day 3 at the expo

i can hear the thunder outside.....but let me just finish this first. i am free this sunday night, so i can delay going back to bidor a bit.

so now to the third day at the world expo. it was the day i paid to enter china pavilion! other pavilions visited were india, nepal, germany, america, brasil, bosnia & herzegovina, portugal, slovakia, czech, belarus, carribean community pavilion, canada, columbia, mexico, chile, venezuela and cuba. 19.

we had planned to go to germany pavilion first thing in the morning and that was where we headed as soon as we got into the expo area. most ppl had the same thoughts too unfortunately. so we joined the already long long queue at 9 a.m. and we only got into the pavilion at 10.30 a.m. 90 minutes in the queue. phew~ that was considered short you know for this pavilion.

so a photo with this german dude was not to be missed after standing in the heat for so long.
germany pavilion from outside. very big indeed. they called it balancity.
this is what many ppl queued to see. an lcd ball supposedly controlled by the visitors' voice volume.

inside german pavilion. there are 'factory' section where they showcased advanced german products.
czech republic pavilion
belarus pavilion
nepal pavilion showing a stupa.
the entrance of nepal pavilion showing kumari's window

canada pavilion. not as interesting as on paper.

usa pavilion. their short movies were quite interesting.

souvenir from portugal pavilion. i think they are the no 1 cork producer in the world.
portugal pavilion made up of cork panels.

brasil pavilion

columbia pavilion.

peru pavilion.

cuba pavilion. a very small one. just one room inside.

venezuela pavilion
inside n outside venezuela
chile pavilion
love the huge wooden ball they had inside. it felt vibrant too with a band playing at the foyer.

and now to china. a tout approached us and the first asking price as rmb200 a ticket. we finally bargained and got rmb350 for 3 tickets. not a bad deal. dad stayed with the tout while uncle pek and i went into the queue with our tickets to verify the authenticity of the reserved ticket. when we got through, i called dad and he paid the tout and came in.
this was the queue and the crowd but since china pavilion is so big, the lines moved very fast.






there was a short mini train ride inside and they brought us under bridges and forest.

of course you cannot have a pavilion not exhibiting sustainable energy. a lot had wind turbines while solar panels were not really a popular choice.
we stayed for almost an hour inside china pavilion. worth the money spent. going to word expo without going to china pavilion is like not going at all.

india pavilion. the top of the dome is covered with grass.
inside india pavilion.

i stopped taking photos of things inside the pavilions since most were quite dark.
so that's all for day 3.

a peaceful day

today is one of the most peaceful days i have since coming back from shanghai.
phew! i managed to finish my marking....ok only 1 class....but it is still good.

am i evil to be rejoicing while someone is unwell??
atticus had a bout of diarrhea and he vomitted early in the morning. hence he was all groggy and energyless. we were supposed to go to kl today, but cancelled because of him.

so he was sleeping most of the time and complaining of cold. i had my peace.

well, tomorrow is back to work for 1/2 day. hope the day will go smoothly. gosh, have to clean the room i have left for 2 weeks. tomorrow night, tg malim is having their mid-autumn celebration in town. wonder if i should go and check it out.

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!!!