Mr. & Mrs. Vandebilt + kids

On Saturday we spent the entire day wandering around the Shanghai 2010 expo grounds. The expo is both the largest and most expensive ever held with the grounds covering over 5 square km and an anticipated 75 million people to pay a visit. At an estimated cost of $45M the grounds were definitely impressive. In order to prepare for the expo the city moved 18,000 families and 270 factories to make room for the massive space.

Our first stop on the expo tour was of course the Canadian pavillion. Having read all about the pavillion online we had a lot of expectations. We’ve now been away from home for over a year so when we heard that the space was being designed to feel like a home away from home we were both extremely excited. Unfortunately we were both supremely disappointed.

We entered the pavilion without waiting in line after flashing our passports and then immediately felt like we were out of place. The room was dark and crowded and there was not another single Canadian to be seen. The room felt like a cave. There were strange red metallic swooping structures on the ceiling and an equally strange video being played on the wall. After being pushed around in the dark by all of the people rushing through to try and find the expo stamp for their expo passport we eventually made it out to the restaurant and boutique. Excited for the chance to have some real Canadian food we headed right for the menu. Sure enough they had lots of classics: crepes, waffles, Canadian breakfast, cheeseburgers and poutine. We were contemplating the rather over priced choices when we asked just to make sure that everything would be made with Canadian products. The Chinese woman working as the hostess looked at us as if this was the most ridiculous question she had ever heard and quickly assured us that it was made with all Chinese ingredients. We ordered poutine since we at least can’t get that anywhere and then to add insult to injury it was served stone cold. After perusing the all Chinese products boutique – no Roots, dream catchers or a bottle of maple syrup to be found – we left knowing that our tax dollars had been well wasted.

We took a walk through some of the other pavillions only to discover that all of them had brought products from home. Apparently Canada didn’t get the memo. The Chile pavilion was quite well done as was Cuba and New Zealand. After seeing the insides of a few we decided that the outside was usually more interesting so we decided to avoid the 5-6 hour waits and just wander around.