Thursday, September 16, 2010

day 2- euro zone

opps...some correction on the number of pavilions i visited on the first day. i actually visited 11- georgia, montenegro, sweden, denmark, hungary, finland, turkey, latvia, ireland, greece and norway.

2nd day, i visited 18, all in the euro zone. that was the plan actually. it is impossible to jump from zone to zone all in a day. so planning is really needed. these are the pavilions on the second day- spain, belgium, italy, switzerland, africa, south africa, argentina, croatia, austria, russia, egypt, poland, france, monaco, lithuania, luxembourg, netherlands, and algeria. phew! my legs were so numb and i got a very good sleep that night.

we started early in the morning and by 8a.m. we had reached the metro station on madang road. this is the station with the only line which brings you straight into the expo area. there were less ppl here as well and it is not stuffy.

yup, the queue at 8.30a.m. so imagine if you were to go later into the expo.

lupu bridge-the first steel arch bridge in the world, with the longest span.

no noise- is impossible. as for polite language....you will be amused with the language you hear when ppl scolding each other for cutting queue. it created some drama in a boring line.
serbia pavilion.

this was the first pavilion we visited. came out from the metro station, and headed straight for spain. very unique wicker panels.
the main attraction is of course the sitting doll with changing facial expressions. cute. their shop sells mango tees and tous jewelery too.

austria pavilion. to me, it looks like a space ship.
interactive lcd screen. step on the flowers as you move along and they will bloom right in front of your eyes.
england pavilion. looks good from the outside eh? but i did not go in. it was closed 2 out of the 5 days i was there. when it was opened, the queue was very long as well. so i skipped it.

i think this is romania. skipped it as well.

switzerland pavilion.

the chairlift was not working that day. i think that is one of the reasons why the queue was breeze.

poland pavilion.
inside poland. love their craft wall.

france pavilion.....a good one as well.

louis vuitton has 2 corners and you bet they are crowded. the chinese all seemed to stop moving as soon as they got to the corners hence the congestion inside the pavilion. we bought a french loaf for lunch at rmb25. a filling meal and not expensive.

valuable paintings brought all the way from france.


the netherlands pavilion. this is a very unique open air structure and has a whimsical theme to it. there is no congestion here since ppl can move freely in the structure.
and at the bottom, they put many statues of sheep where you can sit and have picnic or a rest. can you see uncle pek in his white hat munching his bread on one of the sheep??

egypt pavilion.
lots of relics from the museum similar to turkey's.

the white structure is russia while the red one is croatia. queued for 90 mins to get into russia because they limit the number of visitiors at one time. it is the most frustrating when you are at this kind of pavilion.

inside russia.....like a wonderland of plants.

inside luxembourg. no queue at all.

these are still in zone c but at african square. south africa, nigeria, slovenia, angola, algeria and tunisia.
africa pavilion....many smaller african countries have their exhibits here.
inside africa pavilion.

inside algeria pavilion.

monaco pavilion. quite small in size but there are still things to fascinate you.
inside monaco.
argentina pavilion.
they had an exhibition of replicas of clothes and jewelery worn by evita peron.

inside belgium pavilion. i did not know that smurfs originate from that country. do you? they have some cute tees and accessories of smurfs on sale.....and of course chocolate and diamonds.
yup, if you buy diamond there, it comes with special certificate from the expo. are they cheaper than outside? that i cannot answer.

one of my favourite pavilions- italy. we checked the queue in the afternoon and it was more than 2 hours long. then we checked again at night, it was only 30 mins. so off we went.


walls of wine and pasta and spaghetti.

this greets you as soon as you enter italy pavilion.

so that is the end of day 2. reached our hotel at 11p.m. and by the time everyone had taken their baths and washed their clothes, it was almost 12.30a.m. wake up time for the next morning- 6.30a.m. urgghhhhh!!!

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