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Off to the Expo! The 2010 World Expo is in Shanghai and I’m going to check it out. Here it’s been getting almost as much news coverage as the Olympics did, so I’m well aquatinted with the idea of visiting pavilions and which ones look the most interesting and which will have the longest lines. And I cannot wait! I had planned to buy a three-day pass, but Matt says most people he knows only last one or two days. He had purchased a 7-day pass and told me to go as many days as I wanted to. Buying multi-day passes gets a discount on the daily rate.
I was out the door by 810am, before anyone else had finished breakfast. I got to the Expo by 840am and was cattled up with a few thousand other people at gate 6. Starting at 9am they let people in on section at a time, then they let the second set of corralled people move up a section and the process starts again. I finally made it through security and then we were off! Everyone took off in different directions, running for the most popular pavilions. My first goad was the UK
pavilion on the opposite said of the park. I knew it would be popular and I wanted to see it most. I hoped that if I ran, er, walked fast, I’d have a minimal wait. After a 20-25 minutes journey I reached the UK pavilion and it was even better than I had imagined. I only waited in line for about fifteen minutes, noting the signs that would be posted later in the day noting there was, “no guarantee of entry after this point.”
I won’t bore you with the details of walking around and standing in lines, but I will tell you my stats for the day:
Longest waits: Italy and Russia, both just over an hour. Both worth it.
Pavilions visited: 22, for 74 countries (the United Africa one has a lot of countries!)
Time spent there: 12 hours, arriving before 9am and leaving after 9pm
Interesting to note that the lines almost disappear (in the European/Americas/Africa section) after 730pm—I was able to visit some very popular pavilions with little to no wait at all and saw 4 in about 90 minutes.
I tried to follow a route, but I also like skipping long lines, so
I missed most of Western Europe. I decided I wasn’t really interested in Australia, New Zealand, or Canada because they’re so similar to the US. I might have skipped the US, too, since the line was really long. But I decided to check out a rumor I’d heard more than once and it paid off. There are rumors floating around that if you can prove you’re an American citizen you can skip the line. So I walked to the VIP entrance and asked the handsome 20-something man about this rumor with my biggest smile and biggest eyes. He said it wasn’t true, and I looked a bit disappointed, and commented that I really wanted to see it, but the line was so long. Apparently big eyes and a big smile is enough to get you in and cut 80% of the line. Sadly, the US pavilion, while nice and with good movies, reeked of corporate sponsorship. It was a little depressing. But it was nice to hear “Born in the USA” being blasted while I waited. I was the only one in line who seemed to understand the significance of the song and my little grin proved it.
Countries
Russian Pavilion
It was like being in a dream. visited, but not in the right order:
UK
Italy
Luxembourg
The Netherlands
Russia
Africa (43 countries)
Angola
Tunisia
Peru
Colombia
USA
South America (11 countries)
Mexico
Cuba
Finland
Denmark… kind of. I took photos of the Little Mermaid from the back—does that count?
Estonia
Thailand
Philippines
Indonesia
Singapore
Malaysia
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