Thailand and USA!

As I've mentioned earlier, the Expo was very much characterized by very long lines everywhere.  People would carry around these small foldable stools which they would pop up and use while in line.

Thailand had a large and very popular pavilion, also with a 3 hour line (3 hour lines seemed to be the norm).  However, any Thai citizen can by-pass the line by flashing their passport at the VIP entrance.  I love my country!  And so we scooted right in and checked out the exhibits, movies and 3D experience inside the pavilion - it did a good job of explaining some major milestones in Thai history, a little about the culture and the people  Thailand is a very popular holiday destination for the Chinese, so this was as much as travelogue as anything else.

Then we wandered over to the USA Pavilion.  I had read online that US citizens DO NOT get to cut the line (misguided equality principle!).  So we walked into the store/exit area and I found a nice college student from the Mid West, fluent in Mandarin, who was on a 2 month rotation, and she helped us bypass the main (3 hrs of course) line.  Thank goodness!

If you've read any of the background on the USA Pavilion, you would have heard that Congress passed a law some years ago that prohibits US government funds from being used to fund any Expos and trade fairs.  So the US was the ONLY pavilion funded entirely by private contributions.  And that the US was the last country to sign up for the Expo and we only managed to get the thing funded through extensive personal lobbying from Hillary Clinton.  Which was a good thing, it would have been terrible not to have been represented.

The USA Pavilion consisted of three theatres with different movies, starting with Kobe Bryant who greeted the audience in Chinese.  I'd rate the whole Pavilion a solid B.  After you exit, you then end up in a corporate sponsorship area where all the corporations have little exhibits.  A little cheesy but seemingly the best solution in the end.

Good thing we were able to bypass some lines - otherwise, we would not have seen any of the major country pavilions!  We walked past impressive structures for France, UK, Italy, Australia, Korea and Switzerland (complete with a cable car ride!) but could not stomach the wait.
And Denmark actually brought the Little Mermaid statue from Copenhagen Harbour over to Shanghai for their pavilion - apparently also surrounded by Copenhagen Harbour water!  At least we could see that from the walkway outside, so didn't have to wait in line.

Lastly, I give you a massive photo of our glorious leader, Colonel Khaddafi, hanging in the main entrance of the Libya pavilion.  Who needs those Swiss cable cars when you can experience items like this one!