Travel: 2010 World Expo in Shanghai

Shanghai, China — I visited the 2010 World Expo on May 1^st, opening day.  We were extremely excited the day before and the morning of, as we rushed to get to the Expo site intending to beat the crowd.

I don’t know if our pictures accurately portray how packed the whole Expo site was, but to give you an idea: 300,000 people were running around pavilions, roads, and ferries on about a 3.3 square mile plot of land. Although this is the most massive (not to mention most expensive) expo in the history of all world fairs, it was still three times the density of New York City. I felt like I was part of something that is huge and historic for China, which it most certainly is.

Waiting area before going through security

With its roads, its own transportations, and wih decorations, the Expo site was designed to look like its own city. This look coincided with the urban living theme of the expo.

The buses ran on electricity and would attach themselves to poles at every stop to charge.

Saudi Arabia Pavilion

The China Pavillion is one of the few buildings out of hundreds that they will keep when the World Expo is all over.

It was very difficult to get into a lot of the  national pavilions because of the long queues. One family told us they waited four hours to get into the Switzerland Pavilion; the main attraction being ten minutes of riding around on a nifty ski lift around the pavilion. People waited hours to get within a wall so they could see the UK Pavilion more closely (you couldn’t go inside of it). I noticed the lines for a pavilion weren’t always based on how cool it is but more on how popular or well-known a country is.

The United States Pavilion we managed to walk by and peek into from afar, was built in a rush and featured plasma TV’s with the players from the Laker’s talking , Ben Franklin, the whole American innovation theme, and a four-hour long wait to get inside. 99% of the Expo visitors were Chinese on the first day and I suppose their fascination towards the United States, as demonstrated by the lines to get into the pavilion, should be accompanied and equaled by our own fascination towards their country.

Mind you, the crowds and long-waits that we saw were due to it being the first day. They will dwindle as months go by.

Check out more photos! Watch this slideshow.

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