Shanghai’s Pudong is a former swamp-turned-financial district with one of the best skylines in the world. There, you’ll find China’s tallest building—and the world’s second-tallest—the 124-story Shanghai Tower. Its twisting architecture appears truly sci-fi when it disappears like a frozen tornado into a sheet of low-lying cloud.

The Shanghai Tower is joined in Pudong’s clutch of interesting buildings by the distinctive 101-story World Financial Center—rightly nicknamed the “bottle opener”—as well as the hypodermic-alike Oriental Pearl television tower.

Shanghai is renowned for its rooftop bars, and amid these buildings, you’ll also find the Ritz-Carlton perched high in the IFC Building. From its rooftop bar, Flair, you have a superb view of Pudong and across the Huangpu River to the Bund, where Shanghai’s nickname as “The Paris of the East” comes into view.