Opening Craziness

Saturday, May 12

Today the expo opened to the public, meaning we all had to show up at the American Pavilion at 7:45 am. We hung around for about a half hour until Ambassador Kim (U.S. Ambassador to Korea) showed up. We waited some more. Then we all took an oath, which was a pretty silly oath at that. But it was really cool to meet the ambassador. He is incredibly friendly and good-natured. At 9 am, we opened the pavilion to the public. A middle-aged Korean woman gave me some snack to eat, which was nice of her. I also got to take a photo with an adorable little Korean girl. After a couple shows though I got to leave since it wasn't my shift. I killed two hours and then had lunch with Deputy Assistant Secretary Stout along with a group of some of the other American students. The food was pretty good and the luncheon was really informal. She let us ask her a lot of questions about her job and the State Dept. so it was really interesting. Then my friend and I went off to explore the pavilions. We technically went to the Peruvian Pavilion first, but it was really lame. So we decided it didn't count and that our first pavilion visit would be the one after we got our Expo passports. So off we went looking for those things. It took forever to find them. We kept having to ask all these Koreans and they kept saying it was by the ice cream shop, but there was no ice cream shop. Finally it turned out that they were being sold behind the little booth cafe...not sketchy at all. But they look super nice and only cost 5,000 won so I can't complain. Anyway, after that we went to the Swiss Pavilion and it was so cool! It was really modern. It started out in a black cave with writing on the wall about water and often phrased to the water:

 Some questions were a bit weird, like this one. Water is in bulgogi (Korean beef dish). I assume they were trying to engage Koreans with things like this. Not sure.

An example of a direct question to the water.








I would also like to say we got VIP access. We were walking to the main line, but we got pulled out and a Swiss guy took us through a side entrance to the front section. He also explained their pavilion and explained how they related Switzerland, a landlocked country, to the oceans, explaining that they have glacial water. I think they did a pretty good job spinning it. Anyway, we got VIP access because we're also expo workers, but it was still pretty cool.

After the cave, you entered into a circular room that had mirrors over all the walls, creating a really cool effect. In the center was a giant screen with water on the surface:

 
 


Then there was a room with a screen on one wall while the floor was jagged, making it feel like you were on a glacier. After that you entered a tiny room with ice in it that was really really old.

After that we came out to the last room. At the front they were giving out water purified by Swiss water purifiers in these cones, making it really hard to drink. Half my water ended up on the floor, meaning they had to call a lady to clean the spill. Embarrassing. I apologized and, on the bright side, we started talking to the Swiss lady and we had a pretty interesting conversation with her.

Anyway, after the Swiss Pavilion, we headed to the Uruguay Pavilion. It had some artifacts in it and a long, small screen showing ocean images. All in all though it wasn't that interesting. We talked to a Korean guy there who said he was American. I have no idea why he was working there though because he spoke no Spanish. A lot of pavilions just hired on Korean English-speakers since they need employees that can communicate with the vast majority of their entrants, i.e. Koreans.

The next one we hit up was Tunisia, which was a bit better. It at least had some interesting artwork. It was just one long hallway of art and artifacts. In the middle, it had an awkwardly empty square.

 

After that we hit up Sweden, which was also okay. It was a giant room. On one side it had a giant collage, which I liked.

It also had these little pods for listening to Swedish music:

That was about all there was to do there. So after that we went to the Angolan Pavilion. It had a pre-show:

 

And then a main show. The screen was curved which helped give the feeling of depth, but the video quality wasn't that great.

Then we exited into the last part of the pavilion. Little did I know what I was in for. There was a dance performance which I thought was really cool and I was taking photos. The next thing I know though, one of the Angolan workers is gesturing for me to come with him to go onstage. I immediately gesture that that is not happening. I don't dance and the last place I want to be is on that stage. But my friend like shoves me towards the guy and my resistance is pretty much futile. So on stage I am supposed to learn this dance...while they do it. My zero dance talent in combination with a skirt that doesn't allow much more than short steps forward equals disaster. I totally made a complete fool of myself. I even got outdanced by some middle aged Korean guy. Yeah absolutely mortifying. And there were giant cameras recording it, so that's fantastic. The guy I think eventually took pity on me because he let me kind of hid behind the people dancing for part of the show since I had absolutely no idea what on earth I was doing. My friend was laughing so hard because I was just that bad. They tried to be nice and were like oh you did so well...Yep definitely not true. It was soooooo bad. Oh well. I just hope that doesn't end up on video anywhere. My friend took a video, but luckily it was on my camera, so that's getting uploaded never.

After that, my friend left for work and I went back to the apartments to change and regain my self dignity. Anyway, I spent the rest of the afternoon touring other pavilions.

Spain Pavilion:

 

All the cylinders have something to do with some expedition Spain did. Not really sure. It looked really pretty, but I didn't get much out of it besides that.






Thailand Pavilion
 Preshow narrator, it was a bit weird

 


 Little kids definitely loved the preshow and main show


Main show used all the ceilings and walls as a screen

Qatar Pavilion

 This is what would be given as a dowry during old times.

I don't even care that the pavilion didn't seem to relate much at all to the oceans. Why? Because there's free henna.















The United Nations Pavilion