Shanghai – World Exposition

After we arrived in Shanghai early in the morning, we had to blitz-change into business casual for our visit to the World Expo. I didn’t really know too much about the expo before we went, just that it was divided into a company part and a country part (one on each side of the Huangpu River). We spent the morning on the corporate side – our small group saw a group of Shaolin warriors, which were very impressive. We also visited the space exhibition and the Coca Cola stand before it was time to take the ferry to the other side to see the countries. We also wanted to check out GM’s “Take a Drive to 2030” exhibit, but it was too far away.

The other side of the river was a really neat experience – almost every country from around the world had a big exhibit (they called them “pavilions”). Some favorites included Spain, Turkey, the Netherlands, China, and Saudi Arabia. We didn’t get a chance to see too many pavilions from the inside, but we walked a ton to see almost every one from the exterior. On a whole, I was really impressed with how much infrastructure Shanghai had implemented to accommodate the extra visitors (there were an estimated 300,000 people while we were there, and in July the city expects over 400,000!). Some implements we noticed included a lot of additional pedestrian walkways as well as some permanent new pavilions like the China one, which was extremely impressive. After about seven hours of straight walking on the country side, we headed back to the hotel.

Our final stop of the night was a nice (slower paced!) walk from the hotel eastward toward the Bund. The Bund is an area on the Huangpu River with a great view of both sides. The west side of the river (the Puxi side) has some of the older and more developed buildings, and the eastern side (Pudong) is home to some newer, more modern buildings built in the last 10-15 years. Both sides were very impressive, and the weather was absolutely beautiful – perfect for a relaxing touristy night out. After lots of group photos we headed back to the hotel for some tea and well-needed rest for corporate visits in the morning.