OUR FRAGMENTARY BUT AMAZING EXPERIENCE AT EXPO 2020 - PART 1

Apart from our trip and all its extensions in the Western Cape, we’ve spent most of our “stuck” time in South Africa with friends and family. It was good to reconnect with so many old friends and family that usually get the short straw due to a lack of time.

Finally, we were back home. Apart from the three poor herbs I’ve sacrificed during our stay, all was good back in the UAE.

I have to be honest, we’ve never heard of the World Expo before, and even once Dubai Expo2020 was the buzz around here, we still didn’t quite know what it was or what to expect. Due to our extended SA trip, instead of six months, we now only had six weekends to explore and cram in as much as possible.

It should be noted that we’ve barely scratched the surface of Expo. Our total amount of visits added up to six mornings. I wished we were able to visit at night. I think at night, it transforms into a whole new world. So many pavilions used lights to add to their architecture, which we sadly never were able to appreciate. Unfortunately, the crowds were too much, and we don’t do crowds.

The other thing we preferably don’t do is long queues. Thus any pavilion with a long line would immediately be dismissed and passed.

Although we merely dipped our toes into the total experience, it still left us in awe. Every time we left, we felt exhausted, and we could easily clock up to 9km of walking in one morning. Although exhausted, we left with optimism, excitement, and positivity about what the world could be.

Plus, this was like location/holiday scouting. There were so many possibilities out there that we never knew or considered.

Expo Site/Park

The Entrance

The experience starts with a bus ride from your parking to the entrance. The entrance gate is a huge steel construction (perhaps a bit cage-like). The entrance gate is framed with all participating countries’ flags.

Once through the enormous gate, it feels like arriving at airport security. Everybody and bags are scanned, and once you’ve passed, you’re met with “The world – Express Edition”.

First stop. Get a passport and map. At every pavilion we entered, we gt a stamp in our passport, and at the end it makes a great souvenir.

Transport in the park

Due to the park’s sheer size, a few options were available for getting around.

Expo Buggy – A bigger size golf cart like vechile operated by a driver, and a paid service by either the hour or day.
People Mover – Free service to quickly transport you to another district of the park.
Expo Explorer – An electric or compressed-air train, that does a exploring route in each district.
Bicycle – For hire
By foot – This was our transport of choice. Mainly so we could take in as much of the detail as possible and not miss a thing, plus we still had some of the cape’s yummy food to work off.

The Details

Speaking of the details. Let me share a few with you, from the little detail in the gardens to the information robots and parades. There were also water fountains to fill our water bottle and kids’ play areas (sorry, no pics). They even paid tribute to everyone who helped with the expo, and their names were engraved on columns shaped by all the different moon phases.

My favourite detail had to be this bench. While waiting for T, I came across it.

It releases water drops that run race-like next to each other in the concrete or marble tracks. This reminded me of a game my sister and myself used to play as a child. Whenever it rained, whether in a car or at a window, we would each choose a droplet and then see who won the race to the end of the bottom.

Garden in the sky.

A rotating and elevating garden can give you a bird’s eye view of the park. This was a paid activity, and once again, the line was just too long, so we only admired it from the bottom.

THE water feature.

Surreal Water Feature was probably one of the main attractions and most Instagrammed spots at the expo. Words can’t really describe the magic behind it. The water dances through, along with and over the pebble-like structures. It creates a bit of monochrome in a colored world and, by doing so, adds even more emphasis on the textures and sounds.

People completely lost their minds. Everybody ditched their shoes for a bit of water under their feet.

When in Rome…

So we just had to join in this pure child-like silliness.

Terra and the e-Trees.

The park is divided into five districts.

Sustainability
Mobility
Opportunity
Jubilee
Al Forsan

The first three mentioned are the main districts, and each of them has its own pavilion. Sustainability was the biggest one since that was the theme of this expo.

Terra was sustainability’s pavilion, surrounded by multiple e-trees. Terra herself is made out of solar panels and, along with the e-trees, can generate approximately 4GWh annually.

Each e-tree has its own weather station to rotate and follow the sun for maximum energy.

Terra is just magnificent. It’s kinda sad that there’s so much happening around her that it’s hard to enjoy her pure beauty alone. But she’s not just pretty and functional on the outside. We only did one portion of Terra’s tour, and it was amazing. Our route’s theme was under the sea, and as we moved along in the tour, it was represented by going deeper into the ocean. They also have put a lot of emphasis on plastic in our oceans.

The Pavilions

Exteriors/Architecture

As mentioned, we couldn’t visit every pavilion. These are a few we either didn’t visit, or the inside didn’t wow us. We loved the look of the Pakistan pavilion (colorful curvy one).

The animation the Korea pavilion brought was mesmerizing.

Islands

What amazed us was the number of islands and how many we hadn’t heard of before. The islands’ pavilions were usually some of the brightest we saw.

Maldives

Grenada

Mauritius

Jamaica

Next up…

This is far from the end of our Expo post. Join us in the next post when I share the pavilions that made the biggest impression on us, some arty pics and more.