part 3 (expo day 2)

We woke up a little tired from Expo-ing and lots of walking. We decided to devise a plan for the day--there had to be a better way to go about seeing the Expo.

First things first: Breakfast. We went outside our place and checked out the street food. There was a woman who made a huge burrito style wrap where he made a paper-thin shell on the grill and then filled it with hot pepper paste, some cilantro and other things that I was seeing for the first time. Minhee and I each got one and it was a great breakfast...for me. Minnie wasn't a fan so she got some noodles from another guy in front of Koala. This was a first for both of us though: A guy made us breakfast for us while wearing his silk pajamas...outside on the street. Before you dismiss him as just some eccentric or nut, know that Shanghai has a strange tradition of folks wearing their pajamas outside. It has become such an ingrained part of people's lives that the government actually started a campaign to get people to stop. They even have pajama police. It's a funny idiosyncrasy of Shanghai, not a real problem. If Shanghai wanted to make a difference and help better the city's image then they'd start a campaign to get people to stop skipping in line or to allow riders to exit the subway before pushing onto it. But I digress...Back to the noodles. They were an incredibly spicy and garlic-y dish. The casual cook mixed them up for us in a matter of seconds while adding several different sauces to thoroughly coat each noodle. In the US it'd be a spicy dinner. Here it was apparently a normal breakfast--and it was eaten cold. The noodles themselves were delicious. They were thin but tough and chewy in the most fantastic way.

Since we were going to follow our new plan (get an evening pass to the Expo and make sure we see Japan) we had some time to see Shanghai. Minnie wanted to check out the world-famous shopping areas so we took the subway there to check it out. We walked around a pedestrian mall and saw some high-end shops but it wasn't what we were looking for. We got some coffee and walked around more. We wanted to get off the touristy strip and we managed to get into some small side streets. There were some vendors set up selling produce and some underwear and that was it. We walked around and took some photos of the juxtaposed old buildings with the nearby newly built hotels. We got lunch and hopped on the subway to the Expo.

There were a few other people doing the same thing as us: getting an evening pass to avoid the lines and beat the heat. We walked right in through security the day before but today we had to wait about 30 minutes. Not too bad.

Today we were smart. We brought my backpack instead of a Minnie's purse so I was able to carry Minnie's SLR, an umbrella, snacks, 2 digital cameras, water--plus the contents of her purse. With me carrying the weight, we were able to move fast as soon as we got off the Expo subway. We headed to the pedestrian walkway as went across the park directly to the Japan pavilion. We were going to see Japan no matter what, and after that see what else was open.

The Japanese pavilion is a bubbly lavender-purple ovoid-shaped building that has been called everything from "the breathing organism" to "purple silkworm island". And it is wildly popular with the Chinese. I checkout a clandestine video online that someone managed to take of the pavilion soon after the Expo opened. It looked awesome. Japan was dreaming of some amazing new technology and wanted to show it off to the world at the Expo. That was enough to get me into the line to see it.



The line was amazing all by itself. It was 5 lanes wide divided into 100 foot sections sections and as soon as one lane would fill, the Chinese military police assigned to crowd control would close that lane and start filling the next one. As soon as all 5 lanes were filled, 10 MPs (5 in the front and 5 at the back) would walk each line to the next section to prevent line changing and skipping. This continued through several sections. The 5 lanes eventually got funneled into one and were portioned into groups of 500. We snaked around for what seemed like over a mile, the whole time under the watchful eyes of the military police. Unlike the day before, skipping was kept to a minimum. To keep us cool, there was a canopy covering the line. The covering gave intermittent bursts of fog. It seemed to work better than being sprayed with jets of water, but after an hour of getting fogged it started to get annoying. By the time we got to the front of the line we'd spent nearly 3 hours slowly shuffling in line. People gave us stares the whole time. I was one of 4 westerners in line and Minnie spoke English...we stood out.

Standing in line doesn't take much physical work, but it is exhausting. Our energy was fading, but when we got to the 500 person group staging area that was enough to get us excited again. We were briefed by some lovely Japanese women that we'd be seeing an exhibit and we couldn't take pictures. They told us in Mandarin as well as English. Once inside, no one listened. We walked to an escelator and zipped up through a tunnel to the 3rd floor. The walls were painted to show Japanese technology from the past 50 years...there was too much to take it. We got the to the 3rd floor and started walking down a ramp through displays of traditional Japanese architecture and rural homes. Then we got to a meeting point where we learned a little bit about a Japanese crane that was thought to be extinct then we were ushered into a room where we were shown a new digital camera from Canon and a television touch screen wall from Panasonic. Both looked like really cool technology that seemed like they'd be to market within 10 years. The camera was a really simple device that has amazing capabilities. I won't bore you with the specs (and let's be honest, as much as I like technology I can't write about it like the tech guys can.) To see a video and read a description, go here.

Then we went into a theater to watch a play about the crane, the technology and Japan.

And that was it.

At the end, Minnie and I had about 100 pictures of each other standing in line and we were really hungry. By the time we finished all the food vendors were closed. We were able to go to a Chinese fast food chain near the subway entrance and ordered food they were surely about to toss for being too old. Every pavilion was closed at this point. We weren't able to go anywhere but home.


The pavilion was cool, but not 3 hours of waiting cool. It was exhausting and looking back on it: totally not worth it. I would have preferred to see smaller countries again and be able to eat some good food. This was the straw that broke the camel's back: we were done with the Expo.

At first I was mad. How could China put something like this on and attract so many people? Why were they allowing for such big lines? Who in their right mind would wait 3 hours and come back to do the same thing the next day? Then it hit me: this Expo wasn't for me. I don't mean it wasn't my style or it didn't suit me, I mean it wasn't for me. It was there for the billion people of China; 95% of whom would never leave the country. This was their chance to see the world. If I was Chinese and knew I would be able to "go" to Europe for the cost of waiting in a 2 hour line then I would definitely do it. When I thought of it that way I felt better.

Here is the design for the interior of the pavilion, in case you want to make your own.

This is Minnie. We are almost an hour in. You can see the trepidation she is feeling. She is worried. Why are there all these people?

Me, as exhausted as I have ever been. Also the least tasty food I had the whole trip. At least we could drink massive bottles of Tsingtao when we got back to Koala.