Green Pants in UK Pavilion
Creeping Thyme
ICE Pant
Lavender
Wendy, Shanghai World Expo, Shanghai Expo
2010 Shanghai World Expo
China Expo Pavilion considers new rules
The organizer of China Pavilion is considering some new admission measures including allowing people to queue for the pavilion and opening reservation machines across the World Expo site, officials said on May 14th. But the current main method remains handing out 40,000 tickets a day by volunteers at World Expo entrances, said Xu Wei, spokesman for the Expo Bureau.
The organizer might also let those who collect stamps from pavilions in the Urban Best Practices Area at the Puxi site to have quicker access to the national pavilion, said deputy pavilion director Qiang Zhiguang. Some foreign national pavilions such as Spain and Germany have started providing quicker access to those who have been to their UBPA cases in Puxi. An additional 25 percent more visitors can get in to the China Expo Pavilion and there will be less waiting time if people “visit by the rule” .
The organizer called on visitors to come within the time period stated on their reservation tickets, believing it could be an effective way to let more people in and shorten the queue.
With entrance based solely on reservation tickets, the star-attraction pavilion has hosted 38,400 visitors on average each day since the Shanghai Expo opened on May 1. Its daily capacity was expected to be 50,000 visitors. On average, each visitor now has to wait for at least an hour before entering the pavilion.
Most people show up ahead of their reserved time, making large crowds at the entrance during the day, and people don’t need to wait if all visitors arrived during the recommended periods, said deputy director Qiang. Nearly a million visitors have been through the China Pavilion since the Expo opening on May 1. The figure includes attendance at the national pavilion of China, known as the “Crown of the East,” and the Joint Chinese Provincial Pavilion.
Also, the China Pavilion will soon have a new “national treasure exhibit” to replace the current “Along the River During the Qingming Festival” that will return to Liaoning Museum.The new exhibit will be more precious than the painting, Qiang said. The pavilion has a section on the second floor named “National Treasure” in which visitors stand on a moving belt to watch the painting.
Spain will offer 300000 typical meals in six months
Shanghai Expo Spain Pavilion
During the Shanghai 2010 World Expo Spain will prepare and serve 300,000 meals made from ingredients that reflect traditional Spanish cuisine. That is what Pedro Larumbe, the official concession holder for the Spanish Pavilion in the Shanghai told Xinhua in an exclusive interview.
“Our proposal is mainly product and taste. We are going to prepare what is basically classical cuisine, but with some modern touches. However, you have to bear in mind the predicted number of visitors and the number of meals, which means we have to chose a different format in each of the three different areas that we have, ” he explained, adding that the Spanish pavilion is divided into a bar, cabaret and multiuse area.
During the six months of the exhibition, Larumbe has the challenge of serving 300,000 meals, which he will prepare in a 1, 000 square meter kitchen area with the help of 30 chefs and 50 waiters.
“We won’t have any problems with fish or with our Iberian ( pork) products, but in some cases we will use cheeses that are not too strongly flavored and we will also give gazpacho a try ( gazpacho is a cold soup, which is typical in the southern region of Andalucia),” indicated Larumbe, who designed menus to showcase traditional Spanish food, while adopting it on occasions to Oriental tastes.
The Spanish chef has decided to give priority to the quality of the product and Spanish cuisine ahead of other concepts. He will be traveling with 15 tones of fresh meat from Iberian pigs, 1,000 cured hams, 300,000 liters of beer, 3,000 cases of wine, 20,000 liters of olive oil and 50,000 bottles of water as well as other ingredients.
The Project, which is led by Pedro Larumbe wants to take another step towards publicizing Spain’s main gastronomic products in Asia and he has created the Expo Shanghai Agenda platform. This is an international business initiative which aims to take advantage of the Expo exhibition to help Spanish companies access into the Chinese market.
The Expo Shanghai Agenda will offer information, consultancy, training and representation services. It will also provide integrated communication services, among which will be the responsibility to transmit the acts celebrated in the Spanish pavilion on the internet.
Larumbe owns a restaurant in the center of Madrid, and has been awarded at National Spanish Gastronomy Award.
Wendy, Shanghai Expo, 2010 Shanghai Expo
Spain Expo Pavilion unveils ‘giant baby’
The Spain Expo Pavilion has unveiled an electronically animated giant baby which will welcome visitors inside the pavilion.
