Shanghai World Expo

Did you hear about the World Expo in Shanghai, China this summer?

Neither did I. Not until I met one individual who proceeded to inform me that the World Expo is like the Olympics of the commerce world, where countries meet up in the same place once every four years to kind of revel in their own awesomeness. '

If I know of one country very eager to do that, it's China. So it was very fitting that this year's World Expo took place in the most awesome of cities - Shanghai.

As court, we had VIP privileges to the expo which included no lines! We felt so bougie. I took a really cool video of us heading into the China pavilion but my camera was retarded and fast-forwarded everything so just watch it like you're on speed.

The next pavilion we checked out was the US pavilion. No offense, but isn't the building really ugly and corporate looking? So...American. Haha, but in their defense, one of the girls explained to me that it was because the US pavilion was the only one that was privately funded. As in, our government couldn't really provide money to go into this while other countries had that fund. Tough times.

My friend Mario made a cameo in the video for the US pavilion.

Next we headed off to the Coca Cola pavilion. (My sis, Jessica would have been in heaven here).

We were inundated with tons of cool freebies like these cool souvenir tin coke bottles.
And this seemingly normal bottle of Coke...
...which actually, if opened correctly, chemically transforms into pieces of ice-so it's like you're drinking iced coke-in a bottle! Yes, I know. Minds are being blown right now.

All in all, the Coke pavilion was a whole lotta fun. Though the US pavilion was kind of lame, you have to hand it to US commercial products to do good work in entertaining us.

We next headed off to the Information and Communication pavilion where a whole bunch of my friends showed up on the big screen.

There's Jonathan...

...Nebula (playing a mom!)

and Miss Jani as a lead!

We headed home that rainy evening getting a pretty good feel of what the World Expo is all about. Despite it being incredibly good weather (cause it wasn't stifling hot) and we did not have to wait in line, I don't know if I would make a trip to another world expo in the future. If I wanted to wait in long lines and walk to far places to watch stuff, I'd rather check out Disneyland shows.

Heh, like my meh face in this picture?

Shanghai

Have you ever gone somewhere and just realized you were...home? You feel an immediate sense of belonging, of fitting in, of comfort.

That's kind of like what Shanghai is for me. Having been brought up by my mom's mom, my Abu, I grew up listening to stories of Shanghai and soaking in the customs of the city while I'm at home, whether it's having a constant craving for eating my rice soaked in soup or being accustomed to making every conversation, whether you're talking about the weather or sharing stories about your kids, sound like a shouting match.

By day we did a lot of city sightseeing and checked out the Expo.

By night we partied like a rockstar. Okay, not really but we danced some and sang some and drank some and chatted some.

Out of the court, three of us are Shanghainese. We had oodles of fun practicing our Shanghainese, eating our Shanghainese food and taking our Shanghainese pictures. (Ok, so all asians pose like this)

The city is so pretty we just had to get pretty ourselves and get all Carrie Bradshaw and co.

Even though we actually really look like this most of the time...

Shanghai, I will be back to conquer you! I will!

HK Remnants

Now that I finally got the rest of my China trip pictures from Tom, I can finish my trip updates!

I also ate a lot in Hong Kong.

Nom nom nom. We didn't eat without purpose. Sometimes we dined with famous actresses for press conferences.

The rest of the Chinatown court and I also finished our China trip with a final visit to the Phoenix TV station in Hong Kong where the president of the company graced us with another one of his presence.

We received a tour of the station. Here I am apparently amazed by whatever the host was saying. Good stuff.

Wish Nebula could have finished the trip with us but what an exciting two weeks. Viva la MLAC 2010!