These days everyone pontificates about the global economy. But few get to survey Shanghai’s market maestros in action from a fiftieth-floor Ritz-Carlton perch. With 1,000 opulent square feet at your disposal in 2011’s top Readers’ Choice Awards hotel, it was, ahem, a long march from the door to your cozy bedroom. At first you might have thought that’s a water tower outside your window, but it’s actually the Oriental Pearl TV Tower, which helps keep commerce here humming. Your digs in the formerly swampy Pudong district are called the Premier Bund View Suite for good reason, and soon you’ll want to cross the Huangpu River and stroll the iconic Bund waterfront, where the gin flowed and the jazz wailed in an earlier era of unfettered wheeling and dealing.
Once back at the Ritz, you’ll want to hit the gargantuan ESPA spa and the 24-hour health club (to get in fighting shape for the skirmishes of the marketplace), and reward yourself with tapas and still more astonishing views in the alfresco rooftop lounge, Flair. Then collapse on your down pillows and snuggle under those 600-thread-count linens (seriously, can you breathe under covers that thick?). Even global players need to crash now and then. Or is that a dirty word?
Source: Conde Nast Traveler