The baby Miguelín, 6.5 meters tall, can “breathe and blink.” Miguelín will greet visitors in the cradle at the final exhibition section.
The pavilion contains three exhibition halls which will take visitors through time and space to see city development in Spain with the theme of “From the City of Our Parents to the City of Our Children.” The three displays are created by famous Spanish film makers from three decades.
Wendy, Shanghai Expo, Shanghai World Expo
San Marino unveils exhibit plan
The Republic of San Marino, the world’s smallest and oldest republic, will display a full-size reproduction of its Statue of Liberty at the upcoming 2010 World Expo, Mauro Maiani, the commissioner general of the country, told a press conference on April 19th.
The statue embodying San Marino’s values will be exhibited at the center of the exhibition area inside a joint pavilion for European countries. The statue stands in the main square of San Marino in front of the Public Palace or Parliament.
The theme is “City-State: the smallest and oldest republic in the world.” The country, with a territory of 61.19 square kilometers inside the heart of Italy, will also spotlight episodes of its history, its unique institutional system with two heads of state and government (the Captains Regent), as well as its culture, tourism and economy.
The first area goes back over the 1,700 years of the Republic’s history, from its foundation to entering UNESCO, passing through the most noteworthy episodes.
The second area will use a video and a series of pictures to promote the country’s tourism.
The Institutions room, a sort of “room of customs” will take visitors to discover the institutional system capable of conserving democracy throughout the centuries.
The fourth exhibition room highlights the merits of the Country-System, from production to banking.
A show and parade will be staged from June 4 to 5 to celebrate the pavilion’s national day on June 4. San Marino’s delicacies will be promoted in September.
Splash of color from Expo pavilions
The lights were tested on the Luxemburg Pavilion on April 5, adding a splash of color to the 2010 World Expo site.
The lights were tested on the African Pavilion on April 5, adding a splash of color to the 2010 World Expo site.
The lights were tested on the Singapore Pavilion on April 5, adding a splash of color to the 2010 World Expo site.
The lights were tested on the Russia Pavilion on April 5, adding a splash of color to the 2010 World Expo site.
The lights were tested on the Esthonia Pavilion on April 5, adding a splash of color to the 2010 World Expo site. A large amount of pavilions started lights testing recently.
Wendy, Shanghai Expo, 2010 Shanghai Expo
US Pavilion of 2010 Shanghai Expo
The US Pavilion will showcase sustainability, teamwork, health, and struggle and achievements.
United States is happy to participate in Expo 2010 and this will boost pavilion construction. He said that he is committed to building an outstanding pavilion to showcase the best of the US. It had been more than three years since Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao sent an Expo invitation to the US government.
The US had actually begun efforts to attend the 2010 event in March, 2008 when the State Department signed a letter of intent with the US Pavilion non-profit group, Shanghai Expo 2010 Inc, to raise funds privately for its Expo showcase.
The commissioner general was appointed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton early this month, and this was widely regarded as a strong indication that the US would attend.
Attending Expo 2010 will be a perfect opportunity to highlight US innovation, particularly in environmental initiatives, and to share ideas with countries from around the world on ways to create better cities and communities for all our people.
Wendy, Shanghai World Expo, Shanghai Expo
Jewel in the Crown served up as gift to China
On top of having 60,000 acrylic spikes holding seeds to stress the need for sustained conservation efforts, the gem-shaped UK Pavilion will be nestled in a bed of “wrapping paper” to symbolize growing Sino-UK relations.
“One of the key points of our story is offering our pavilion as a gift of friendship to the people of China, depicted by a landscape that looks like unwrapped wrapping paper,” said Ian McCartney, commissioner-general of the UK’s expo team, while unveiling the building’s new design in Shanghai.
“We think we have found an iconic structure that will be one of the most seen, and most photographed, pavilions on the expo site,” added the British politician, who was visiting the city to ink an agreement linking the pavilion with Expo Shanghai Online.
The privately and publicly financed pavilion, which is costing 13.8 million pounds ($22.8 million) to build, will also have a simplified color scheme. Instead of using a rainbow of colors, the futuristic cubic design will beam blue hues against a backdrop of white geometric shapes.
