World Expo 2010, Shanghai

While I frequently complain about Changzhou's obscene Southern heat spells, I've got to say that it's in a really convenient location as far as visiting awesome places in China goes. There are just so many tourist traps within a few hours of Changzhou. For example, Shanghai is a two hours bus drive away from Changzhou. And for that reason I got to see the World Expo!!!

Though we were originally supposed to go to the World Expo on a Friday (today), it was randomly announced that we would be leaving one day early, visiting the Expo on Thursday. So we left from our school at 7:00 AM (on a bus devoid of table seats ), arriving at the Expo at 9:00 AM. Zhong lao shi told us that we would have approximately 10 hours at the Expo. As long as we got back to the bus by 9:30 PM we could split up and go wherever. One might think that 10 hours is a long enough time to see the World Expo, but sadly 10 hours doesn't nearly cover it. The Expo is friggen enormous. Many tourists dedicate multiple days to visiting the World Expo, but obviously we would only have one.

For anyone who doesn't have any clue about the World Expo, it's essentially a giant display of wealth, cultural quirks, and pride that originated in London at the Crystal Palace in 18-something-close-to-1900 because the English basically wanted to show how they were more idustrialized and fancy with their trains and misc. machines than any other country. Back in 18-something-close-to-1900 many tourists from around the globe came to see England's innovative technology and countries such as America, France, etc. were invited to put on displays of their own. The tradition of the World Expo has travelled around the world ever since then, inspiring hosting countries to build impressive structures such as the Space Needle thingy in Seattle. What one sees when one walks around the World Expo is an array of pavilions, buildings of (typically) abstract design which vary in size and fanciness, for almost every country in the world. Regions such as the Carribean, Central and South America, Africa, the Pacific Islands, and an array of -stans, for example, each have their own giant pavilions with areas set up for their individual countries inside. There are also restaurants with themes from many different countries and stores which sell both official Shanghai Expo merch and merch imported from foreign lands. It is also important to note that the pavilions are arranged geographically in 5 zones: A, B, C, D, E. Most people buy World Expo "passports" so that they can get stamps at every country's pavilion, proving that they have visited them. Conveniently enough for us, everyone working in pavilions at the Expo speaks English in addition to Chinese and their native languages. I could be wrong about some things but that's my basic understanding of the whole thing which I gleamed from my AP Euro class and my experiences yesterday.

Anyway, my group for the day consisted of Holli, Joseph, Ben, Fernando, Paul, and Paul's host brother. After going through a surprisingly short line and security to get into the Expo (many people were already inside by 9:00 AM and there are many entrances) we began to wander around, taking pictures of the outsides of numerous pavilions but feeling too lazy to actually wait in their entry lines. As a general rule, the more expensive-looking the pavilion or more renowned the country, the longer the entry line. Since we entered the Expo near Europe, the lines were for the most part pretty long. The group wandered into the Czech Republic's pavilion just because it didn't have much of a line but still looked cool from the outside. So that was our first pavilion. It was just kind of eh on the inside. It had faux-grassy slopes and emphasized its country's science programs more than anything else.

Next we walked across the park to a pavilion that me and Holli had been especially excited to see- the African pavilion. And it was awesome! While I didn't get stamps from most of the countries that I visited in the African pavilion I did get a stamp from Liberia and a faded stamp that I cannot identify from somewhere else. Aside from the actual country displays, most of the countries in the African pavilion sold products which were made in their country at a couple of markets at the back of the pavilion. I got three leather bracelets from a table of Malawi goods and Holli got a beaded bracelet from a Mali table. However, the funniest part of being in that pavilion was definitely being hit on by African guys after Holli and me seperated from the American guys in our group.
A man from the Mali table who couldn't have been younger than 50 asked me and Holli how old we were after determining that we were Americans and that he has visited North Carolina, which is where Holli is from. We are sixteen. He told us that that is not too young for him at all and that we must give him our numbers so that we could meet up later...We just kind of excused ourselves and left. After walking only six steps away from the Mali table we were confronted in French by a man from Cameroon and a man from the Ivory Coast who assumed that we were German. After awkwardly conversing for a minute or so they said "you give us your numbers so that we can meet up later." Anddd so me and Holli awkwardly excused ourselves again. It's tough being a white girl in China.

After reuniting our little group we left the African pavilion through its back doors and discovered a small cafeteria full of supposedly "African" cuisine. Everyone ordered ostrich wraps just because they were the most interesting options in the cheap floor of food. Well, I shouldn't say everyone; Holli and Joseph stuck to beef.

