Visiting the Expo

The rain continued to fall the next morning, but luckily it subsided around lunch time. Which presented us with the perfect opportunity to visit the much publicized Shanghai Expo. Due to the rain, the weather was more bearable although the humidity was still bothersome. We heard that certain exhibits had wheelchair lines so my grandfather decided to tag along as well.

My Bro with Gramps in the holding area for the expo. This is where tickets are collected bags are searched before we catch a subway that takes us directly to the expo center. This subway line amazingly only has 3 stops, 1 for each side of Huangpu river where the Expo Halls are housed and this stop right here. As you can see the place was dead this afternoon. We expected similar showing at the expo, but we were dead wrong...

Yeah...look at the line for Japan Technology Hall, this wasn't even the real Japan Hall...

2 hour wait! outside! in the humidity! For Cisco Hall? What are we going to do? Learn about routers? not happening today!

Japan Technology Hall

Whats that in the sky? It must be Octopus Man! They sold some overpriced Takoyaki here. The line for Takoyaki was even 30min.

We decided to go to some Korean Hall because there was no line. It wasn't even the real Korea Hall. This one was sponsored by Lotte. I thought Lotte was a Japanese company. The hall was pretty boring, featuring touch screens where you can use your hands to bounce imaginary balls. Not very exciting.

Why is the Oil hall water blue?

We took the water taxi across the Huangpu river to the Pudong side where all the countries have their main halls.

A UFO?

Tommy somehow ended up in the wheelchair. What a slacker...

Don't remember what hall this was...

Your 2010 FIFA World Cup Winner...ESPANA!!!

Very colorful Serbia Hall

All the major halls had 2+ hour wait time, yes even Serbia. So we decided to visit the Monaco Hall...The hall was pretty lame. It started with a tourism video, narrated by Prince Albert(we are not talking about the piercing here. Don't blame me, you googled it yourself...ahhhh curiosity kills). We saw a few Formula One race car. Read about how Monaco is dealing with global warming. (Monoco will definitely be one of the first ones to go if the sea level rises. No wonder they are freaking out)

Formula 1 Car...Monaco hosts a yearly Formula 1 event.

Electric Race Car

Deutschland

Polska

La Suisse

Germany had 28 rows of lines...Packed with people...Wait time of 4hrs

Le Oranjeboom!

We ended going to the Austria hall since the wait time was a modest 1hr and half. By the end of the entire ordeal, I was so fed up I ended up yelling at two kids behind me. They were pushing, shoving and cutting in line the entire time. Come on, can we be more civilized here, everyone will get in! If China ever wants to play with the big boys and attract foreigners to these events, the Chinese people need to change their mentality. (99.99% of the attendees were Chinese People! It's not the World Expo no more, more like the China Expo) Also another thing that pissed me off, all these people waited in line on average for 2hrs per hall, and what did they do once they finally got into the hall? They ran through it in 2 minutes, touching a few buttons here and there, posing for pics with foreigners and then they were out of there. O yeah, they also got their "passports" stamped. Why rush through it when 2hrs were spent waiting in line? I really don't get these people...

The Austria Hall featured a live Chamber Orchestra. Finally able to get a long exposure without a tripod.

Snowballs

Rossiya

O Canada

The landmark of the Expo. China Hall. Can you believe this is the only structure they will keep after the expo? All the other halls will be torn down. What a waste.

Turkmenistan

Qatar

As a joke, we visited the Iran and North Korea Halls. Interestingly, they were right next to each other.

We thought we would never make it out alive. Very surreal experience.

Highlight of the DPR Hall.

Where is the Kim Jong Il Propaganda?

Iran Hall

Dr. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

After 8hrs, we just couldn't take the humidity and the pushing anymore, we decided to call it a day. One quote pretty much summarizes the entire ordeal. "You regret if you don't go...but you regret it even more if you go."