So! My impressions, and some pictures, in chronological order:
The Westlake Area
This is a GORGEOUS area! We took pictures with the Confucious statue (that were picture bombed) and then walked around some and took a boat tour. As beautiful as the area is, it's apparently not too much of a foreign tourist attraction, based on the number of stares we received. In Shanghai and Beijing, we haven't gotten that much attention and no one has asked to take a picture with anyone in our group in a couple of days (well, except for Katie today at the Forbidden City).
The Confucious statue at West Lake! Before we were photo bombed!
Not entirely sure why there's a bridge on an island, but whatever.
Dr. Watson.. he did one of these pictures on the Brazil trip, too. That's a VERY large Koi pond behind him.
The International Expo
Shanghai was NUTS about this thing. Everywhere you looked, there was Blue Gumby (or Haibo, as he's actually named). The expo itself was over a ridiculous amount of land that will apparently become the new business district when the expo is done. Most of the buildings constructed for the expo will be torn down to make way for new skyscrapers.
Security at the event was controlled by entrance times. You were given a window to arrive in and if you didn't get to the expo by the end of your window, your ticket was no longer valid (and they keep your money). So our window of arrival was 10AM - 11AM. We had 7PM reservations at the China pavilion. We had almost eight hours to kill in a park twice the size of the Magic Kingdom. After lunch (at Papa John's, in the Americas section) the group split into two and my group conquered about five pavilions including one that gave out beer in souvenir glasses.
My favorite was probably the Brazilian pavilion; the screens were omnidirectional touch screens! LOVED IT! The Chinese pavilion was interesting but since we were there so late in the day (and we were cold and hungry) that we didn't really appreciate it. Also, it was all in Chinese.
This is Haibo. Or, as we called him, Blue Gumby.
At the Netherlands, there were sheep you could move around and sit on. We all took pictures with this one!
Some of the pavilions at the Expo. The big fuzzy cube thing is the UK and the net is either France or Italy.
The inside of the Russian pavilion. It was sort of like what I imagine an acid trip is like.
Tianamen Square
I was probably not as impressed as I should have been. It was a huge square with a 'people's hall,' an obelisk, and a very large building for Mao's crypt. I didn't realize that the man was buried in a crystal tomb! Crazy! People were literally wrapped around the building - at 9Am - to see him. They did have some very large TVs that we were making vaguely inappropriate jokes about, though. I will note that I was shocked that we could clearly see the image.
Taken in Tianamen Square. Look at how hazy it is!
The Forbidden City
It was HUGE. It took us two hours to walk from end to end, without going into any areas of the city. I have a lot of pictures, but I realized towards the middle that a lot of them are going to look similar; I'm going to have issues identifying what they are. Also? The pollution here is AWFUL! There's visible haze EVERYWHERE~~
Forbidden City! Central building. I asked when it was last repainted. Answer: for the Olympics.
More Forbidden City! At this point, we were getting tired and cranky.
Bonus Pictures!
Some of the group... what's that vaguely hidden skyline?
THIS!!!!!
Any political activity going on at Tianamen Square?
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