Alicia in China: Shanghai Expo 2010

This year the world Expo is held in Shanghai. It is an opportunity for countries to show off and display their innovations. As we remember from the Beijing Olympics in 2008, when China is in charge of an event, they make it louder, greater and more memorable than anything before them.

My plane had barely left the ground in Beijing before the tv screens in the cabin showed a commercial about the Shanghai Expo. When I landed in Shanghai two hours later I was completely brainwashed with info about the Expo. Everywhere around the city there are booths where you can by tickets and ask anything about it. The Expo, that opened in April, ends in a couple of weeks and this was my last chance to visit the lavish event.

The exhibition (a word that is not enough to describe the extent) is built on a huge area, which made walking amajor part of the day. The booths were placed in geographical order. Some countries didn't even cross our minds to visit, since the lines were about 3 hours. China's booth is almost impossible to visit, of you don't have a VIP ticke or want to wait for 7 hours or more.

I went o the Expo with my friends Anna and Sofia, my friends that I are studying in Shanghai, and their friend Lukas, who is alo Swedish. We found out that if you brought your passport you got VIP access to all the nordic countries and didn't have to line up for them. We stayed at the Expo for 7 hours and saw many beautiful and cool presentations of different countries. In my opinion, the Swedish booth was a bit of a disappointment. The majority of all countries presented the positive things about their country and described it, whereas Sweden only focused on innovations and preventing climate change.

Some pictures from the day!