Me: A high floor if possible please
Front desk clerk: Well sir, the hotel starts on the 53rd floor… so basically every floor is a high floor.
Me: Oh… right!
It’s a common request I make when I check in a hotel. I figure, if I’m going to be staying in a hotel, I might as well have a nice view. On this particular occasion though, I clearly hadn’t thought the request through. As I mentioned last week, on my most recent trip to China, I got to stay in the Grand Hyatt Shanghai (it’s always great when work conferences are in nice hotels!), which happens to be in the 3rd tallest building in the city, the Jin Mao Tower.
The Jin Mao Tower is really something else. The first 52 floors are a shopping mall and then office space, and then floors 53 – 87 are the hotel, and floor 88 is an observation deck (the blue circle at the top is actually windows that look down into the hotel from the observation floor). When you get off the elevator into the hotel area, you’re greeted by amazing views of the city (when you can see it through the haze) at the front desk. It’s a bit mesmerizing. BUT, the really cool feature of the hotel is the next floor up, which is where the piano bar and open restaurant area are, which offers an unobstructed view from the 53rd floor all the way to the top of the building, which is pictured above. Well, I guess I should call this the second best part of the hotel, as the absolute best is clearly the view from the 88th floor! When I was taking these pictures, I had to pull up a chair in the lounge section and sit down, as you feel like you’re going to fall over backwards if you just stare straight up while standing! It’s quite incredible.
As you would imagine, the hotel itself is fantastic… but… you know I’m just in it for the views. 🙂
–Dan Thompson