Tuesday, September 21, 2010

day 4 at the expo

aaa day 4. was getting a little and little more jaded each day. but still the expo was still waiting to be explored and today, was straight to the middle-east zone.

hai bao, the mascot of the expo.
the pavilions at middle-east zone are all smaller than those at the other zones.

iran pavilion
lebanon pavilion
sri lanka pavilion
israel pavilion. the queue was long for this one so i did not enter. man it was hot that day. i felt like walking in the dessert!! it was so dry and bright!!
morocco pavilion
inside morocco
oman pavilion
inside oman
pakistan pavilion
inside pakistan
turkmenistan pavilion
inside turkmenistan

after the middle east zone we went to asia zone then. it was walk walk walk again but it was a traffic free one. we passed by the middle axis and the pavilion of urban planning.
this symbolises the spirit of volunteerism. they call the volunteers little cabbage and their tee shirt is green in colour too.
brunei pavilion. a very small one.
cambodia pavilion. also a small one, showing replica of angkor wat inside and more stones.
thailand pavilion. lcd show....not bad. and the queue was about 30 mins
australia pavilion. very long and i think they did a good job. the exhibits were interesting and enjoyable.
inside australia
new zealand pavilion. lots of greeneryinside nz pavilion.
indonesia pavilion. quite an imposing one in this area and i think the tallest.
this map was shown on the wall. mana patut? where is the dot to show kuala lumpur?? you can see brunei and singapore there right???
inside indonesia pavilion. they sell satay outside....very very fragrant! they also sell cafe luwak, the most expensive coffee in the world and only 6 cups per day. i think it is priced at rmb120 a cup. their shop sells indomie too but i could not see the price.
malaysia, oh malaysia. our very own now.
traditional clothes, genting highlands, baba and nyonya heritage, unesco heritage and ogawa massage chair. yup, it is ogawa massage chair. many ppl said it is like pasar inside, but i won't go as far as that lah. nothing hi-tech about ours.
batik, orang-utan, mute staff and overseas mooncake. and some beautiful paintings from the national gallery. the workers inside our pavilion are not friendly at all. the others that i went were very eager to explain to you everything in mandarin. yes, africans, americans, europeans, middle-eastern, australians, etc....all of them can speak mandarin fluently.
cocoa powder beverage drink for sale, exhibition on rubber product and one malaysia dance outside the pavilion. the dance comes almost every 2 hour i think.
the phillippines pavilion.
this one is a bit like a night market. i don't see any exhibits except these 2 singers. and the rest were all products of the phillippines for shoppers. they have a small cafe inside too.
singapore pavilion, shaped like a music box. much better than malaysia's ah. i feel that they do put effort into showing the best of singapore.

a ballet performance outside singapore pavilion.

malaysia pavilion has ogawa, singapore pavilion has osim (bottom left). they also have a long music video presentation featuring their famous singers- sun yanzi, tanya chua, ah do, and jj lin. i think the mtv is available on tv too. they also have an orchid garden on the rooftop.

our only motive that day was to get into saudi arabia pavilion. however, we chose not to do it first thing in the morning because when we saw the queue, it was already reaching 5 hours mark....that was at 9a.m.! madness!!! hence, we went to all the above first.

we returned to check the queue at 7.30p.m. and phew, we were lucky, the line was going to be closed at 7.45. uncle pek did not join us because he could not take it anymore. the saudi pavilion was HUGE!!! it was called the moonboat.
one of the tallest pavilions here- the saudi arabia pavilion and also one of the most popular ones. some ppl queued 7 hours!!! me? i queued for 2 hours to get inside. i made my way into the pavilion at 9.30p.m. what a wait!!!

that was where i saw how conniving a chinese woman can be.

she just climbed over the barricade right next to mine and kicked my arms while screaming 'my child, my child, he is inside and i have lost him!' the security on duty did not see her and she quickly made herself quiet and invinsible when they passed by. in the queue, she started chatting with others and there was no child to look for. later, she tried getting her husband to join her too by saying, 'hubby, you better come in quick, our son, we have to look for our son!' the hubby was more cowardice than her so he just stood there outside the barricade while handing her a bottle. that was when the security guard came and block the lady. yipppeee!!! justice!! they stood in front of her and refused to let her move with the line and all i could hear was shouting and more shouting from the lady while the husband just stood next to her quietly. some drama was entertaining in a boring queue ;P

there was more walking once inside the pavilion....spiraling all the way to the top. i dunno how many storeys we turned. everyone got some postcards, a cd and a glass cube with the moonboat etched inside.
i curi-curi took this photo with my handphone. you were not supposed to take any photo inside. this definitely is the main draw for everyone who visited this pavilion. a 1600 square metre screen showing bird's eye view of saudi arabia's geography. there was a warning while queuing that the video might cause dizziness and i had to agree. you felt as if you were a bird on the travellator observing the changing scenes. it was magnificent. can you see those figures of humans on the travellator and how tiny they are? then try to imagine how big the screen is.

well, that concluded day 4. one more day to go.

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