China 2010 – My Days at World Expo 2010 – 20-21.05.10

A bit late, but there was a lot to sort through, and little time.

So, I spent two days at the World Expo 2010 being held in Shanghai, and here’s what I did there, and what we visited…
Photos of certain buildings at the expo are available here.

Small ramble alert
Let’just say, that the Expo, while interesting, was dissapointing, and I do blame the organisation, and the chinese for my dissapointment, and I’m sure many who have been will aggree.

Here in Shanghai, there are advertisements for the Expo EVERYWHERE. You walk down the street, and you’re bound to run into one, turn the corner, and you’re greeted by a scary blue Haibou mascot statue in front of a building, you walk down to the metro and there are Expo TV Advertisemnets on the trains. I GET IT, THE EXPO IS IN SHANGHAI.
So, they kinda hype it up, with a HUGE site on both sides of the Huangpu River, with hundreds of countries participating with their own pavilions, and record crowd numbers. The Expo is here on the news all the time, boasting how big it is, and how ‘successful’ it is turning out to be. They built 10 Metro Lines in the past 5 years, in the lead-up to the Expo, (as well as a dedicated metro line with only three stations) and offer free, regularly departing shuttle busses from various locations throughout Shanghai. On the train, you get regular updates on crowd numbers, events, and feedback from Expo-goers. There are security checks every time you get on a subway train. China really spent A LOT of money on this Expo.

Though, when you get to the Expo in the morning, you wait in-line to buy your ticket, only to find there is no line, and of the many open booths, only two or three have people buying from them. Why? Because the first few days of the Expo, there was a lower than expected turn out. Tickets are 160RMB for a day visit, which, for the average chinese, is too expensive. So, as a result, the Government gave one free ticket to every chinese home that wanted one, in order to boost numbers.
Having went on the 20th and 21st, (Thurs and Fri) it’s not as busy as it would be say, on a weekend, when people have the time to visit. If I remember correctly, the total number of entries for those days were about 450,000, and 350,000 respectively. Imagine how many people turn up on a weekend!

You wait a reasonable while to get through the security check (30 mins so long as you only get there after 10am, otherwise, it’d probably be 2 hours or so) , and you’re into the Expo! Yay!
You find that there are a lot of people here. First thing I notice when you look at the people at the Expo, is that there are no white people… Almost everyone there is Asian, most likely from China. So you think “Hmmm… Well, I am in China eh?”. Then you go to wait in line for entry into, let’s say, “The Pavilion of the Future”, and there is a long line, and you’re told that you probably have to wait in line for about an hour.

And so, you’re like “yeah, okay, it’s a big pavilion, everyone wants to know what our future will be like right?”. You go in, take a look around at what is information well presented, and are quick to the point.

Instantly reminded of Farenheight 451 because you’re studying it about dystopic and utopic societies in English. And there are a lot of books.

The above images are what our future will look like. =P

A meaningful piece of art about our future junk.

Quick, short videos about various future cities/examples of planned cities and how they work. Canberra, was one of them.

BIG LED screens and lights everywhere turning on and off. It was quite impressive. Useless touchscreens that show pretty lights when tou touch them are the way of the future!

I was reminded as if I were in an Apple Store… But was having a mini-rave or something.

Not an iPhone. =D But… a weird shaped phone. It’s a phone here in China. (that I haven’t seen much of)

Then, you go visit the Aviation Pavilion, where you’re told you have to wait two hours for, and since you like planes, you wait in line. Good thing is, you only wait about half an hour. =D

Inside the aviation pavilion, you’re taken on a pretty awesome ride on a moving cart viewing a 3D movie thingo. But it’s in Chinese, so you can’t understand what’s being said to you.

You’re on the Puxi side of the Expo, and you’re getting hungry. Everything on the menus at the various eateries here look like crap… So you settle for “Papa Johns Pizza” where you order Rice and Chicken for expensive…

You find that there isn’t much on the Puxi side that interest you (since the Communications Pavilion is closed due to “Technical Faults”) and so you try heading over to the Pudong side via ferry. Where there are LOADS of people trying to do the same… And so you crowd onto a boat, and travel to Pudong as if you’re on a subway train during Peak Hour.

