Sorry everyone, got caught in that "if you are doing enough interesting stuff to fill a blog post then you have no time to blog' loop again.

We're now in Shanghai and are sipping on G&Ts after a long day at the World Expo. Now, when we first left the shores of Bonnie Scotland, we had no idea about this event. I'd heard there had been Expos in the past (Crystal Palace etc) but I'd had no idea they were still about - and really had no preconception of what to expect at this.

Wow.

So within a large, large space in Shanghai, each country builds a pavilion according to a theme set down by the organisers (this one was Green Urbanisation). They sit there for about 6 months before most of them are taken down. Whilst the expo is running, it gives normal Chinese people who perhaps wouldn't be able to afford international travel the chance to get a small taste of a range of countries.

The buildings are truly MINDBLOWING. Like, wow. Very modern, very beautiful buildings but built on the Chinese scale i.e very large. The British one can only be described as a fibre optic hedgehog (it's alot better than it sounds), the Japanese one reminds me of the Udderbelly in the Edinburgh Festival and the Dutch one was like an escher loop. All very cool. I'll get some photos of this up eventually and hopefully that will demonstrate what I've tried to explain.

Of course, this allowed us to become acquainted with our not-so-favourite activity of recent times - Chinese Queuing. They skip blatantly and they skip sneakily. Some will send their kids running forward in the queue then use it as an excuse to pass you. Some will slip into any gap left. Some will hold hands with someone ahead and get pulled through. It's also entirely inverse from the UK - it's the teenagers who are more likely to wait patiently whilst their parents and grandparents go crazy. For someone who like a bit of civility in his queue, this was like scraping nails across a chalkboard for me :)

We also had issues from people photographing us like we were animals in the zoo. This came to a head in the Lithuanian Expo where Fiona and I were enjoying a beer from the beer tent (VERY good beer). An older gent stood there and blatantly took a photo of us, then moved on without any acknowledgement of either of us (a wave, a smile, an attempt at communication - like we were an exhibit). I'd had enough and caught up with him (he tried to run away a little, but he was an old guy). I asked him to delete his photo and he smiled and tried to walk away. I was a bit more forceful, made my point felt and got him to remove the photo from his camera, then returned to the table. Not 5 minutes later, he came back and did the exact same thing! I attempted to press my point that he can't do this but he just smiled and walked away.
The Lithuanian waiter was very apologetic to us and assured us he understood how we felt - he was also blonde but must have been over 7ft tall!

Overall though, the day out was excellent and very well organised by the event holders and I highly recommend it to anyone who is in the area :)

We're in Shanghai for one more day before flying (stupid trains) to Beijing in the evening (16th). The four days of tourism-packed days in Beijing before flying home! We've started throwing out clothes instead of washing them which is brilliant - no point in keeping these clothes, they are so worse for wear and have a travellers smell that no washing will remove.
I also managed to break my bag clip again, doh! Will just wait till I'm home to get a new one.

Hopefully there'll be a blog from Beijing then one last one from the plane on the way home. Craaazzzyyyy!

Stu