After some long days of walking and waiting in lines, talking with pavilion assistants and overall doing my best to engage the material and presentations that the expo afforded, I can safely say that I haven't visited all of the pavilions, but I have gotten the most out of my time. I'd have to say the themed pavilions are very impressive in terms of conveyingthe overall theme (duh) of the expo, which is to say that we must be very careful about the resources we have and that the future is brighter with smarter technology and planning for our cities, where the majority of the worlds population is and will reside.
The Country pavilions are fantastic and in some way or form are representative of the cultural importance of a society in cities today, wether through the way they present subject matter, and certainly in the design of each pavilion. A very nice pavilion I visited today was Estonia (iknowright), which acted on the part of savecity.org, an NPO that provides policy assistance and contracting to governments worldwide, where you could choose from 35 topics that would improve a cities well-being, and place it into a series of giant piggy banks with corresponding numbers. It's a good way of getting a feel for peoples opinions and makes them aware of things that one may do to make our cities better.
That being said, I missed many pavilions by virtue of there being so many people. for example, this friday: A 5 hour wait in line at the American pavilion, the German, French and Swiss pavilions were 3-4, and even a 1 hour line at KFC was very fun to be in. I'm glad I got to see what I did, which was what few people cared to go and see, actually.
My time at the expo is now done, promise I'll get photos out when I get back, along with some more observations.
To Hangzhou tomorrow, and then home on monday.
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