So, once you’re on the Pudong side, you visit the Japanese Pavilion… And when you see it, you think “What is that supposed to be?!?!” as it’s basically a big purple blob… Then you walk round the east side of the building, where you find the entrance for the diabled, and the start of the queue for normal entry. You end up walking down past a three or four pavilions to find the end of the line, and told that you have to wait in line for 3.5 hours. And since you love Japanese stuff, you’re willing to wait in a slow moving line while chinese people behind you push you to try and make the line move faster and complaining that it’s too squished and hot or whatever… Seriously… THE LINE’S NOT GOING TO MOVE FASTER. They only let 500 people in every 20 minutes… Then you realise, that most of the people, are waiting in-line JUST TO GET THEIR “EXPO PASSPORT” STAMPED! They didn’t even want to go into the pavilion!!!

After waiting 3 hours, (Not bad considering some lines were even longer) you get a nice tour of some of the soon-to-become mass produced technologies, developed by the three main sponsors of the pavilion, Panasonic, Toyota and Canon.

These diaplays by Panasonic “boast an image four times greater precision than a conventional television”.

Canon meanwhile, showed off it’s camera stuffs. This was a smile detection camera thing, that would scan the room for smiles, and then take each face, crop it, and display it. Pretty awesome!

A robot developed by Toyota, that can play the violin. A simple piece, but still impressive.

The room was lined with Canon cameras everywhere…

“iReal” a proof of concept, and proof of future laziness. I want one…

A short-ish opera about an injured crane, a fisherman, and child.

On the roof of the Korean Pavilion, you could see the line for the Japanese Pavilion… This was just a small fraction.

One of the many local watering holes.

Inside the United Arab Emirates Pavilion, they had a nice movie, and personal accounts of people who have migrated to the UAE.

The Finish Pavilion had a kinda cool interior design.

They had nice big projector display with light fluffy dandelions and people jumping on them. This one is about the snowy-ness.

Inside the Austrian Pavilion, there was little to see or do… Except rave…

Clearly states, no iPhones, or iPhone look-a-likes… Or white long things that have smoke.

When watching the Israeli presentation, I kinda felt as though they were subtly saying “without us, you wouldn’t have flash memory, and so you couldn’t store all your photos on this tiny dongle thingy”… To me at least…

The Sweeden Pavilion, kids like to sleep while their parents watched… Can’t blame the kid… Waiting in line for that long…

Also inside the pavilion of IKEA…

They have a wall showing us the things they brought to the world.

All the important things of course!

Some interesting speaker designs…

The 21st was Austria Day, and so we there were some local Austrians on display.

I don’t think that guy is Austrian… Is he…?

Then it was to Austr-ALIA! And I hate to sound biased, being an Australian myself, but of all the pavilions I’ve seen and entered, Australia’s was the best.

I mean, apart from the few in-jokes, entry into the pavilion was easy. Though there was a LONG line of people, it was at least constantly moving, and waiting time, was at most, 20 minutes, and the pavilion could hold a lot of people at one time.

It wasn’t BAA-d at all. If you get a chance, don’t be SHEEPISH.

Though it wasn’t stated, I believe this is also advertising the “Wave Rock(s)” found in Western Australia I believe.

They have a 15-20 minute presentation, with an appealing aural and visuals.

I must say, the viewing room was very impressive, and so was the presentation (though it was in Chinese). With large rotating displays, and a sound system that was very impressive.

They used three cartoon children to represent Australia, a Chinese, a European, and an Aboriginal. Not bad for multiculturalism eh?

Chinese really do love Australian products. By far, the most people I’ve seen, at any Pavilion Souveneir store.

One of the many parades… Kinda felt like Maria from “CANAAN”… Being an amateur photographer, in Shanghai… And a big model dragon thingy… All I was missing was… The fact that Maria was a girl… she was at night… Didn’t have a Canon camera… And as far as I know… There weren’t any crazy people running around in panda masks and stuff…

I think that’s cheating…? Eitherway… Not exactly the most Audiophile set up…

Mmmm… Amsterdam… This is a scary bear that could “see you”… Truly… It was creepy.

MIFFY!!! (Barely know much about her, but she’s cool. =P)

A Tiara owned by the princess of the Netherlands or something… Shiny. That’s all I really care about…

I love a big, “floating” rock.

All up, I think that’s all that’s seriously worth mentioning… Considering I spent half the time, waiting in line just to enter a pavilion… (Think 3 hours waiting for entry into Japan is bad, how about waiting 6 hours for entry into the Germany pavilion on the 22nd?)

Though a lot of it was entertaining, and impressive, it’s not worth waiting several hours just to enter a pavilion… Especially considering when half the chinese waiting in line just want a passport stamp.