the World Expo does not require any introduction.
It is on a 5000 square km site and is dubbed to be the biggest expo ever. Because this is China's first time holding the Expo, like the Beijing Olympics, no expense was spared. In fact, more money was spent on the Expo then the Olympics.
Some TIPS**
- Tickets costs 160yuan,
- Students get it cheaper,
- Becomes 90yuan at 4pm,
- Expo open till 11pm
- Buying Tickets on day itself is no problem as there is no line
- Get a foldable stool if you choose to go to popular Pavilions, buy on the street or at chain supermarkets
- Get your passport stamps at retail stores, honestly I wouldn't bother cause I hate these kind of gimmicks, there's a queue to get it stamped, I don't want to waste a page of my passport.
With visitors averaging up to 350,000 per day and peaking 600,000 on 23rd September, its no surprise that most of your time is spent waiting to get into pavilions. Waiting time is determined by several factors,
Size of Pavilion
->The bigger the better
Content of Pavilion
-> Display of items like a museum/interactive apparatuses/media presentations
-> Most of the time, the lines grow because the pavilion features a media presentation eg. Iceland's pavilion has nothing but a big empty room with 4 projectors on each wall
Popularity of Country
-> A country like France is going to attract more people than Serbia or Estonia. nuff said
Ties Country Have With China
-> As tokens of friendship, countries like Saudi Arabia and France spared no expense at making their pavilions, Saudi made theirs the most expensive pavilion while France flew some of their art pieces from Lourve in several different planes. Why not just pack it into 1 plane? French being French reasoned that a plane crash would destroy all art pieces (whether this is true i honestly do now know as I read it from somewhere).
I managed to go to 13 pavilions. I'll rate these Pavilions on a scale of MUST!, Worth it, so-so, and Boring
- Poland (Worth it)
- Sweden (MUST!)
- Malaysia (Boring)
- Singapore (so-so)
- Australia (MUST!)
- Greece (Worth it/so-so)
- New Zealand (Boring)
- Finland (so-so/Boring)
- Iceland (Worth it)
- Holland/Netherlands (so-so)
- Luxemberg (so-so)
- Pacific (Boring)
- Turkey (so-so)
Poland 
(1) 3rd Movie (2) In 3d Glasses (3)Entrance, the walls are suppose to be of some paper art
Features
3rd Movie (waited 1/2 hour)
Some other media presentation didn't stay to see
Short wait to go in
(Worth it)
Sweden
I must say, Sweden was one of the most fun pavilion to be in! It gave off the combining work and play vibe that all cities claim to have but don't really do a good job of showing it in their pavilions, displayed examples of how creativity and innovative thinking can be used to meet the challenges of today's world (low energy consumption, high levels of stress in workplace environment, minimizing waste)
(1) Entrance (2) Art Pieces of Solved Challenges (4) Stuff the Swedes have invented (5) Interactive gadgets/displays (6) SLIDE!! (7) Need reservation to slide....WTF? (8) Swede items for sale (9) How to solve Traffic jams? Electric Bikes!!
Features
Short Wait
Fun Interactive stuff
SLIDE!! Get your reservation outside before going in
SWINGS!!
Makes you want to work in Sweden because 1) Works seems like fun 2) Work + Life balance
(MUST GO!)
Malaysia
Nothing much to say, its like they didn't even want to try marketing it to the tourist as all you see is ISO 9001, WE MAKE GOOD RUBBER AND PALM OIL because we have ISO 9001, oh btw we sell white coffee, some chocolate too, we have rainforest and a huge twin tower as well.
(1) Some Malay dance with the wrist rolling thing (2) Costumes (3) Small line for Ogawa LoL! (4)Souveinor store within a minute of entering FAIL. (5) Best Rubber/Palm oil in world (6) Local chocolate (7) Looks better at night, changes color (8) 25yuan curry puff!! At least it was nice (9) MASTER CUP!! GOING IN OCT 14!!
Features
Line looked ok but I walked in LIKE A BOSS with my passport
Boring, pavilion not made for tourist
Cafe reminiscent of hawker stalls in Malaysia
(Boring ZzZzZzZ Waste of Time)
Singapore
Was decent, important figures to Singapore's development are displayed as you walk up its spiral ramp to a dark room for a media presentation. The Funny thing was, WE DID NOT SEE A PICTURE OF LEE KWAN YEW!!
(1) Entrance (2) Pavilion (3) Food, Malaysia's Pav can take a leaf (4) Crucial to Xiamen's Educational Development, Billionaires take note.
Features
Media Presentation - a song in Chinese
Some interactive buttons at ground level
Spiral Ramp; takes you on a short walk through Singapore's history
Long wait at Day, No line at night!
(Not too bad, maybe we know Singapore too well which made it not so fun)
Thats it for now, if you want to hear more.....
