Shanghai Expo

Monday, May 31 we went to the Shanghai World Expo. We had to walk quite a way to get from the street entrance to the security check point. Then we took subway into the actual expo site.

It’s very large, and we only saw a small amount of it. Wait time to get into the various countries’ building ranged from ½ hour to over 3 hours. We went into the Indonesia building. It was very much like a museum. We had some lunch at their outdoor restaurant.

Gamelan Gongs in the Indonesion Pavilion

I was surprised at the brand name on the squat toilet I saw. I couldn’t help myself, I had to get a photo.

We spent some time looking at the China pavilion, but didn’t go inside. I ended up taking a few photos for other visitors. One woman came over and wanted a photo of me with a woman in a wheelchair. The woman in the wheelchair was 93 years old, and supposedly was the oldest person at the expo that day.

Chinese Pavilion

We went through the Spanish pavilion. It was the only pavilion designed by a woman at this expo. The outside was covered with a plant material from Taiwan. There was a fairly large line to get in.

Giant Baby in the Spanish Pavilion

Visitors to the Expo can purchase Expo passports. Stamps from each pavilion are available upon exiting. Sometimes there was a very long line to get the stamp. None of us got the passports. Hui-Ling waited in line to get the Spanish stamp. I saw lots of people trying to cut in line for the stamp.

When I was exiting the Spanish pavilion I saw some people trying to cut in line to get into the pavilion faster. They ducked under the divider and thought they had gotten really far ahead. In fact, they had just cut into the exit path. I was amused, but someone told them they were in the wrong place so they got back in line. Personally, I would have let them exit.

When we decided to go home, we took a ferry across the river. The expo site is actually on both sides of the river, so we had to walk through more of it to get to the exit. Joy was very tired and Hui-Ling and I took turns carrying her. It wasn’t easy considering her size, and the fact that I was carrying my camera, camera bag with a flash, and my tripod.