World Expo

Day 54 - 18/07/2010 - 23:50 - Shanghai, China

The usual start on a check out day, but not a usual end. We would have liked to stay at our hotel for tonight, but they were full (presumably because of the world expo). We took our time (usual) and checked out shortly after 12. We made our way to Pudong Airport where we are staying tonight at the Motel 168, which is literally between the two terminals on a bridge. Our flight is at 9am tomorrow so a nice early start for us but at least it's not as early as it would have been had we still been on Nanjing Road.

Today I've continued to play my game (and scored a couple of points) and lots of people have told Laura she is beautiful (turning into a very continual theme) - everyone loves Laura!

The metro took over an hour to get to Pudong, for 70p. We checked in, and then dropped the bags before proceeding to come back to Shanghai for the World Expo via the Maglev train and a stop at the Kung Fu fast food chain in China (it's nowhere near as nice as Yonghe King). The Maglev train is steep in comparison to the metro at £5. However, 7 and a half minutes later we were in Shanghai, 4 stops away on the metro from the Expo site. We hit 431kmp/h at one point, tilting around the bends and watching the world (literally) fly by.

We got to the expo site in the mid afternoon and were amazed at the sheer size of it. Surprisingly, the queue was non- existent at the entrance, although I was baffled by the no water allowed in the arena. My cynical nature thought they were going to charge through the nose for it, so I downed the rest of our 1.5 litre bottle (there was about half left). The guard then told me I could take the bottle in as there are free fill ups around the site. I was livid, my eyes watering from how much water I'd just consumed. Never mind, I needed all of it - it was absolutely scorching today, no rain and still as muggy as hell.

The exhibitions proved to be the real pain. We literally only saw two country Pavilions - the UK and Italy who were side by side, which was quite nice for me and it made up our mind for the first 2 stops (and the last 2, but we thought we could see more when we got there!) The bus we got from our entrance dropped us off by the Italian pavilion, which, didn't look that amazing. A concrete box with glass strips down it, simple and basic. However, it was a great exhibition inside and I was full of enthusiasm for the expo. Ferrari's, vespas, wine, food, musical instruments and either robotics. Whatever Italy made, it was in the building. It was great.

I couldn't wait to see the UK one, despite expecting another 40 minute wait in the blistering heat and humidity. Unsurprisingly, I desperately needed a wee, and a refill of the water bottle (though not at the same time) before heading to the UK one. The queue was even longer. We were queueing where a sign said "150 minute wait" but 1 hour, and we were there. We kind of knew it wouldn't be that long from the Italy one. The queuing was pretty unbearable in terms of the heat and humidity but the building looked fantastic. A giant marshmallow shaped building with spikes pointing out from it.

It was the most disappointing thing I've seen this trip though, far more than the sightseeing tunnel! Literally there was a outside circuit, where you could walk around the marshmallow with diagrams of parks in the 4 UK capitals and then the giant marshmallow was a seed cathedral - 6000 different seeds, in individual plastic casing that made up the walls and ceiling. Nothing particularly relevant to the UK - a complete waste of time and disappointment compared to the patriotic showcase that the Italians put on next door. We made our way back to the centre of the expo and the metro station out of the park pretty downbeat about how we'd wasted a good part of the afternoon, walking past a good portion of the European quarter expo. Even Monaco looked better than the UK and there was more smiles coming out of Slovakia of all places. Rubbish UK expo.

Some of the buildings looked fantastic, the Spanish one being a highlight for me. I wished we had just looked around more, even if we hadn't had seen any pavilions themselves. Maybe the next Expo (ha ha) I will be more aware!

Into town we went, absolutely destroyed from queuing in the expo heat and humidity. We managed (after much trudging around) found a restaurant that looked half decent, although we picked on the basis of convenience rather than it looking great. It was a small restaurant, and it was a bit worn down. Looks can be deceptive eh, best meal in China so far I reckon. It was pretty expensive for such a small place but definitely worth it (and lets face it £13 for a meal and drink for 2 people isn't that bad!)

So by then it was 9pm. We made our way to the metro station (we weren't going to pay for the Maglev again) to go back to the hotel. The metro station was absolutely packed, I'd never seen anything like it. We didn't have enough coins to pay at the machine, so faffed around for a bit before trying to make our way to the offices manned by staff. They only took 3yuan each off us but somehow we got to the interchange station without much of a problem.

However, we had fun trying to get from the first stop outside of Shanghai to the airport. The trains stopped running at 9pm (which IMO is absolutely rubbish for a city the size of Shanghai!!) and we were stuck with no real money left on an unknown station which was supposed to literally be a hop off hop on change. We were very very lucky though. A Filipino couple who live in Beijing and were visiting the expo were on the way to the airport to meet their friends! They spoke great Chinese and English and let us share a cab to the airport. I'm glad they did!! We were absolutely shattered, the place felt rather intimidating with taxi drivers everywhere trying to get my attention because I was European, it was 35km away and cost £10 we didn't have. As soon as we got to the airport I found a cash machine and gave them the money for half the cab fare. They were very very nice to us and we were very lucky to be in the right place at the right time, or we might not be here yet (still somewhere between here and Shanghai!) It just goes to show that there are genuinely good people out there!

Bed time for me I think, and a flight to HK tomorrow!