Being held on the banks of the Huangpu River in Shanghai, China from the 1st of May 2010 until the 31st of October 2010, this edition of the World’s Fair is billed as the largest (some 5 sq. km. in area), the most expensive (depending on who you believe, this Expo cost anywhere from $4.2 billion USD to $55 billion USD) and the most visited (70-100 million visitors) in history. Those numbers are quite overwhelming and the opportunity to become just one of the 70 million expected visitors was something I could not pass on during a recent trip to China.

I’ll be the first to admit that prior to my trip to Shanghai, I did not know much about the Expo or the history behind this event, so I did my research and I was immediately drawn to the unique designs of each pavilion – in particular the United Kingdom, Iceland, Germany and China pavilions. The theme for the Shanghai Expo is “Better City, Better Life”, and the various exhibitions aim to showcase their respective cultures and lifestyles. With a clearer idea of what to expect at the Expo I started to really look forward to wandering the five square kilometre newly developed site. I guess this would be the closest chance I might have to visiting (almost) every country in the world within a few hours!

The original plan was to visit the Expo on a Sunday, however local advice that crowds would be insanely packed on a weekend was given and the visit was rescheduled for the following Friday. Despite this, crowds on a Friday were still immense – lining up to pay homage at the Australian pavilion lasted almost two hours and the intense humidity wasn’t comforting either.

Thank goodness for the water spray from above.

11 hour flight to Shanghai and lined up a further 2 hours to watch a 15 minute presentation on Australian way of life.

Honestly speaking the Australian pavilion wasn’t worth the two hour wait and I wished that flashing my Australian Passport at the entrance would have given me instant access (note to our USA readers: Apparently you can do this at the USA pavilion). However, I think those who have yet to visit our home that is girt by sea and see our beauty rich and rare, they would have thought the presentation was wonderful. From Australia, the following pavilions were visited… and I’ll let the pictures do the talking.

Philippine pavilion

Thai pavilion

Singaporean pavilion

Cambodian pavilion

Urban planning pavilion

The largest pavilion, China

Expo Axis

I completely forgot what this is supposed to be, but let’s just say its a giant saucer

Nepalese pavilion

Republic of Korea pavilion

The base of the South Korean pavilion

I think its the Vietnamese pavilion, but I could be wrong

Taiwanese pavilion, the orb looked incredible

Kame? I want to hear your creative input as to what the Japanese pavilion is supposed to be

My initial calculations included seeing all the pavilions on a single admission ticket (160 RMB) but those calculations were way off. If you’re planning on visiting the Expo before it finishes at the end of October, make sure you set aside two to three days for simply seeing the national and corporate pavilions (corporate and industry pavilions are located on the other side of the Huangpu river, so take the metro). If you want to visit each pavilion and join the daunting queues you’ll probably need to use all your annual leave from work. Due to the sheer size of the Expo site, buses, electric cars and the metro (all free of charge) are constantly available to transport people.

I had actually planned to re-visit the Expo at night (single night admission tickets are 90 RMB from 5pm) to see the European zones and to marvel at the lit-up pavilions but various reasons (which included a broken camera lens) prevented me from doing so… oh well, I guess that means another trip to Shanghai before the Expo ends, right?