However with expectations like these, it turned out to be not what I expected.
In a nutshell, it was exhibition halls filled with museum-type rooms, extolling the cultures and contributions of various countries or themes (robotics, technology, or the expo's theme of 'the living coast'). The grounds of the expo were vast. There were many large buildings all along a stretch of land along the coast of Yeosu, a town on the southern coast of Korea. I suspect artificial land was built and dredging occurred, because the water was deep enough for an active aircraft carrier to dock right next to the the Lotte pavilion. Also the typical rocky coastline was absent and it looked very clean and neat. (an interesting occurrence considering the theme of how modern society interacts with it's coasts and oceans)
We arrived at the 'fairgrounds' early enough to see them open the gates for the first visitors. Again my friends and I had joined the Adventure Korea tour group, and after an overnight bus ride and sunrise mountain climb, we were ready for a day at the fair.
Our first stop, right inside Gate 1, was the aquarium. I wasn't too excited about it because I had always considered each aquarium to be pretty much just like the last. I was even less excited when I saw that protruding from the entrance to the aquarium was The Longest Line of All Time. I'm not exaggerating. It was easily the longest line I've ever seen in my life. Starting at the entrance, it stretched about 50 feet to an area about 50 feet square that was full of people queued up in a zig-zag formation. The line overflowed from the queue and continued across the grounds, around the corner of the food court, and over the bridge around the floating stage. I'm terrible at guessing distances but it was probably at least 200 yards.
I'll let you do the math as to how many people this was. But it was A LOT. In my photo album you can kind of see what I am talking about .
Anyway luckily for us we had VIP tickets for the aquarium. So we were able to skip to the front of this massive line and go straight in to the building. I have to say I was unduly impressed by the scale of the tanks and the animals they had inside. There were beluga whales, giant sea turtles, hammerhead sharks, penguins, rays, otters, seals, sea lions, giant spider crabs, and of course all varieties of fish. It was extremely impressive and really worth a visit. There was a large auditorium-type room in which the main wall was a giant glass panel behind which were all these amazing sea creatures. There were also tunnels and tubes you could walk through or stick your head in to get a better look at the animals. I'm not sure I would have waited in that extreme line, but maybe.
Anyway from there we went and looked around a bit more. We were due to a tour of the robot exhibit at 11 so we had about an hour to kill. This wasn't enough time to see any exhibits so we just wandered around and took in the sites of the grounds. One thing that struck me as strange is that there were lines EVERYwhere. It turned out that pretty much all the exhibits had sort of tour times, so you could only go in every 15-20 minutes. This was definitely in contrast to what I expected to find. Usually at 'fairs' in the States you meander in and out of buildings at will, taking as much or as little time as you want. Besides, Americans don't have much of a stomach for lines. However in Korea no one seems to be in a hurry to anything. No one seemed perturbed at all by the lines (evident in the fact that there were people willing to line up behind a thousand people to see some fish). In fact, I saw several people had brought camp chairs and snacks as they got comfortable in the line (a genius idea actually).
So we went to see the robots. Again, I was pleasantly surprised because normally I couldn't care less about robotics. But these were actually really interesting to see. There was a woman who could make a multitude of emotions easily read on her face. There were robots who played soccer based on their ability to recognize color. Other danced in synchronicity to K-pop songs. Another who was bilngual, had inner-ear like balance, and could answer audience members' questions accurately and with a sharp wit. It was, again, quite impressive.
My friends and I spent the rest of the day in the International pavilions, visiting the various countries' exhibits. At first, we were flabbergasted at the seeming lack of international cuisine. Looking at our map and walking down the main hallway of the pavilion, it appeared there were only 6 restaurants...4 Korean, one Japanese, and one Vietnamese. And they were small. We couldn't believe there weren't more food options! Resigned to this, we ate some Pho for lunch. But when we started visiting more exhibits we found that many of the countries had restaurants attached...we had already eaten a good meal but decided screw it, we're on vacation and at the World Expo! Calories be damned! So we ate like gluttons. I had lasagna in Italy, borscht in Russia, pide and coffee in Turkey, schnitzel in Germany, cookies and chocolate in Belgium, empanadas in Argentina, and of course a sampling of the national alcohols along the way. Incredible food and beer and wine!
I had hoped to visit the Hyundai pavilion because I figured they'd probably have some really cool future cars there. However there wasn't time. I heard that the lines were naturally horrendous and I was glad to have spent all my time in the International pavilion anyway.
I could have had some time at night, when the lines were a bit thinner, but I had an important appointment.
The K-pop star Rain was performing FOR FREE near the aircraft carrier at the end of a wide but short pier. This was exciting for many reasons...one, he is very handsome. Two, he has some songs I really like. Three, he joined the army last fall so has been out of commission, and this was his first show since. My friends were camped out in the grass (well, astroturf but same thing in Korea) getting ready for a light show at the other end of the fairgrounds. So I made my way to the stage on my own, and found a seat. There were a few other groups performing so I had to sit through them. They all only did a very short set (like 5 songs) but it was incredible!
After Rain's set, I had to get back to meet my friends. We were due to meet the bus in 20 minutes and I wanted to find them first. So I had to skip his encore and started walking back towards the other end. Just as I was passing the Lotte pavilion, immense fireworks started going off! I didn't know how long they'd last but I wanted to get to my friends where they had a good seat to see them, rather than stop and try to see them behind the buildings and possibly miss meeting up with them. So I started running. I ran through the crowds, bounding up and down curbs, side stepping ajummas and going around street cleaners. I made it back to my friends in just a few minutes, just in time to see the grand finale of the fireworks show. I have to say they were the largest and grandest fireworks I have ever seen! They were being shot off a barge and even though they were pretty far from where we sat, they appeared to be massive in diameter. They even had some that exploded in cube shapes. It was stunning.
Finally we headed back to the bus to meet the rest of the tour group. While waiting, I finally found the courage to ask some sailors for a picture. There were sailors wandering around all day, as it was 'navy day' and as I said, there was an active aircraft carrier docked nearby. They kindly obliged me and I got one of my favorite pictures of the day.
After driving another hour to our hotel (because Yeosu is, understandably, completely booked), we got some much needed sleep. The next morning we woke up and headed to Jirisan, which is the highest mountain in Jeolla province (where we were at the time). I had no desire to hike a 1500+ meter mountain, but we weren't given much of a choice. Luckily the bus drove us up about 2/3 of the way so it was only about an hour. Truthfully it wasn't a difficult hike, it was paved...but it was still steep. And we were still exhausted. But we finally made it to the top and it really was an awesome view. I always forget how beautiful Korea can actually be once you get out of the Seoul metro area. Lush green mountain ranges next to the sea. It's really quite nice.
Miraculously we beat traffic coming back to Seoul and were able to make it in the anticipated 5 hours (whereas traffic outside the city can easily add 2-3 hours to travel time). We got in to Seoul by 7 and I was home by 9, in bed by 10.
It was a really great weekend and I am so glad I made it to the World's Fair, likely a once in a lifetime opportunity. It's probably going to be my last trip with Adventure Korea, since I'm leaving at the end of the summer. But it was a great one to finish with. Check out my facebook photo album for details!
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