One day at Shanghai World Expo.
I had no plan to visit Shanghai Expo, but my mom really wants me to go, so I finally decided to join them. Since my decision was almost last minutes, it’s almost impossible to find hotel award rooms with SPG, Marriott or Hilton unless we wanted to stay far away from the area. Grand Hyatt shanghai was the only hotel I found offering both award rooms and paid rooms. I don’t have too many Hyatt points, so I only redeem 1 room for 2 nights and paid for other 2 rooms.
We had no plan to take our baby, but she won’t eat formula, so we had to take her at last minutes. We arrived Grand Hyatt Shanghai around 6:00 pm, the hotel was extremely busy considering it was last few days of Expo. Also, due to china law, every guest ID/passport needs to be scanned into system, that makes the process even longer. After20 mins waiting, we finally got our key.
One of our room was upgraded using Suite upgrade certificate, the room was very nice. The hotel also brought us a crib and shower amenity for our baby. To honestly, both I and my wife feel this hotel is better than Park Hyatt next door. don’t why though.
Park Hyatt
Other than small TV, the other 2 standard rooms were also nice and much better than I expected because I was expecting the room similar to standard room of Grand hyatt Beijing, where has the smallest 5 star hotels room I ever seen.
I left the hotel around 7: 45 in the morning with car provided by World Expo and was able to visit China pavilion before it opened to general public. The pavilion had three sections, first one showed how the living standard change for Chinese household in the past 30 years, second one showed the the country/cities changed in past 30 years and the last one showed the future-living with reduced CO2. After exiting the main area, there were small pavilions for each providence. I did not have time to visit those small ones, had to rush to Shanghai-GM pavilion.
Entrance to World Expo
China Pavilion(left)
Household in 1978
Household in 1988
household in 1998
2008
Second show area of China Pavilion
After exiting the China pavilion around 9:30am, the expo already opened for 30 minutes, I saw a shocking long line waiting for Saudi Arabia pavilion. I heard about this famous place along with China petroleum pavilion before, both are the most popular places to visit, the line is about 8-12 hours wait, YES! You heard right, 12 hours. Basically, most times, 30 minutes – 1 hour after expo open, lines close for these two . Whoever already in the line will spend rest of their day in line just to visit one pavilion. Unbelievable, isn’t it?
This is line for Saudi Arabia pavilion after 30 mins of opening, you may think the line is not that bad, but in fact, this is just a tiny portion of the line. Shanghai-GM Pavilion is also another poplar one besides Coca-cola, Korea, Japan and other two mentioned above, it has a 4D show. I did not go inside because I was carrying my baby with me all the time. All my family member went inside, but too bad, no pic. Shanghai was freezing cold and windy on the day I visited, despite we had a car with us all the time to take us btw pavilions, it was still freezing the moment I stepped out the car. After lunch I and my wife decided to go back to hotel with baby, rest of my family continued to visit Spain, Portugal, Belgium and one more I don’t remember.
Personally, I consider the expo is a joke, I have no idea what they are trying to show, but every country is having a spot there, it’s a free opportunity to make money. Expo provides all kinds of taxes free(import, income etc) for foreign government. let’s using Germany as example. They have a restaurant with average price of a meal+drink of $35 dollar per person, at least 10000 people visit the restaurant per day for 180 days, plus the earning for souvenirs, I don’t see a reason not attending. On the other the hand, The world expo makes Shanghai better. For the past two years, most Pudong side of Shanghai was just like a public construction zone, but expo developed many areas that Shanghai would otherwise take years to do. I really like shanghai now, a beautiful modern city
Spain pavilion
The world most popular office paper is from Portugal.
My baby behaved extremely well, thanks to Baby carriers, she was able to sleep most the time, especially during our lunch time. I think I got the most attention in the expo because in china, very few people traveling with 5 months old baby, let along I am visiting one of the most busiest places.
I personally don’t like to visit crowd area, maybe this is the one exception I made I doubt I will go to places with that many people again.
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