I know that this is all very monotonously detailed, but I'm too lazy to write a journal for myself and don't want to forget anything. So you get to suffer every part of the whole day if you read this haha.

Anyway, ostrich was pretty good. It just had some mayo and lettuce on it. It was served on pita bread. And it seemed like something that I could have bought at many American restaurants but oh well.

Post-lunch we moved on to the Central-South American pavilion, where I accumulated stamps from the Dominican Republic (where Fernando is from), Paraguay, Uruguay, Costa Rica, and Nicaragua. That being said, I pretty much saw all of the countries represented there even if I didn't stop to try to get their stamps. These pavilions were inexpensive and not particularly exciting but I enjoyed speaking Spanish with a guy from Bolivia so it was all good for me.

Next stop, the Caribbean pavilion. This place managed to be cheaper than the Central-South American pavilion, meaning that the stalls for different countries did not have much in them. Ironically enough, Haiti probably had the nicest stall in the whole Carribean pavilion. I just had to wonder who paid for that and why they wouldn't put that money to better use fixing the decimated island but oh well. I guess I wouldn't want to be left out if I were Haiti... In the Caribbean pavilion I was stamped by the Bahamas, Haiti, and Barbados. Many of the islands in this pavilion didn't even have stampers to stamp with...

At this point we collectively decided that only going to the big buildings without lines wouldn't get us anywhere exciting. And since Ben had been repeatedly saying that he had to see Israel (he's Jewish and has been to Israel before) that was the first pavilion with a line that we stopped at. Even though the line for Israel looked pretty long, it didn't take us more than 30 minutes to get into the building, which was kind of shaped like a giant egg; one half looked like sand, the other half was a watery blue. According to Ben, this represents how Israel was built where marshes once stood, requiring the water to be sucked out and leaving dry land and more desert. At the front of the entry line Ben spoke to a young Israeli man from the pavilion in Hebrew. Apparently if we had just gone to the VIP entrance (every pavilion has one) and had Ben speak Hebrew and say that he was a Jew we could have gone in as VIPs. Ugh. Somehow I don't think that being American would allow us to skip the zillion hour long line to our pavilion...The main attraction in Israel's building was this pretty cool, round theater that I'm not really even sure how to concisely describe. A film played in impressive clarity on one wall; it was very interesting and mostly noted connections between Israel and China as well as various technological developments made by Israelis in various fields. And of course Einstein was thrown in there too. After collecting our stamps Ben asked an Israeli woman if there were any Israeli restaurants around- no such luck.

Leaving the Israeli pavilion, we decided to visit pavilions of countries that we, as Americans, would never be able to visit safely. On to the Middle East!

By on to the Middle East I mean Iran. Which didn't really have much of a line at all but was pretty crowded on the inside. By the door to the pavilion an old Iranian man asked Paul where we are from. Paul said America and the man gave him a small piece of candy. I personally was raised with the belief that I should not take candy from Iranian strangers, but Paul being Paul went ahead and ate it even though I repeatedly warned him that there was a very good chance that he might keel over and die on the spot.
So then Paul being a jerk decided to pretend to choke after he had eaten half of the candy. So not funny.
Apparently it didn't taste particularly wonderful, but the candy was not poisonous, in case anyone was wondering...
There was some live music performed by men wearing purple robes, carrying drums as well as many models of oil boats and platforms. And there were many signs proclaiming Persia as one of the oldest civilizations.
We opted not to mention to any of the Iranians that Ben was a jew or that we were just coming over from the Israeli pavilion, which is conveniently located very far away from the Middle Eastern pavilions...

Guess who had a pavilion adjacent to Iran! North Korea, of course! So we didn't even have to go far to find the next country that we won't be able to visit at any point in the foreseeable future.
Ben called this row of pavilions the axis of evil.
Also line-free, North Korea was not particularly exciting on the inside. I mean it mostly just had pictures of random, pretty places all over the walls and a little bridge crossing blue-painted floor. Then there was a small fountain that looked more Italian than Korean. My favorite part of the North Korean pavilion was at the end where Kim Jong Il's books/various propagandizing literature were for sale. I bought a green, hardcover book entitled Answers to the Questions Raised by Foreign Journalists, hoping that it would be sassy and directed towards democratic Western journalists. But, sadly, its answers are primarily for socialist and communist peoples. However, that being said, I would like to quote an enlightening bit of the very first page "Our people are very happy that here at our capital city of Pyongyang where the Anti-US World Journalists' Conference was held 14 years ago, another global meeting of progressive journalists has been convoked to oppose imperialism, safeguard peace and strengthen friendship and solidarity among peoples." And by briefly flipping through this section I got a vague sense of North Korean opinions regarding Americans, hinted at by lines such as "They should make a concentrated attack particularly on US imperialists, the main force of aggression and war and the heinous strangler of peace and independence."
So that was a lovely pavilion. I got my stamp and left satisfied.

