At The Shanghai Expo

The visitors to Shanghai Expo has surpassed the previous record held by Osaka Expo of 64million. As of yesterday, more than 68 million visitors have been recorded and they still have many days until the end of the month. Yesterday's visitor was more than 730,000 people. The day we went, they recorded of nearly 500,000 visitors. It's really OMG! No wonder people have to wait for a long time to see the display of any any countries.

I said that if everyone else wanted to go the Expo I would come along, but it's not my choice to go there. I do not like waiting in line for hours with people that do not queue and shove and I personally had lost interest in seeing the Expo. Having said that, with three other family members being eager to go and I was not willing to spend the whole day wondering in the street of Shanghai alone, I just had to go along with them.

It was raining, so there's a tiny hope that China people would be a little discouraged to go there. Of course it's wrong! China people ain't afraid of nothing. There was still plenty of people everywhere in the Expo area. It's people, people, people and more people. Whichever country we tried to go to, there was a long line formed. A line that appeared short was just a wishful thinking. It swirled and twirled and would still take at least 30-40 minutes also. Some would take hours to enter. As the day went by, there more people and longer lines. Some tried to jump the queue, pushed and behaved in such an unpleasant manner. But that seemed to be a culture among the people there and was acceptable. There were so few security personnel around too, compared to the number of visitors. I did not feel too safe there and hoped really hard for no riots or fights.

I can mention here a few places where we did not encounter lines. First was the drinking water places. Anyone can refill their bottles with drinking water for free. The toilets were reasonably good too and there were some toilets that were not too popular and we could go without waiting in line. Our lunch was a quick one too. The key is to go an expensive one. We wanted to go to Italian Cafe but were told that we needed 2-day advance booking. That's simply nuts!!!! We went to a German restaurant that served bratwurst and pork knuckles and we got ourselves a table. The dishes were served very immediately, they were all pre-cooked, I am sure of. The price is, please forgive me for saying it, Holy Cow!!! -- they were so over priced and the portion was just okay size.

After lunch and a little walking about and kept on encountering long lines everywhere, we decided to leave, that was not long after 3PM. It was rather a short visit. Goodbye to the Expo and goodbye to our RMB640++++ ticket price. Never again.