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How Expo wows the world
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With 242 countries, cities, and international organizations all eager to wow the crowds with their technological innovations, the World Expo is a wonderland of sights, sounds, and tastes for the largely domestic Chinese audience. From a giant baby playing with bubbles to a robot performing on the violin, the World Expo is not an event to be missed.
Meet Miguelin, a giant animatronic baby doll, who is the star of the Spanish Pavilion.
The 6-and-a-half meter high doll is made from silicon and is remarkably lifelike, and no wonder... it was modelled after a real toddler.
Bubbles float from the ceiling to the floor and child sized interactive stations show the baby's "dreams" of an ideal future.
Huang Lu, Expo visitor, said, "My eyes lit up. At first I thought it was fake, a projection, but then I saw it was real and so cute. It has different facial expressions... it can cry and laugh..."
One of the most popular pavilions in the Expo site is also one of the strangest looking.
The United Kingdom's "hairy" pavilion holds 60,000 fibre optic filament "hairs" and resembles a dandelion swaying in the breeze.
Inside the pavilion is the Seed Cathedral, with tens of thousands of tiny seeds, each lit up like museum exhibits. The seeds are designed to highlight conservation and biodiversity.
Katherine Dixon, Spokeswoman of UK Pavilion, said, "One of the things we wanted to do at Expo was challenge the perceptions of Chinese people about the UK. So that's why the UK design is so, so out of this world, it's to show the creative and innovative side of the UK."
The Japanese pavilion, nicknamed the Purple Silkworm, features some of the country's most advanced technology.
At the true Japanese style entrance, visitors are greeted by a robot playing a violin.
The long lines snaking around some pavilions are a good judge what's inside, but sometimes fantastic sights are to be found in some of the smaller, less popular ones, like the Latvia Pavilion.
The Latvia Pavilion contains a vertical AERODIUM wind tunnel with indoor skydivers perform flying feats for audiences.
Visitors follow the flying performers as they soar up and down to heights of 20 meters in the tunnel.
For the 70 million visitors expected to pass through the gates during the six months of the Shanghai Expo, the event offers a chance to see things they've never seen before.
