Expo con't

Recently I’ve been thinking how fitting it was for the Olympics to be hosted in Beijing, China’s symbol of “Ancient China”, and the Expo hosted in China’s international capital: Shanghai.  This year’s World’s Fair theme was “Better City, Better Life – 城市，让生活更美好”, inviting all other countries to see China’s current progress into a 发达国家 (developed nation), and to share their own achievements as well.  Aside from putting quite a bit of time and money into the outside of the pavilions, the insides were themed so that the browser could easily see the progress made in different technologies, culture, and social welfare.  

My Mom and I only stopped in a couple of the pavilions, namely because the rest of the lines were ridiculously long.  Unusually, there were only a handful of foreigners walking around – the vast majority of the Expo participants were from mainland China.  Even more unusually, they would wait 3 hours in line just to see pavilions like Lichtenstein, the Netherlands, Sweden, and other non major western countries (such as France, Germany, England, etc..) – even the line for Poland was long!  For those of you who don’t really know how the Expo works, here’s a quick description:

----Imagine a large area (the length and width of a couple city blocks) that, instead of being filled with apartment complexes, contain a uniquely designed building from each country of the world.  There buildings aren’t small either – some were about the size of a football stadium!  The place was so large that they had their own “expo subway” and “expo public bus” systems – crazy, huh?  Then add the number of people.  Each line had about 3 hours wait with a TON of Chinese people.  On October 16^th, the visitors numbered 1,000,000.  One million people.  It was definitely a 黑压压 (a sea of black).  You have your entrance ticket and then can wait in line.  After waiting in line, you get ushered through a mini-country museum.  It take 10x the amount of time to wait in that line than the amount spent in the actual pavilion. =(  Disappointing.  I was really hoping that each pavilion would have free food or free stuff, but my dreams were crushed.  Food was super expensive – 4x the amount you could pay for it outside of the Expo.  I wouldn’t go back unless there were some massive changes to it (like the museum parts had more information) or they had free food. =D  (you know where my heart is, right?)  The thing that they did best was the relevant connections to China and China’s development.  Each country had something to point to a growing relationship with China – even with countries I wouldn’t associate together (such as Luxembourg….which is still ruled by a monarchy…I did not know this…)

It was great to go there, but I think some change and more enthusiasm from participating countries would be nice.  And taking down the advertisements posted in the USA pavilion would be even better. (really people? Did you have to put up 100 company logos at the front??? *sigh*)

As of late, I have been escorting my mom around (who just left for the states yesterday).  She can tell you all about it.  And as of now, just studying and hanging around.  Sleeping – a lot.  I’m supposedly going to an art museum today with a friend…..let you know about that later…..

expoEXPOEEEEEXXXPOOOOOOO

I finally got around to making it to the World Expo at Shanghai (上海世博 - literally: Shanghai World Museum) after many weeks of studying, hanging out with cool people, and doing other more interesting things.  I don't really like tourist places unless they have something really neat and unique to offer.  I like to learn about the history of places and go see them, just without the crowds and the repeated items everywhere.  Why would they ever want to make a 1000 copies of the same necklace?

What made it even cooler is that I got to go with a very special person: my Mom!  100 years from now, we will look back on this event and commemorate it as being a very special day.  Out of the 200 pavilions offered at the Expo, we managed to get into about 6 of them: Poland, some chinese metal industy, Africa, Colombia, USA (with our flashy VIP status), aaaaand Luxembourg.  All the other lines were at least a 2 hour wait.  Why would anyone ever want to stand in line for 2 hours, much less 6 hours for some of the pavillions!!?!?!  That's just crazy.

I'm tired, so I'm going to hold off from describing it for now. ;)  peace.