Shanghai World Expo 2010

I've been to Shanghai twice, as far as I can remember. My parents have probably taken me there when I was a small child, but I have trouble remembering anything that happened before I immigrated.

I like city life, and the crowds that you would find in large cities.

I don't like Shanghai. I have no idea why. I'm not sure why I so willingly agreed to go on this trip with my dad and my uncle.

I think it was because that meant that we would be going to Hong Kong for the majority of the trip, which meant I got to dink around in Hong Kong arcades. Yes, that must've been it.

World Expo 2010. This was my first visit to any World Expo. I've been told that this expo is the fanciest and most expensive world expo to date, and it makes sense that it would be. (Beijing Olympics, anyone?)

According to the Wikipedia entry, there are 88 National pavilions, 18 Corporate pavilions, and 5 "Themed" pavilions. However, after glancing over the list of National pavilions that the article listed, I found a pavilion that I went to that the Wiki page had not listed, so there's probably nearly 100 National pavilions, but that's just me.

Before I talk about my qualms with the expo, here are the pavilions I went to:

Monaco Pavilion

This one had a relatively short wait time, maybe some 15-20 minutes, and really just featured a cartoon presentation and then we walked through a small collection of pictures, still shots, and then to a souvenir store.

That's how most of the pavilions were like. Sometimes the cartoon presentation was lacking, or replaced with a non-cartoony presentation.

Argentina Pavilion

Malto Pavilion

Greece Pavilion

I don't remember these pavilions very well. I have pictures of them, but I don't remember.

Norway Pavilion

This was one of the longer waits for a non-corporate pavilion, maybe about 30 minutes of wait time before we got to go in. It looked like the walls were made of some kind of hardwood, there was a "watery" theme involved with the whole place, and inside there was a seafood restaurant at the end of the pavilion that required a reservation to get in. Since it was 4 in the afternoon, we didn't bother with that. This pavilion also had a place for you to refill water. Interesting.

Cuba Pavilion

Wait time: Zero? There was no line for this pavilion. This was one room--pictures and souvenir shop in one room.

China Provinces Pavilion

There are smaller pavilions in here, one for each province. We went to about 10 or so, and I don't remember each one that I went to. All I'm going to say is that the wait time for each mini-pavilion is about 10 minutes and the lighting in there is pretty bad.

Space Home Corporate Pavilion

Mostly a demonstration of what it would be like to live in space. Meh. No wait time for this one, the crowds were already advancing when we entered the back of the line.

Japan Industries, Korea Industries

Sigh. See qualms for more.

Cisco

A demonstration on what life would be like in the future, where everything was electronic and if everything was connected to the network, etc etc...If everything were electronic I think we would have flying cars by now. But anyway.

China Railway

China and trains. No bullet trains in China just yet though.

Aurora

They do robots and electronics, but only the last room had three robots that "danced". The rest of the pavilion had jade exhibits. I liked the jade portions.

So what did I not like about the expo?

Let's start with the crowds. As I stated earlier (see above), I don't mind crowds. But crowds of people rushing past presentations in pavilions irritates me. This was prevalent mostly in the Japan and Korea Industries pavilions...You wait in line for nearly an hour just to rush past the presentations and not give a damn about what's being presented? What was the point in you even going in? What, the place wasn't interesting enough for you so you just get up and leave?

Even more ridiculous, some people used their passport with visiting the Expo for stamps. There's a place in the passport that allows you to get stamps for the places that you've visited, and there were pavilions that had their own stamps. And I guess some people care more about a dinky little stamp more than even taking a picture of the place.

A minor problem to the expo is just how much space you have to cover if you want to visit all the pavilions. You could take these little golf carts to the Asia Pavilion sector (for a fee of $10 RMB per person).

Oh, that reminds me. Drivers in Shanghai will capitalize on every opportunity to blare their damn car horns. I cannot even begin to explain this. Save up money for a three-day excursion to Shanghai complete with a hotel package and just wait for the traffic to build up on the freeways and busy streets. The horns are just unbearable. And everybody does it! And no one cares. So why even have the horns? Or why even use them? Sigh.

It's mostly because pedestrians also jaywalk at any and every given opportunity. Apparently traffic lights are outdated and they should just walk whenever they feel like it. I'm surprised that there are so few accidents on the road, considering that even bicycle riders have their own lane that is just about as wide as your typical streetcar lane.

Ahem. What was I talking about? Oh right.

There are buses that take you from places too, but mostly takes you to the Asia Pavilion. The bus rides are free, but holy hell they are crowded.

The weather...It was about 80-85 degrees Fahrenheit on both days that we went. Typical East Asia summer weather I suppose, just without the rain. It got cooler the days that we went, supposedly--before it was around 95 Fahrenheit. Lucky us.