Mary asked me this week to go with her to Expo on Saturday, and I agreed because she's been really nice and very helpful to me while here. We left our building at 5:30 and got a taxi to the Expo center so that we would be there early enough to hopefully get a pass to get in to see the China Pavilion. They only pass out 30,000 passes each day and there are hundreds of thousands of people that want to see the national pavilion.
I think that Mary's understanding of queuing up for a hot item is a little bit behind the times. The park opens at nine, and when we got there, there was a line of several hundred people already waiting at the gate ahead of us, and that was only one of 8 gates to get into the park. I wasn't surprised, I've seen people camp out in tents for less. But after waiting in line for an hour, Mary got sick of it, said "I'm not waiting anymore, this is ridiculous. I've never waited in line for anything in my life!" and then caught a taxi home. Allan and I stayed, the both of us somewhat stunned speechless, considering it had been her idea to go in the first place.
But, we waited our turn and patience paid off. When they finally opened the gates at 9, we were handed our China Pavilion passes as we passed through the turnstile. I fancy that I understood the feeling of Charlie in Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory when he found the golden ticket. I had my hands on THE hottest item at Expo by far.
It was delicious.
Since we had our passes and could use it anytime, Allan and I decided to hit up some of the other Pavilions first, thinking that maybe we could hop onto lines and get inside before they became outrageously long.
We spent the morning travelling the Middle East! I went to Iraq, Syria, Bahrain, Yemen, Jordan, and Afghanistan. In the Afghanistan Pavilion, I paid 20 yuan (about $3) to get a henna tattoo from a woman from Nepal named Bradeep. She was really nice and had very good English and beautiful eyes.
After seeing the very high-tech and extremely impressive Isreal Pavilion, we got in line to see Kazakhstan. It was about 2pm at that point, and I noticed a sign that said "2 hour wait from this point."
I turned to Allan and pointed the sign out, "Is Kazakhstan really worth a two-hour wait?"
"...You want to head to the China Pavilion?"
"Yes, please, let's go."
So, we headed for the China Pavilion. We waited on line to turn in our voucher, and then we waited on line to get on the escalator taking us up to the entry floor, and then we waited on line for the elevators to take us up inside and then finally, FINALLY we were in!
And, my god, it was worth the wait. China Pavilion is amazing, they really spared no expense. On our way up the escalator, a girl my age started chatting in English and asked if she could take a picture with me. I said yes, of course, and we spent the next half hour-long line wait to get to the elevators talking to Skye (her Chinese name is Ying) and her student. Skye is a math teacher, and she had very good English. She became kind of my unofficial tour guide as we made our way through the Pavilion.
China Pavilion is four floors that follow a theme of past leading to the present leading to the future and the hopes people have for the future. We were ushered along an increasingly high-tech path that had some really amazing stuff. One room had a giant screen that looked like a classic parchment painting, except that the little people on it were moving! The pathway leading to the next floor had dozens of reproductions of paintings actual Chinese students had created describing what their hopes and dreams for the city of the future were. That took you to the next room, which had a tramcar ride that took you through China's architecture and bridges. The last floor was all about the green movement--ways to be green and ways China was stepping up its green movement awareness. At the center was a beautiful lotus garden that had a continuous waterfall that would periodically cut off in certain areas to make words that would fall from top to bottom. Skye told me the words said "Don't waste the water."
Skye and I exchanged emails and we waved good bye outside the China Pavilion. Since we were near it, Allan and I decided to try the Culture Pavilion. With a name like that, I was excepting a museum or something similar. What I got was a mini Mall of America. It is filled with shops and restaurants, movie theatres and even an ice skating rink. I saw a Disney Store and did a double take. Am I still in China? Although the Culture Pavilion seemed to offer more in the way of Commerce than Culture, I must say that the view from the restaurants is probably spectacular at night, when you can look out at the Expo and the Shanghai skyline all lit up and glowing.
It was 6pm, I had been awake since 4:45 and I was dead on my feet. Allan wanted to try and find a musician at the Australia Pavilion whose wife he had met, but I just wanted to go home so I pointed him in the right direction and, once again, caught the train home.
Another very long, but very cool day.
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