Not for the afraid of heights: Skyscraper Glass Cubes

A number of major cities around the world have created a similar tourist attraction, that has proven to be quite popular: a glass cube, made of reinforced glass, that sticks out of the side of a major skyscraper. I'm spending some time in São Paulo, which has its own version of this attraction, and I had the opportunity to try it out. In a major skyscraper close to the city center there is Sampa Sky: on the 42nd floor, four glass cubes stick out of the sides of the building giving an incredible view of the massive city of São Paulo (the eighth largest in the world, with 21 million people in the metro area - and also where I was born).

I'm not going to lie: I had an intense feeling of vertigo when I stepped in the first cube. It requires some courage to go all the way forward and touch the front glass. After some time you overcome your fear, that is, until you look down and back at the building and you have the impression that you are not on the side that you should be in a skyscraper.

The amazing views more than compensate for that, though. You can see some of the most important points of the City of São Paulo, and have an idea of how immense the urban area is: it is hard to believe that so much humanity can live together, with people coming from all over the world for centuries to create a truly unique city on this planet.

In other words: it may look scary, but don't miss the opportunity!




















Location: São Paulo, State of São Paulo, Brazil

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Trail: Noble Knob and George Lake

Image
This last Monday I had the chance of hiking the Noble Knob trail, which was quite a noteworthy hike for a number of reasons. First, some details: this trail is just outside the Mount Rainier National Park boundaries, in the Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest, and it's one of the highest trails outside of the National Park (which gives you amazing views of Mount Rainier). I was lucky that it was a wonderful day, sunny and cool, and I had amazing views throughout the trail. Another interesting detail about this hike is that, unfortunately, this part of the National Forest had a forest fire recently: you could clearly see where the forest burned and where the fire stopped. This made for a hike like no other I made before, mixing stretches of burned forest with still intact forest. Getting to the trailhead was already part of the adventure. You have to take a forest road that under normal circumstances is already pretty challenging: unpaved, narrow, and with no guard rails next to st...
Read more

New Music Genre: Hardcore Punk with Refused

Image
A week ago I got a chance to watch a concert of a music genre I hadn't heard before: Hardcore Punk. Most people have heard about Punk all the way from the 70's, with Sex Pistols and the Ramones. From that original genre later came Hardcore Punk: more independent bands, outside of the commercial mainstream, with politically confrontational lyrics and a really, really loud sound. One good example of that sound is  Refused , a Swedish hardcore punk band formed in 1991 that has been touring the world. Lucky for me, they were giving a concert at The Showbox  in downtown Seattle, and I managed to get a ticket. I was really curious about them, and they did not disappoint! To say that you go watch a hardcore punk concert would be incorrect: it's more like that you are attacked by ear blasting sound with incredibly intense lights and other effects, such as lots and lots of smoke and quick changes in the music tempo, to keep you on your toes all the time. I've been to Heavy Metal...
Read more