each of which is 1/8th shorter than the 16-story base. The tower is built around an octagon-shaped concrete shear wall core surrounded by 8 exterior composite super columns and 8 exterior steel columns. Three sets of 8 two-story high outrigger trusses connect the columns to the core at six of the floors to provide additional support.
The foundations rest on 1,062 high-capacity steel piles driven 83.5 m deep in the ground to compensate for poor upper-strata soil conditions. At the time those were the longest steel piles ever used in a land-based building. The piles are capped by a 4 m-thick concrete raft 19.6 m underground. The basement’s surrounding slurry wall is 1 m thick, 36 m high and 568 m long, and composed of 20,500 m³ of reinforced concrete.
The building employs an advanced structural engineering system which fortifies it against typhoon winds of up to 200 km/h (with the top swaying by a maximum of 75 cm) and earthquakes of up to 7 on the Richter scale. The steel shafts have shear joints that act as shock absorbers to cushion the lateral forces imposed by winds and quakes, and the swimming pool on the 57th floor is said to act as a passive damper.
The exterior curtain wall is made of glass, stainless steel, aluminum, and granite, and is crass-crossed by complex latticework cladding made of aluminum alloy pipes.
These whole new learning experiences really bright up my trip. Beside that, in general – the stuff there is expensive, weather in Shanghai was hot and the traffic was bad as well. The thing I didn’t like is the smoke, every Taxi I got into all had strong smelly, it made me sick, and also the crowd and noise …
Still, there are so many places to see, to visit, as well as so many nice foods to eat, hopefully I can find sometime in the near future to explore more of this beautiful city – Shanghai.
Wish you a wonderful day.
Cheers
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Other Post Update
Hope you find this week’s newsletter helpful.
Till next time – promote and prosper 
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