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.

oops!

I just noticed that the photos I'm posting are getting cut off on the right side. I need to tweak the layout. Click on the photos to see them fully. I'll try to fix it later.

This may help a little

Cast:


Hui-Ling, my wife

Joy (Jia-Xin) our daughter

Ama, Hui-Ling’s Mom (not her name, but her title)

Agong, Hui-Ling’s Dad (not her name, but his title)

Guo-Shu, Hui-Ling’s older brother

Hui-Jen, Hui-Ling’s older sister

Guo-Yen, Hui-Ling’s younger brother

Mei-Jen, Guo-Yen’s wife

Jia-En, Guo-Yen’s son

Amber, daughter of Mei-Jen’s friend

Much more space than American Airlines

We flew EVA Airlines from Kaohsiung, Taiwan to Shanghai. It was a nice flight that took 1 hour and 45 minutes. Joy slept through most of it. I am becoming quite envious of her ability to sleep on airplanes. Of course, she’s still small enough to curl up on a seat and be comfortable. The space at our seats seemed much larger than on the American Airlines plane. Even the seat was more comfortable. The first thing I noticed when sitting down in the AA plane was how uncomfortable the seat was. That was immediate, and that seat was going to be my home for about 13 hours.

Watch out!

Taiwan is full of gasoline scooters. China, or at least Shanghai, is full of electric bikes and scooters. It’s much quieter which is nice. It's also better smelling than all of those gas scooters, which are a bit like a bunch of lawn mowers going down the street. The only problem is hearing them coming. I almost got run over my first time crossing the street. I had not yet realized how much traffic laws there are suggestions instead of rules. Run a red light? No problem. Drive the wrong way down a one way street? Why not? Drive on the wrong side of the road? Let’s go! Walk out in front of moving traffic? How much more fun can you have? Many of the taxi drivers we rode with were quite aggressive. Nicer looking private cars tended to be a bit more cautious. I’ve been with aggressive taxi drivers in New York City, but this takes it to a new level.

There are plenty of gas and pedal powered vehicles here too.

Yes, that's a McDonald's in the background. Lot's of them here. And lots of KFC.

 



We saw a few different fleets of KFC delivery bikes.

Rain

It was raining when we arrived in Taiwan. It rained pretty hard off and on our first night here. This was the first significant rain Taiwan had since October 8, 2009. The rain helped cool things off, but it was still hot and humid. I was sweating just standing around in the pharmacy.

BLOCKED!

Blogspot is blocked in China. I couldn't post anything the whole time we were there. Now that we're back in Taiwan I'll try to get caught up.

Meet Haibao. He's the mascot for the Shanghai Expo. Got this shot at the luggage pickup area in the Shanghai South Airport. On the left is Amber. She's the daughter of a friend of Mei-Jen's. On the right is Jia-En, Mei-Jen and Guo-Yen's son.