We randomly wandered into Maldives and then went into a pavilion dedicated to the history of the expo which was somewhat interesting with its old film rolls and pictures from the last one hundred plus years.

Next we tried to find Iraq, which would really just complete our collection of unfriendly places, but it was elusive. We only realized where it was after getting on a bus and driving past it. I'm thinking that's a sign that we weren't meant to go inside...

The bus took our exhausted and lazy selves across the expo and back to Europe, where we stopped at an Italian restaurant and I almost cried because I was so happy to see authentic pizzas and pasta dishes as well as tiramisu. Ben, my designated pizza splitting buddy from the last few weeks, split a rather plain but delish pizza marguerita with me. Then I had vanilla and chocolate gelato as well as a mango smoothie. It was heavenly. Indescribable. A prelude to the damage that I'm going to do to myself when I get back to America...

After rolling around on the ground outside of the restaurant and just generally being exhausted we finally found the energy to go to the Russian pavilion, our last stop for the night.
Fortunately, Russia was also the best. Its line only took about 20ish minutes because it was moving so quickly and we found a man from Chicago with whom we passed the time chatting.
The outside of the Russian pavilion and the inside had absolutely nothing in common; the outside was white and looked like it was made of intricate paper cut-out designs. But then the inside looked like a colorful, awesome recreation of Alice in Wonderland. I felt as if someone should have handed us shrooms on our way through the door. So that was fun and I took so many pictures of the pavilion's two levels of non-Russo awesomeness.
The best part of the Russian pavilion for the guys was the gift shop at the end, for in the gift shop there were five young-ish, blonde and lovely Russian women who prompted discussions about appreciating Russian women that lasted for at least ten minutes on the bus. Can you marry a hot Russian chick if she's named Olga. Russian chicks age fast. But not as fast as their alcoholic men. What if your Russian woman is taller than you? Yeah there are just so many things to be said about the logistics of marrying a Russian chick. I told Ben that he should create a Russian Women Appreciation Club once he gets to Wash. U.

So yeah, that's all I have to say about the expo.
We stayed at a hotel that was about 30 minutes away from the expo. Out of all of the hotels that we've stayed in so far, this one was definitely the nicest (the one in Beijing was the worst).

After waking up and walking across the street to have pancakes and coffee at a McDonald's, we got on the bus and drove an hour further away to Wuxi. Our destination: world's biggest Buddha statue and accompanying palacial temples!

During our bus ride the hotel called our tour guide to tell us that a camera and a passport from the Expo had been left in one room. I would like to say that the only reason that I managed to leave my camara behind was that while having fun I let someone use my camara and then proceeded to forget about picking it up from wherever they placed it. I suspect that Ben has a similar excuse for having left behind his Expo passport.
At any rate, the tour guide went back to retrieve our forgotten possessions while we were walking around the site.

Well, to be honest, myself, Paul, Holli, Joseph, Ben and Luke did not do much by way of walking. While everyone else actually went in and out of the three different sites at this Buddist place we found a bench in front of the giant Buddha, near people who were burning incense and bowing repeatedly, and proceeded to sit around doing nothing for several hours. When it began to rain we made a monumental move over to a different site and then sat underneath a little covered walkway that was adorned with a dragon who greatly resembled Mushu from Mulan. When it was time to leave we walked again. Back to the bus. I think it goes without saying that we were pretty tired. On the bus ride back I pretty much tuned everyone out by intently listening to the Earth Sings Mi Fa Mi, aka best album of all-time, but then couldn't nap because I was too intent on listening to the music.

Then I got back to my family in Changzhou (sans host dad, who is still m.i.a. at 11:00 PM) and was forced to have a large dinner.
In other news, I am officially done with buying presents!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Now all I need is an extra suitcase to bring all of this stuff that I've purchased back to America and a shirt that says I <3 Beijing (or any other city, really, as long as it's in chinese).
I'm thinking that tomorrow will be a lazy day of intense sleep. I think I've mentioned that I'm tired.
On Sunday a bunch of us are going to go to the movies and hopefully see an American movie or at least something with good subtitles. Whatever's good.
As of yesterday I officially have less than a week left in Changzhou. Then there's the day in Beijing. The day of plane. Then I'll be back in America. Still not too sure how I feel about that. I don't even know if I'm staying in a hotel with a bunch of people who have layovers or if I'll be returning to RI immediately. I guess I'll find out when I get there.

-Christina