I had just left the city of Xian with my family on a plane for Shanghai and was reflecting on our time in the ancient city. There were so many accidents on the roads daily and we seemed to have to run for our lives at intersections, when we had the signal to walk. Our 1,000 km China Eastern flight from Xian to Shanghai was 2 hours long and I was pleasantly surprised with the visibility over one of China's largest cities......last time I could not see past the wing of the plane.
Since Expo was on in Shanghai rooms for accommodation were limited; my wife wanted to just stay at the airport hotel for 500 RMB ($84) instead of lugging all our bags around. I did not want to stay at the airport; she agreed that we could take the free shuttle to a hotel recommended by the service desk. The shuttle bus ended up traveling to a village that was about 20 minutes from the airport; the village was very dirty, as was the hotel room. I walked around the community, leaving the girls in the room, and noticed that there were a lot of car repair shops and Chinese canteens; we wouldn't be staying long. We went back to the airport, managed to get a refund, and checked into the airport hotel where we had a view of the planes landing, as well as the ships on the yellow sea.
The next morning we loaded the train at the airport and eventually made it to the Huangpu River region which was hosting the 2010 World Expo on over 5 sq. kms of land.
For a "developing country", of which the Chinese leaders are fond of classifying themselves; on the days they are not claiming to be world leaders, to be hosting Expo just 2 years after spending a record amount of money on the Beijing Olympics gives hint to the priorities of the government. It was said that the 190 plus nations that were present at Expo were their to stay on the good side of the Chinese government, for partnerships in trade. The Expo's that I have attended and been familiar with in the past were hosted by countries that intended to draw tourists and business strategists from around the globe who would want to either visit again or invest. Mt take on the Shanghai Expo was that it was for Chinese citizens.
Expo passports were issued to Chinese Nationals to encourage them to come many times to the exhibition, hence the huge crowds. Just for the Chinese Pavilion there was a 6-8 hour line up at times just to get into that one exhibit. There were a total of about 2.8 million visitors, we went on a low attendance day....some 530,000 people on this particular day; the national advertising with slogans like "come see the world" seemed to work. Many people stood in lines just to run to the back of the pavilion, get their passport stamped and then rush to the next line-up. The photo's below are from when the gates first opened, hence very few people.
Chinese Pavilion at the main gate
The sights around Expo were quite good, most of the pavilions were very unique in architecture. The atmosphere was good until the crowds came. There were signs at each queue reminding locals not to bud in line, not to push, and not to smoke....many did not adhere to their government plea and we were not so happy about it. The temperature was very high so when we stood in line, watched some people jump over the railing ahead and then had the attendance regulator stop us because the venue was full; and we had to wait 30 minutes for the next batch of people to be allowed in, the frustration mounted quickly.
We managed to see 9 pavilions on the first day by determining that no way were we standing in that line up, for popular pavilions. For the Indonesian Pavilion we sat in some seats to watch a performance before the doors opened. A woman come on stage and talked for 10 minutes in Chinese, then the Indonesian representative followed her, speaking his native tongue.......we really felt that many aspects were geared around the Chinese. The performance was entertaining; people danced and sang to traditional songs.
Since the temperature was hovering around 30 degrees shade was desired by many people in the crowd. It seemed that most benches in the shade had Chinese people laying down sleeping; I guess there should have been a sign, "others may want to sit down". We only saw about 100 foreigners in the crowd on this day so perhaps in total there were 1,000 or so; it was hard to tell since the place was so big.
My favourite pavilion that we entered was the one from Turkey. The antiquities department brought many ancient artifacts for the display, I found the exhibit very interesting.
All in all the Expo experience was well worth the 160 RMB ($23) entrance fee. After spending 12 hours on this first day we decided that we had seen enough. Like I had mentioned above, I did not catch the crowds in the photo's because my preference was to capture photo's of pavilions. Our determining deterrents for not returning were the crowds and the heat. To capture every pavilion one would have needed a week at the exhibition grounds.
It was time for some more typical China travel.
