Expo 2010 and Hangzhou

First, let me begin by stating that I cannot access my blog from China.  The government here apparently has a block on it.  That may be due to the fact that Blogger is owned by Google, and I am sure you have read about the conflict between that company and this country.  It may also be due to the fact that they search for entries about China and have found that I am not always positive in what I say.  Either way, I just have to trust that sending my entries by e-mail will get them posted.  This is my second entry to send this way on this trip.   Monday, May 10, 2010--Shanghai   Wes and I returned to McDonalds early in the morning to try again to use the wi-fi from there.   I had saved my entry on a thumbnail drive so that I could copy it into his account, since the guest account on his computer did not allow any Internet connection.  However, we found we could not get the free wi-fi at McDonalds because it is limited to those persons who can provide local ID information--a part of the Chinese government's way of controlling what people see and do on the Internet.  I believe I wrote a reference to this in my e-mailed post that has already been published (I hope).   After that, we took the computer back to the hotel and headed for the World Expo 2010.  I am not a big fan of World's Fairs.  I think they were probably great back in the 1800s and maybe in the early 1900s before radio/TV/Internet when people lived their lives not knowing much about the rest of the world.  They could be amazed by the sights they saw from other countries.  Today, however, it is difficult to give people anything new at a World's Fair.  Most in the past 80 years have been financial failures for this reason.  The one here in China only has a chance to succeed, I think, due to the fact that the country has a billion people who have been kept in the dark to a great extent about the rest of the world.  They may still find it fascinating to learn about things that had been kept a secret from them.  In that respect, other countries that might be able to have a successful World's Fair would be North Korea and, to a certain extent, Iran.   We went to a "back" gate via the metro to enter and were lucky.  The lines were short and we had no problem entering quickly.  That gate put us into the area for exhibits from the Pacific and from the Americas.  Because I had lived in the Philippines and their exhibit was the first we saw, we entered it.  It was a complete dud.  There was nothing of interest to see or learn.  Mostlty, they were selling products to visitors.    Next, we went to the exhibit for Australia.  It was a bit better.  Still, it did not excite us much.  We kept wishing we had read a review or two which would guide us to some of the better exhibits.    During the day, we went to about 20 exhibits.  Fortunately, the U.S. was one of the better ones due to a film they showed that was not political and fit the theme of the fair well (Better Cities Better Neighborhoods, or something like that).  The film showed a small girl looking out on a corner lot in her urban neighborhood that was trashed.  She imagined a nice flower garden there.  She took a plant and planted it as neighbors watched.  The net day, someone had stolen it.  She repeated it another day as the skeptical neighbors watched again.  It was stolen again.  But on the 3rd day, a neighbor gave her another plant to put in the garden.  Then, one after another, all the neighbors came to help.  When it was finished, it was beautiful, but that night a major storm came.  (Loud thunder and sprinkling water in the theater surprised those in attendance and even caused some of the women to briefly open their umbrellas!)  The garden was damaged, but the community came together and make it fresh again.  The film ended showing new gardens on rooftops and in small areas spreading from that spot across the city as a result of the influence of the first park on the people.  Everyone had a positive attitude when the film ended I think.  And that was aided by a previous film they had seen in which both Hillary Clinton and President Obama addressed the audience in non-political ways.    Other pavilions we liked were:  Mexico with paintings by famous artists, artifacts from previous cultures, and demonstrations of the making of Mexican products (such as a man making a sombrero).  Mongolia with an exhibit of the skeletonbs of two dinosaurs to died as a result of fighting each other in the Gobi desert.  Venezuela with a permanant troup of entertainers in costume to draw people into their exhibits which included a courtyard with lots of hanging hammocks (representing the styles of various parts of the country) which guests could use.  Seimens Corporation showing products in production that will change our lives--product design and development by people in various places who come together via the Internet, families conferencing regularly via the Internet no matter where each member lives, 3-D TV, etc.  Their show ended with a song about bringing us together from all over the world which involved singing avatars with OUR heads which had been photographed as we entered the pavilion.    Russia had a strange exhibit which was a fantasy flower garden land.  We weren't sure how it fit the theme and what it was supposed to teach us.  The Danish exhibit had the Little Mermaid, but the building was so brightly white that I fear they will have bad publicity about people falling from the glare and the steps that are of different depths.  We also visited pavilions of Canada, Brazil, North Korea, Cuba, Iran, the Pacific Islands, Uzbekistan, Bangladesh, etc.  There were far too many to try to see them all.  And the lines at some of the more popular ones--Switzerland, Germany, Saudi Arabia, etc., were just too long to consider trying to visit them with our limit of one day.    We stayed into the evening so that we could see the pavilions at night.  Many are beautifully lighted.  In the daytime, Latvia probably had the prettiest.  At night, Taiwan had the prettiest, I think, although there were many more that were special.   By 20:00, we had been there for about 10 hours and were exhausted.  We watched the Disney-like parade featureing Puxi, the mascot of the fair, then we exited and made our way back to our hotel.   