For those without the time or determination to brave the long lines outside the top pavilions at the Expo 2010 Shanghai, there is still a great time to be had. Touring the more popular pavilions wasn't feasible on my tight schedule. So, I opted for quantity over quality, choosing pavilions with a maximum queue time of about 30 minutes.
Armed with a map and an Expo passport - a nifty souvenir closely resembling a real passport that lets visitors document their trip to each pavilion -
For many of the pavilions, the passport stamping station is the most popular attraction, often crowded with visitors pushing to collect their seal.
Yet, as fun as the stamp collecting was, I couldn't help but longingly look toward the grandiose Japan Pavilion while waiting outside of the less popular Uzbekistan Pavilion.
"I heard the line is five hours," I overhead one girl tell her group of friends as they too gazed at the hordes of tourists waiting to see the advanced robotics and cultural relics inside. The group was a friendly collection of students from all over the world studying Chinese at the Shanghai International Studies University (SISU). Seeing that I was alone, they graciously invited me to tag along with them. Speaking in Mandarin that was a bit rough around the edges, we all soon forgot about the lines and marveled at the Expo's grandeur.
With the temporary elimination of fast-pass lines at some pavilions, there are even fewer ways to bypass the lengthy waits. You can skip the lines with an elusive press pass or with a friend working at the entrance of a pavilion. Luckily for our group, one of the SISU students had an ex-girlfriend working at the Kazakhstan Pavilion who happily let us through the back entrance. I guess their break up was on friendly terms.
At the New Zealand Pavilion, however, the time spent in line was actually more enjoyable than the time inside. As we waited, a dozen dancers passionately performed the Haka, a traditional New Zealand Maori war dance, and mesmerized the audience. Then, a handful of courageous children joined the stage to try their hand at the routine, making for a light-hearted atmosphere. The performance fittingly concluded with a slightly modified rendition of a hit Stevie Wonder song, I Just Called to Say 'Wo Ai Ni'.
The Expo is wildly successful in making the event feel like a microcosm of the world instead of simply a World's Fair. When we said, "Let's go to France," it felt more like a trip to the country than a pavilion.
Though I was a bit disappointed that I didn't have time for the more popular pavilions, I took solace in my new group of friends and my heavily stamped passport.
The author is a third year student at Harvard University in the United States.
