EXPO is here!!

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Hello my poor neglected readers. Sorry, it’s been 7 months since my last blog. Hmm, kind of coincides with getting a full-time job.

Anyone heard of the Expo 2010? Maybe news of this multi-billion dollar extravaganza hasn’t travelled much outside of China, but it’s all you hear about in Shanghai. Haibao (Expo mascot) pops up all around the city, the “Better City, Better Life” mantra is plastered everywhere and rampant construction has seen $45bn spent on tarting up Shanghai in recent years. It’s been one big building site.

On the upside, we have loads more metro lines and snazzy new taxis. On the downside we’ve seen our dvd shops and street book-sellers (pirated of course!) disappear or at least become more scarce, and alternative live music venues shutdown. And it’s been making my work life a nightmare - “why’s it more expensive..?”, “expo”; “why can’t you do it then…”. “expo”…- I won’t go on. A perk though was getting preview tickets to the Expo a week before opening and a VIP tour of the UK Pavilion - which by the way, is the best Pavilion! Makes you proud…!

The UK Pavilion is all about biodiversity, creativity and innovation. It’s called the “Seed Cathedral”, though it also has a few nicknames such as “Hedgehog” and “Dandelion”. There are 60,000 fiber-optic acrylic rods sticking out of an 18 metre high cube which sway gently in the breeze. And at night tiny lights in each of the rods glow. If you look carefully, you can see the Union Jack incorporated into the design. Enclosed at the end of each rod is a seed, which can be viewed when you go inside the structure. The inside only holds 100 people so I’m glad we managed to get a sneak preview as the queues will be immense!

Some of the other Pavilions were already open to the masses and the queues were indeed massive! I’ve heard stories about fights breaking out with lots of pushing and shoving going on - nothing new there really… The People’s Liberation Army has been brought in to maintain some semblance of order, and they are also stationed at every metro exit. So we just had a wander around some of the site (also massive, of course, at over 5 sq km). I think we’ll tackle the rest of the site and queues another time.

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Photos

Morning Haibao!
enroute to work

Comments

[Maisondubonheur]

Expo...cool!
Hi, less than 3 weeks for us to go back to Shanghai and see the expo. It's funny, the second pic you took is less than 200 meters from my Shanghai office! Hopefully in 3 weeks the all place will be less of a mess.

[caroleinasia]

haha, the 2nd pic is on my way to work. My office is also very close to there!