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Published: October 24th 2010
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The Shanghai Expo is the largest World's Fair in history, in terms of number of exhibitors (over 240), amount of acreage (over 1,200) and number of visitors (estimated 70 million, 90%!w(MISSING)hich are Chinese nationals). As of Friday October 22nd the Expo hit 68 million visitors so it seems possible to hit the 70 million goal. On Friday alone there were over 740,000 visitors. The Expo opened on May 1st and will come to an end on October 31, 2010 after 184 days.
Brief overview of the layout there are 5 zones and we walked through 3 of them A, B and C. We concentrated on visiting countries that we have not been to, would like to go to and not wait in line over 1 hour. We mainly stayed in Zone B and C, as Zone A is Asia and we have traveled extensively in this region over the last 15 months.
Day 1-Friday 10/22
We arrived around 5pm after our train ride from Hangzhou and stopping by the hostel to drop off our backpacks. The line for security to enter the EXPO took us nearly 40 minutes. We entered the EXPO from gate 8 which was by
chance closest to USA pavilion. I received an email from the US Consulate in Shanghai during the month of October US citizens that showed their passport at the USA pavilion would get a front of the line pass which was quite nice. The weather was perfect as we had on jeans and short sleeved shirts all night. We left around 11pm
Pros-lots of free drinking water stations so we didn't have to buy water, fewer crowds than expected, major discounts at pavilions stores due to only 9 days left of the EXPO, layout of the venue was great, great signage and maps(even though we found LOTS of Chinglish)
Cons-rude Chinese people ALWAYS trying to cut the line and sneak past you to get one person ahead, food costs were very high, some countries were already disassembling their exhibits and the hours were until midnight but most pavilions were shutdown by 10pm.
Pavilions Visited USA-bought coffee table book as a gift for the teacher at our school that gave us the EXPO tickets
Cuba
Venezuela-bought amazing chocolate bars here (70 & 100%!C(MISSING)ocoa bars)
Ate at Mexico but didn't go into exhibit-chips & guac, chicken burrito and beef
quesadilla need I say more
Chile*-drank amazing wine here
Central and South America shared pavilion
Brazil
Canada*
Day 2-Saturday 10/23
Today we arrived at 2pm and entered through gate 6 which was much closer to another subway terminal. Yesterdays gate 8 was about a 15 minute walk from the subway terminal. There was basically no line for security which was fabulous getting us into must faster. We left around 7pm as we had enough of the crowds pushing and shoving, one can only take so much. I can't imagine coming to China for the 1st and experiencing the EXPO, it would make me never want to return to China. But after living here for 15 months I have come quite accustomed to their pushing and shoving ways and no sense of a line or waiting in one, it doesn't mean it still doesn't bother me though.
Proslines were shorter
Cons-Rained ALL day long so it didn't allow for us to take many photos outside, getting poked by hundreds of umbrellas, no sense of dry clothing due to the rain even though we had raincoats and an umbrella and lots more trash laying around today than yesterday
Pavilions Visited Slovakia
Czech Republic-ate lunch here we never had this food before and the food was good
Belarus
Bosnia & Herzegovina
Bulgaria
Hungary
Ukraine
Iceland*
Turkey*
Countries with * by them were our favorite pavilions visited. We walked by many other pavilions but just didn't have it in us to wait in any other lines or be out in the rain any longer.
Pavilions that looked neat from the outside but we didn't visit: Norway, Ireland, Poland, Finland, Nepal and of course China, the symbol of the Shanghai Expo. After 2 days, equally a little more than 10 hours at the 2010 Shanghai EXPO we were done.
If you would like to learn more about the Expo check out
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Mom
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Expo
Glad you experienced this since you were so close...enough of the lines and rain??? You tolerance of their behavior is probably higher than most of us...really neat pictures!