Notes on Japan

This is a 5 part series. If you haven’t already, be sure to check out part 1.

We continued around the expo, but never did get to the Japanese pavilion. We did see the Prince, and I caught this picture of him moving between pavilions in Europe. He seemed very comfortable in his role. For our own taste of VIP treatment, a friend working a the expo set us up with passes to skip the lines at the German and French pavilions.

The Germans built a mini ride inside their pavilion. The French had a completely incomprehensible pavilion. Part of the difficulty with the French was their decision to use French and Japanese instead of the more prevailing combo of English and Japanese. But, our group included people literate in both Japanese and French, and none of us grasped the concept of the French’s strange displays. Perhaps it was just modern art.

The Mongolian pavilion had a friendly character selling hand carved wooden puzzles. At Qatar there were Arab women in traditional dress doing hand painting for little girls. That activity was popular, with a line inside the pavilion.

One very cool pavilion, in an odd way, was Libya. We didn’t plan to go to Libya, but our intended path was blocked twice by security for the Japanese Crown Prince, and so as with many of our directional choices of the day, we went where it was easy to go. Libya had no line, and it even had comfortable chairs for a short rest. The displays weren’t impressive, but the guy running the pavilion was. He was promoting Libya as a tourism destination, and doing so in friendly, impeccable English. I never thought I’d meet anybody from Libya.

Perhaps that was the best part of the expo — the people working the pavilions. All of the pavilions we visited were staffed by people from those countries (with the exception of Japanese security at Qatar). They were all conversant in Japanese, many also in English, and they were all friendly. You could meet people from all over the world.

Before leaving Aichi Expo, we stopped to check out the host of the 2010 world’s fair, China. It is probably due to in part to the anti Japanese protests in China, but the China pavilion was almost empty. A brief glance at one display revealed a claim to have the world’s tallest building in Shanghai. Used to be true, and will be again eventually, but I’ve been in the world’s current tallest building, and it’s in Taipei. There were chairs in one room, but next to them were signs that said “Don’t Touch”. But, in the gift shop business was relatively brisk.