World Expo

We have been to the World Expo twice. Both times were with Abi when she was here visiting. Here are some sights from those visits.

The first day we went to the Expo we got there about 1:30 in the afternoon. The Expo hotline said that 350,000 people had already enter the gates that day. They estimated it would reach 400,000 before the day ended. That is about 1/2 of the population of the Portland, Oregon metro area.

We knew there would be long lines at the most popular pavilions....rumors from the newspaper said that people were waiting in line for 9 hours to get into the Saudi Arabia pavilion and 7 hours to get into the Japan pavilion. At about three o'clock in the afternoon they started announcing the pavilions that had closed their lines. That meant that the last person in line would just reach the pavilion by closing time.....closing time is 10:00 or 11:00 pm. The temperature on the first day we went was hovering around 40 C....that is 104 F.... plus the humidity which adds about another 100 degrees.....well not really 100 degrees but it feels like it!!!

Our mission was to find the pavilions with the shortest lines.....we are very impatient Americans!




This is inside the Chile pavilion.....there was a huge wooden ball in the center of the building and the walkway wrapped around the ball.


I think this was the line for the Canadian building. This was the longest line we stood in and it was about 45 minutes. There were water sprayers and fans in more of the line queueing areas.

Look at that blue sky!!!! What a treat!

lines....lines....lines....and more lines....

We ate lunch in this building....

The red building in the background is the Chinese Pavilion. We can see this building from our apartment. It is perfectly centered in the Nanpu bridge. We walked over to see the outside of the building.....and...luck was with us because the line had ended before closing and they were just opening it up again.

See Tim taking a picture of the machine taking a video of him and Abi..

These pictures are from the inside of the Chinese pavilion. Each providence had it's own display.







Well...that is just a few of the buildings. The Expo site is so large that we barely had time to see the outside of 1/2 the pavilions. Our overall impression was WOW! This is really pretty cool....and we did not expect to be dazzled. I would say the Expo was much more interactive and inclusive than the Olympics. Just my opinion of course : )