Tuesday, May 11, 2010--Shanghai to Hangzhou   As we packed, Wes found a surprise.  There was a computer cable in the desk drawer.  The people at the desk downstairs had responded that there was no wi-fi when we asked.  But they had not told us there was free cable access to the Internet within our room.  We had gone days trying to find a place to be on the computer, and we could have been doing it in our room each day!  We logged on and I sent the first e-mail posting to the blog.  I'm hoping it got posted, since I do not know for sure yet.   Today, we needed to get to Hangzhou, a city not too far from Shanghai.  The guidebook had recommended going to a bus station only 3 stops from where we were staying and said that there were buses every 30 minutes all day to there.  We went to the station only to find there would be NO buses.  Of course, this knowledge created a problem due to language; no one could tell us where else to go!    We returned to the bus station, and there was a young, professionally dressed lady standing outside.  I decided to ask if she spoke English.  She did!!  She insisted that the best way for us to get to Hangzhou was to go to the South Train Station and go by train.  She took us into the station and helped us buy the tickets for the trip to there.   We arrived with no problems at the South Train Station.  We were lucky; the line moved fast, and we had two tickets within 10 minutes. Wes wanted to use the toilet.  When he came back, he reported that they had only squat toilets and no paper, so he decided to wait until we were in our hotel in Hangzhou!   When we tried to enter the large, central waiting area at that point, we were turned back.  We didn't know why.  We walked around to find the Information counter, and no one was there.  A policeman, however, looked at our tickets and pointed to a door.  We had first class tickets and had to wait in a special waiting room.  When time came to board the train, they announced it and then escorted us down to the train platform to board the cars before the other people from the regular waiting room were allowed to enter.     It was a clean, fast train.  (But nearby, we could see the columns for the new high-speed train they are building to go even faster between the two cities.)  It took us 1 hour, 20 minutes to get to Hangzhou non-stop.  It was Wes' first time to see the countryside here in China.  He was most amazed, I think, by all the huge construction projects in the suburban areas.  Some apartment developments invove maybe 20 buildings that are each 15 stories high.  It's just unbelievable to see the changes that are taking place in this country physically.   We had no problem finding the St. Rich Hotel where we had a reservation.  It is a modern highrise hotel.  The quality level is probably a bit nicer than the Villas where we stayed in Shanghai.  Both of them suffer from the fact that they could use a good carpet cleaning throughout, however.    At 5:30, we walked the 5 blocks from our hotel to the West Lake.  It is the prime attraction in Hangzhou and the centerpiece of a large park system that also includes mountains and villages in the area.  Many people were at the lake to watch the sunset.  We joined them, walking and watching both the people and the progress of the sun.  We got nice photos of the layers of mountains in the distance, the boats on the lake, the pagodas on tops of the mountains, etc.    Eventually, after the sun had set, we went inland.  We came to a large park that is a neighborhood gathering area.  Many people were doing dance exercises together.  Young children were taking inline skating lessons.  Elderly men were flying kites.  We relaxed and enjoyed watching all of these activities, then we progressed further down the street to the Night Market.   It was fun to see all the products for sale at the Night Market.  Some were just trinkets--junk for the children of families who come here for their vacations.  But many had high quality products for sale.  We stopped in an old pharmacy (from the 1600s) and had a glass of hot tea.  But mostly, we just strolled and watched the people.   On our way back to the hotel, we stopped at a very popular local place for dinner.  There was no English menu, so i walked around to see what others were eating.  We ended up ordering the same two dishes that a couple near us were having--chicken wings with ketchup (fried chicken being a very popular food in Asia) and hotpot.  Hotpot is a steaming bowl of soup over flames.  This one included pieces of beef, potato, noodles, and various vegetables.  It came with a bowl of rice.  Besides the heat from the fire, it was also hot with peppers.  It was delicious.    Wed., May 12, 2010--Hangzhou   The hotel had a nice variety of food at its breakfast buffet this morning--a combination of both western and eastern dishes.  We tried several new things liking some and disliking others.  So far, our breakfasts have filled us enough to need nothing else until the end of the day.   We had trouble with our toilet last night.  It stuck in running mode.  I tried to explain the problem at the front desk, but they apparently didn't understand.  This morning, I drew pictures--a toilet and an egg which had broken open.  I went to the desk and explained with the drawings and while making a whooshing sound to indicate that the water would not stop running.  Apparently they understood this time, because the toilet was repaired when we returned to the room this afternoon.   In the meantime, we went exploring the West Lake area.  We walked about halfway around the lake, we went up trails on the mountain behind the lake seeing a pagoda, a couple of caves where Buddhist figures are located, a sunrise point, etc.  We walso walked a causeway and explored an island inside the lake.  The weather was perfect--sunny with maybe 78 degrees F (24 degrees C).  We stopped often to watch people and to rest up from the effort it took to climb in the mountains.  People we encountered were all friendly.  We were the only westerners on the mountain trails, however.  Our entire outing was about 5 hours.  Wes is now napping while I type this to update the blog.  We will go out again soon for the sunset again today.