World Expo 2010

Today we spent the entire day (9AM-6PM) at the World Expo 2010. The size of it was enormous—truly the size of a small town—and focused on the theme "Better City, Better Life." Participating countries displayed urban civilizations, exchanged their experiences of urban development, disseminated advanced notions on cities and new approaches to human habitat, lifestyle and working conditions in the new century. They show how to create an eco-friendly society and maintain the sustainable development of human beings. There were a lot of great messages for us all. It will be running until October and will host over 70 million visitors (approximately 350,000 per day). And from waiting in the lengthy lines, it felt like 350K. Some of the countries who had the longest lines included USA, Switzerland, Germany, and Canada. We first visited the Pavilion of the Future, which was amazing. Since Dr. Spangler and I are in the information technology field, we were amazed by the technologies used to facilitate information. Of the pavilions we visited, it was truly the most impressive. Everyone had a great time and walked A LOT! We are guessing that we walked about 10 miles throughout the day. Here's a link to the website if you're interested in learning more about the Expo: http://en.expo2010.cn/.

I did learn a little about Haibao—our guide's translation was a little off. The name of the mascot of World Expo 2010 Shanghai China is Haibao (pronounced "high-bow, which means the treasure of the sea. Haibao is a typical lucky name in Chinese tradition. Created from the Chinese character "人," which means people, the mascot embodies the character of Chinese culture and echoes with the designing concept of the emblem of World Expo Shanghai. I think his "hair" looks like a wave. J

We left the Expo at 6 PM and Wei's family hosted dinner for our group, which was an extremely kind gesture and we were most appreciative. We tried some delicacies that we hadn't tried yet such as pig's tongue and frog. Wei's uncle is a very famous artist in Shanghai (some of his work is on display in the China Pavilion at the World Expo) and he took us to his private gallery after dinner—it was only about a 5 minute walk. Unfortunately we were not able to take photos, but I can assure you that it was beautiful. He also had dozens of awards on display, which were quite impressive. His private gallery is one that very few people get to see; even Wei (pronounced "way") has only been there one other time. Her mother, aunt, and cousin also joined us for dinner. By the way, none of them speak any English, which made it stressful and fun all at the same time. They were wonderful hosts and kind people.

Tomorrow we say goodbye to Shanghai, which also means that we will say goodbye to our national guide and my old friend, Jo. It will be bittersweet as we leave such an amazing city to learn about another culture. Tokyo here we come!