Century Park

This guide to Century Park in Shanghai's Pudong district opens with a satellite-timed flower clock built in the mid-1990s to mark the turn of the millennium, part of a hurried effort by British landscape designers to give the district's new financial skyline a park to match. From the shore of Mirror Lake, the guide traces how fast the Lujiazui towers rose alongside the park itself. Listen for the magpies nesting on the island behind you, indifferent to all of it.