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再见！！
Words for the Day
楼 lou - Building
大 da - Big
门 men - Gate
eg. 大门 = main gate
保安 bao an - Security Gurad
哪里 na li - Where
那里 na li - There (thanks for pointing that out)
eg. 那个大楼在那里啊？Where is the Big Building?
你现在在大门吗？You at the main gate now?
Singapore's greatest treasure - Lee Kuan Yew.
ReplyDeleteBillionaire philantropist was Tan Kah Kee
HiYung,
ReplyDelete那 里 = there
哪 里 = where
Check if there is a difference in China.
Hi jian yung koko,
ReplyDeleteThis is minn.i think my father is wrong because i think 保安is security and 警察 is police if u can ask ur lecturer difference then reply.
Hi! You might want to try out Tumblr as an alternative to blogger or wordpress :))
ReplyDeleteI'll follow you if you do :p
ooo Anonymous no.1 you are right,
ReplyDeletehaha i didn't know there was a difference and thought it was the same word to be used contextually. thanks for pointing that out! (i'm guessing you are kw haha)
yea 保安 is ensure public security/security guard while 警察 is police
its national day over here so i can't really ask the teacher right now =/
but this dictionary is pretty good
http://www.nciku.com/search/zh/detail/%E8%AD%A6%E5%AF%9F/1308114
hey 西瓜王子 the reason why i'm giving wordpress a try is because The Great Firewall blocks blogger and many other blogging sites and not wordpress (why i don't know). I'm using a proxy atm but its pretty slow at times.
haha i'm trying to guess who you are but i can't think of a friend who calls themselves a watermelon =P
Hi Jian Yung!! Jolene here..as in Jolene Lai..ur sister's(Chien) buddy :)
ReplyDeleteI was in Shanghai for nine days from 20th to 29th sept and did the whole hangzhou, suzhou, wuxi, expo circuit with my classmates. Was talking to chien late one night during my trip and she told me u were there too.
But since I don't know chinese..probably can't come and find you. :)
When were u at the Expo?? We were there on the 26th and 27th!
Haha Jolene of course i remember who you are :)
ReplyDeleteaiya..oh well its okay, my place is about 30mins away from People's Square so its quite the distance.
how was Wuxi? am planning to take a train there one weekend.
I was at the expo on the 29 of September :( would have been a crazy coincidence to bump into you then!
I'm wondering if I should make another trip to expo since i only covered so little....how many pavilions did you get to see?
haahhaa just to be safe lah in case you have forgotten me. :)
ReplyDeleteI also don't know what is People's Square..lol jsut know that the tour guide dropped us here and there etc.
Wuxi is...very buddhisty. LOL maybe that's becoz I followed the tour which had their set of places.. so if you explored on your own, you might see nicer things. For me Hangzhou was quite nice.
ahh! I reached Malaysia on the 29th. Yeaa... would totally freak out in excitement if we bumped into each other there. :)
How can you stand it living in China?! The chinese people are so rude!! Maybe you are mixing with educated ones..so it's better. But the bus rides.. the toilets..omggg...
We managed four only on the first day no thanks to Japan's crazy long lines. We lined up for 2 hours and felt so happy because we thought we had to line for 4 hours!
Then on the next day kiasu already coz the other classmates covered like 15 in one day..so we tapau 17! hahaha.. total 21!
hello jian 我是梁雅惠 i wan ice cream and xiao long bao and sheng jian bao and huang qiao shao bing and pork belly ^-^ thank you!
ReplyDeletehey, 那 and 哪 have different pinyin too! actually not pinyin its the ying yang shang qu do you get what i mean
and your 阿 should change to 啊 as well. basically when you are asking question/interjection there will be a 口 as their 部首(bu4 shou3) one such as 吗 呢 呀 喔 嘛 etc etc..
and "you at the main gate now"-> 你现在"在"大门吗? u missed out a 在.
好了别忘了请我吃冰淇凌喔! 哈哈哈哈~
Jolene: mmmm yea I remember reading Wuxi having lots of statues of buddha, did you bus to Hangzhou?
ReplyDeletehaha yea i think everyone who comes to China undergoes a phase I call "China Rant", it makes you complain about everything that is wrong with China. Oddly enough toilets I have been to have been okay so far,
wow i admire your tenacity, I would not have waited for more than 1 hour lol
yahoo: haha yahoo, i might if i knew who you are =P
o i didn't know you have to add an additional 在okay making changes now. thanks!
and ying yang shang qu? haha 渎不懂！
i already said 我是梁雅惠-> i am neo ngar huei! hahaha so u still dont know how to read my name?
ReplyDeletecos 现在=now 在=at so u must add another 在 if not it wouldnt make sense->"you now gate?"
yin yang shang qu is the tone~ like 那(na4) and 哪(na3 or na2). 明白吗?
haha i was guessing that you were ngar huei cause the dictionary translated your name as liang2 ya3 hui4 and you listed out a bunch of food but i wasn't too sure =P
ReplyDelete