What are your dreams for Shanghai's future?
Today is the third day of visiting the Expo. After some discussion, my grandpa and I decided to take it a bit easier today. The past two days, we had been traveling around the Expo grounds, visiting one pavilion after the next, spending close to nine hours a day walking or standing.
We took the subway from Nanjing Road to the west side of the Expo – that’s on the other side of the Huangpu River cutting through Shanghai. In case I haven’t made it clear, the World Expo is HUGE. This thing is the size of several city blocks, over 2 square miles.
The west side of the Expo contains pavilions of the big corporations in China. You have ship-building corporations, private enterprise, even Coca-Cola. Thankfully, it wasn’t as packed here as it was on the east side.
Our first stop was the CSSC Pavilion, a Chinese ship-building company. Typical displays showing off their line of ships and technology. There was a “Creativity Corrider” with an animation of a ship. Figures.
Pretty cool visualization of sustainability.
The Chinese Private Enterprise Pavilion was a bit more interesting. It was themed around the four seasons and had a cool area where you could throw a ball at the wall – and some words wishing you well would pop up at the place your ball hit. They had a pretty spectacular show with choreographed displays dropping down from the ceiling and a guy doing some kung fu to Chinese music.
The Information and Communication Pavilion was the highlight of the day. We received a PDA-type gadget, and it served as a remote/heads-up display during a short film about the future of communication. The screen was huge, and the theater even had bubble machines to simulate the snow in the film.
We saw some jade sculptures displayed at the Aurora Pavilion and played around with motion-activated color-changing lighting at the Shanghai Corporate Pavilion. Our last stop was at the impressive Pavilion of the Future, an exhibit filled with the newest technology, crazy neon lighting, and huge rooms with giant screens showing video clips and animations.
Night shot of Nanjing Road.
It was getting dark, so we took a ferry back to the east side of the Expo and enjoyed the beautiful night scenery. The various pavilions were all lit up in a bunch of colors and the mood was pretty festive. We left the Expo feeling rejuvenated and accomplished – we managed to visit quite a few exhibits, and we did it without rushing and taking breaks when we felt like it.
To end the day, we returned to Nanjing Road, enjoyed a delicious Shanghai dinner, and took a stroll on Bu Xing Jie all the way to the river, where we saw the city of Shanghai, lit up in beautiful splendor. A great ending to a very fun day.
World Expo 2010 at Shanghai – updates at randomtidbitsofthought.wordpress.com.
