Pudong New Area

Pudong (Chinese: 浦东) is a district of Shanghai, China, located along the east side of the Huangpu River, across from the historic city center of Shanghai in Puxi. It is administered as the Pudong New Area, a state-level new area.

Pudong is home to the Lujiazui Finance and Trade Zone and the Shanghai Stock Exchange and many of Shanghai's best known buildings, such as the Oriental Pearl Tower, the Jin Mao Building, and the Shanghai World Financial Center. It is also the site of the future Shanghai Tower. These modern skyscrapers face directly across from Puxi's historic Bund, a remnant of a former concession in China.

Pudong refers to the land in the east of Huangpu River. Originally, the area was mainly farmland and countryside with some warehouses and wharfs near the shore. The parts closest to Puxi were administered by its districts, including Huangpu, Yangpu, and the former Nanshi District. The rest of the area was administered by Chuansha County.

In 1993, the Chinese government decided to set up a Special Economic Zone in Chuansha, creating the Pudong New Area. The western tip of the Pudong district was designated as the Lujiazui Finance and Trade Zone and was proposed to become the new financial hub of modern China. Several landmark buildings were constructed in Lujiazui to raise the image and awareness of the area. These include the Oriental Pearl Tower, the Jin Mao Building, and the supertall Shanghai World Financial Center. At 494 m, the last will be the tallest building in China of the nearby Shanghai Tower, which is projected to reach 565.6 m in 2014.

On May 6, 2009, it was disclosed that the State Council had approved the proposal to merge Nanhui District with Pudong and comprise the majority of eastern Shanghai.

Pudong literally means "East Bank". Pudong is bounded by the Huangpu River in the west and the East China Sea in the east. Pudong is distinguished from Puxi ("West Bank"), the older part of Shanghai. It has an area of 1210.4 km² and according to the 2010 Census, a population of 5,044,430 inhabitants, 1.9 million more than in 2000. Currently, at least 2.1 million of residents of Pudong are newcomers from other provinces or cities in China.
For more information, please visit http://top-chinatour.com

The Shanghai World Financial Center

The Shanghai World Financial Center (SWFC; Chinese: 上海环球金融中心) is a super tall skyscraper located in the Pudong district of Shanghai, China. It was designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox and developed by the Mori Building Company, with Leslie E. Robertson Associates as its structural engineer and China State Construction Engineering Corp and Shanghai Construction (Group) General Co. as its main contractor.

It is a mixed-use skyscraper, consisting of offices, hotels, conference rooms, observation decks, and ground-floor shopping malls. Park Hyatt Shanghai is the tower's hotel component, comprising 174 rooms and suites. It occupied the 79th to the 93rd floors, surpassing the Grand Hyatt Shanghai on the 53rd to 87th floors of the neighboring Jin Mao Tower. It is the second-highest hotel in the world after The Ritz-Carlton, Hong Kong, which occupies floors 102 to 118 of the International Commerce Centre.

On 14 September 2007, the skyscraper was topped out at 492.0 meters (1,614.2 ft), making it, at the time, the second-tallest building in the world and the tallest structure in Mainland China. It also had the highest occupied floor and the highest height to roof, two categories used to determine the title of "world’s tallest building". The SWFC opened on 28 August 2008, with its observation deck opening on 30 August. This observation deck, the world's tallest at the time of its completion, offers views from 474 m (1,555 ft) above ground level.

The SWFC has been lauded for its design, and in 2008 it was named by architects as the year's best completed skyscraper. In 2013, the SWFC was exceeded in height by the adjacent Shanghai Tower, which is due for completion in 2014. Together, the Shanghai World Financial Center, Shanghai Tower and Jin Mao Tower form the world's first adjacent grouping of three supertall skyscrapers.
For more information, please visit http://top-chinatour.com

The Oriental Pearl Radio----the Second in Height in the World

The Oriental Pearl Radio & TV Tower (Chinese: 东方明珠塔) is a Tv tower in Shanghai, China. Its location at the tip of Lujiazui in the Pudong district by the side of Huangpu River, opposite The Bund, makes it a distinct landmark in the area.

With a height of 468 meters, the Oriental Pearl Tower ranks the second in Asia and the fourth in the world in height, merely behind Guangzhou New TV Tower, Canada's Toronto TV Tower and Moscow's Ostankino Television Tower. Although replaced by World Financial Centre as the tallest building of Shanghai, Oriental Pearl Tower is still standing erectly among those modern buildings complex in the Lujiazui area.

With Nanpu and Huangpu Bridge on its left and right side respectively, it looks like two dragons playing with a pearl. Together with the newly constructed Jinmao Tower and World Financial Centre, they reflect spectacular scenery of this international metropolis. The Oriental Pearl Tower has complex functions of observation, catering, shopping, entertainment, Huangpu River touring, meeting and exhibition, history display, travel agent, etc. All of these make it one of Shanghai's representative buildings and scenic spots. Now, it ranks the second only to France's Eiffel Tower in terms of touring population and revenue, numbering among world renowned tourist attractions.