With over 230 countries and international organizations competing for 70 million people’s attention at next year’s expo, which runs from May 1 to October 31, McCartney said the UK’s six-story design is intended to make guests stop and stare. Some have described the pavilion’s new foundation as an Antarctic landscape; others claim the pavilion looks like a sparkling cushion.
“We want it to be thought-provoking. It’s about engaging people, and you will see that it is even more thought-provoking when we release what is inside,” said McCartney. “Some parts will be so good we are looking at ways of taking it to other parts of China. And of course the online aspect will take this way beyond the Expo Park, to the whole world.”
He said the design should reflect the UK’s role as an innovative country given its status at the leading edge of the pharmaceutical industry and as a country responsible for producing more leading scientists per square meter than any other in the world.
As such, the importance of working together to solve common problems to guarantee the future of society as a whole was an integral part of Thomas Heatherwick’s organically-designed structure.
“We have 60,000 acrylic pods and in each of those pods will be embedded a seed those seeds represent to us the need to find alternative resources for sustainability and new forms of energy,” said Carma Elliot, Britain’s consul-general in Shanghai.
“We are very proud that the UK and China, historically, have had very strong links in the botanical field,” she said. “There are only three millennium seed banks in the world, and we are very excited to have the one in the Kunming botanical institute (in Yunnan province) working closely with ours in the UK to produce this very special part of our pavilion.”
At the last World Fair in Aichi, Japan, in 2005, South Korea’s pavilion claimed the best design award. While UK officials were not sure if they could compete for such a prize next spring, they were confident of drawing huge crowds given the UK’s position as the No 1 destination in Europe for Chinese investment.
“According to our market research, the UK pavilion is top three or four in terms of which pavilion people are most looking forward to visiting next year,” said Gavin Anderson, the British Council’s director in Shanghai. “When the British consulate asked for comments on their website, this design was by far the most popular among Shanghai citizens.”
Some 60,000 Chinese students currently study overseas in the UK, which has had an indigenous population of over half a million Chinese for more than 200 years. With Mandarin now being taught in British schools for the first time, McCartney said he hopes the new pavilion paves the way for greater cooperation in the future.
Nepal to tell ‘tales of Katmandu’ at Shanghai Expo
Nepal has published new artist’s renditions of its pavilion for the 2010 Shanghai World Expo, which will explore the theme “Tales of Katmandu City – Seeking the Soul of a City; Exploration and Speculation.”
The pavilion will put on display the luster of Katmandu, the capital city of Nepal and an architectural, artistic and cultural center that has developed over 2,000 years.
The theme touches upon the soul of a city by exploring its past and future. Another highlight of the pavilion will be Nepal’s efforts in environmental protection and developing renewable energies.
Wendy, Shanghai Expo, Shanghai World Expo
Interaction with visitors crucial to success at Shanghai World Expo
The Shanghai World Expo on May 1 is going to be a big event as over 100 countries and regions are expected to participate. And Australia experience in the 2005 Japan Aichi World Expo proved that our people and mutual interaction with the visitors are critical to success.
Australia places big concerns with its participation in the Shanghai World Expo as many people put enormous time and effort. And The Australian side believes creativity, elegance and the quality of showcase items are surely crucial, but what is more important is the mutual interaction that in the Australian pavilion in the May World Expo, visitors can taste wines for free, or can attend a class or even participate in there in the Education section.
But “How to deliver these messages precisely to the Chinese visitors?” she said, Chinese-English bilingual workers are the key as they will make Australia a “must-see” pavilion among other nations taking part in Shanghai World Expo.
Australia has carefully chosen over 200 bilingual people out of over 3,000 applicants to carry out work in the Australian Pavilion. This team includes a full range of jobs from sommelier to service assistants, executive chef to events coordinator, and mascot handler to maitre.
These participants are going to receive intensive training in April in Shanghai before Expo begins. Their goal is to ensure every visitor coming to the Australian Pavilion to have a happy, unforgettable and unique experience.
Inside the Australian Pavilion, the three totally different captivating acts, which are “Journey”, “Discover ” and “Enjoy”, will provide not just a wide range and colorful artistic and cultural events on daily basis, but also many high- level, comical and humorous interactive activities, which show different products and ideas with the Australian sense of humor.
Wendy，Shanghai Expo, Shanghai World Expo