Depending on its high-speed elevator shuttling among three nine meters giant pillars and the world's first 360 degree completely transparent three-track sightseeing elevator, the Oriental Pearl Tower gives every tourist a feeling of enjoying the endless vista brought by modern technology. With great fantasy, the designer make 11 different sized spheres scattered high and low fallowing from the blue sky to the green lawn. Highly propped up by two huge ruby-like eye-catching balls, the Oriental Pearl Tower creates an atmosphere of pearls, small and large, falling into a jade plate. In February 1994, the former president Jiang Zemin gave the title "Oriental Pearl Broadcasting & TV Tower" to the tower.

 

Standing on the tower and having a bird-eye look of Shanghai, you will feel that the whole city looks just like building blocks made arena by some architects whose wisdom are undoubtedly amazing. The city extends the height of human being and brings them together. This land constructed with steel rods and cement is destroying our surviving environment while protecting us.

Its principal designers were Jiang Huan Chen, Lin Benlin, and Zhang Xiulin. Construction began in 1991, and the tower was completed in 1994. At 468 m (1,535 feet) high, it was the tallest structure in China from 1994–2007, when it was surpassed by the Shanghai World Financial Center. It is classified as a AAAAA scenic area by the China National Tourism Administration.
For more information, please visit http://top-chinatour.com

The Jade Buddha Temple

The Jade Buddha Temple (Chinese: 玉佛禅寺) is a Buddhist temple in Shanghai, China. As with many modern Chinese Buddhist temples, the current temple draws from both the Pure Land and Chan traditions of Mahayana Buddhism. It was founded in 1882 with two jade Buddha statues imported to Shanghai from Burma by sea. These were a sitting Buddha (1.95 metres tall, 3 tonnes), and a smaller reclining Buddha representing Buddha's death. The temple now also contains a much larger reclining Buddha made of marble, donated from Singapore, and visitors may mistake this larger sculpture for the original, smaller piece.

History

During the rule of emperor Guang Xu in the Qing Dynasty (1875–1908), Hui Gen, an abbot from Mount Putuo went on a pilgrimage to Tibet via the two famous Chinese mountains Mount Wutai and Mount Emei. After Tibet, he arrived in Burma. Whilst there, Mr. Chen Jun-Pu, an overseas Chinese resident in Burma, donated five Jade statues of Buddha to Hui Gen, who transported two of them back to Jiang-wan, Shanghai. Here Hui Gen had a temple built with donated funds, and died shortly thereafter. This temple was occupied during the 1911 uprising, and the statues were moved to Maigen Road.

An Abbot by the name of Ke Chen later had a new temple built on land donated by Sheng, Xuanhuai. Mr. Sheng Huaixuan was a senior official in the Qing court, and his father and his uncle were pious Buddhist disciples. They built houses with thatched roofs at Yizhou Pond by the Zhuanghuabang River in the northeast of Shanghai. This can be accounted as the predecessor of the monastery. The construction took ten years, and lasted from 1918-1928. Ke Chen also invited Reverend Di Xian from Tian Tai Mountain to come and lecture on Buddhism in a magnificent ceremony.

In 1956, a ceremony was held at the temple by the Shanghai Buddhist Association to celebrate the 2500th anniversary of Gautama Buddha's enlightenment.

In 1966, during the Cultural Revolution, the monks made a living by selling handicrafts.

In 1983, Shanghai Institute of Buddhism was established at the temple under the Shanghai Buddhist Association.

In 1985, Monk Zhizhi Xuan and others made a trip to Dunhuang via Xinjiang. Shortly after their return, regular scripture lectures, meditation and other features of temple life were resumed.

Highlights

The two precious jade Buddhist statues are not only rare cultural relics but also jade artworks. Both the Sitting Buddha and the Recumbent Buddha are carved with whole white jade. The sparkling and crystal-clear white jade gives the Buddhas the beauty of sanctity and make them more vivid.

The Sitting Buddha is 190 centimeters high and encrusted with agates and emeralds, portraying Buddha at the moment of his meditation and enlightenment.

The Recumbent Buddha is 96 centimeters long, lying on his right side with his right hand supporting his head and left hand placed on the left leg. This shape is called the 'lucky repose'. The sedate face shows the peaceful mood of Sakyamuni when he left this world.

In the temple there is also another Recumbent Buddha which is four meters long and was brought from Singapore by the tenth abbot of the temple in 1989. Furthermore there are many other ancient paintings and Buddhist scriptures distributed in the different halls of the temple.

For more information, please visit http://top-chinatour.com