The 2010 Shanghai World Expo will be opening soon and many Chinese from around the country will join international guests in visiting Shanghai. Many visitors will want to know how they can best experience the Shanghai 2010 World Expo, such as how to get there and how much time they should spend to see everything they should see.
Fortunately, one Chinese Expo worker has voluntarily created a guide that includes most of the basic and important information regarding how one can visit and enjoy the World Expo this year. The most useful may be his 3-day walk-through that explains which expo pavilions and sights they should see and in what order over 3 days.
Below is a news article about how popular his guide has become for Chinese netizens intending to visit the World Expo this year (he has also appeared on television news too).
To help foreigners who are also planning to visit the Shanghai World Expo, chinaSMACK has also translated his guide from the original Chinese into English. The first introductory part of his guide is translated below, or you can jump directly to the walk-through for Day 1, Day 2, and Day 3.
– Fauna
From Rayli:
Recently, a “China 2010 Shanghai World Expo 3 Day Walk-through/Itinerary” post has widely spread amongst netizens. This nearly 8000-word post written with the average World Expo tourist in mind, answers what to see at the World Expo site, how to get to the Expo site, and other basic issues and points of note, and designs for tourists an itinerary that includes the World Expo’s main pavilions. Not only does it discuss where to see the Pavilions, it also introduces where to obtain transportation [to the Expo site], what stops to get off, and even mentions where to have lunch, what to eat for dinner, and where one should watch for performances, etc. The writer believes, altogether, the amount of time one should dedicate to visiting the World Expo is three days, providing detailed guides for each day within his post, with his many details all including insightful introductions and commentary.
This post, written in January of this year, has received enthusiastic reception amongst netizens, with over 10,000 search results on Baidu, and hundreds of thousands of people sharing and reposting on Renren and other social networking sites. Netizens have called it “The most niu World Expo walk-through, see all of the Shanghai World Expo in 3 days”, as well as “very good, very awesome”, “very long, very useful, recommend a printed version”.
2010 Shanghai World Expo Expo 3-Day Guide & Walk-Through: Introduction
For those attending the World Expo, the one thing that everyone must first know is when the site is open:
The World Expo site opening hours is from 9:00 – 24:00, a total of 15 hours. And the pavilion area opening hours (including when the pavilions themselves are open) are from 9:30am – 10:30pm, which is 13 hours in total. You can’t get in after 9pm, and most pavilions don’t allow entry after 10pm. On any day outside the first week of October [a national holiday in China] night tickets can be purchased from 5pm for 90RMB, as usual entry isn’t allowed after 9pm.
Everyone’s probably wondering what there is to do between 9 and 9:30, and 10:30 – midnight every day, when the pavilions are closed. Actually the Expo doesn’t just involve looking at exhibitions, the site features daily over 100 cultural performances and activities. Of these, the most spectacular are the daily performances that mark the opening and closing of the site. On each of the 184 days of the expo, each country also has its own daily activities. The opening performances take place between 9 – 9:30, so you should probably get there at about 8:30 so that you can get in at nine o’clock sharp.
Second, everyone is going to ask, how to get to the World Expo site?
The transportation for the World Expo site is extremely developed. Altogether there are thirteen entry/exit points, five in Pudong, three in Puxi, four along the Huangpu river, and one that links with the Metro.
The on-land entrances in Pudong include Houtan near Yuanyi Road, Changqing Road at Haohua road, Haohua Road at Shangnan Road, Yuntai Road at Pudong South Road, and Bailianjing at Shibodadao (Puming Road) and Yilin Road.
The on-land entrances in Puxi are at the intersections of Luban Road at Longhua East Road, Tibet South Road at Zhongshan Nanyi Road, and Pingsongyuan Road at Baotun Road and Wangda Road.
The entrances on the water are called “shui men” ['water gates/entrances']. Groups can enter at Qichangzhan, Qinhuangdao Road, and Shiliupu; if you’re not a member of a group you can enter at Dongchang Road shui men.
The metro entrance is at Madang Road station, near the part of the station which services Line 13. You’ll find the entrance near the intersection of Madang and Xujuahui roads. If you arrive at Madang Road station via Line 9, you can walk over to the section which services Line 13, and after a safety check, enter the Expo site. Apparently when the Expo starts, Madang Road station will have 500 gates that you insert your train/metro ticket into!
Phew! All this information, but I still haven’t told you how to get there. Haha!
Let’s talk about getting there by metro first. You can take Line 6 to West Gaoke Road where it interchanges with Line 7. Exiting the metro station there, there are buses/shuttles that take you to and from the Expo site.
On Line 7, exiting the Houtan metro station is an entrance to the World Expo site. At Changqing Road station for the Line 13 interchange currently under construction is also an Expo site entrance. Exiting Yaohua Road station at the interchange of Line 7 and 8 is where the World Expo site’s largest entrance is! Getting off at Yuntai Road station and you’ll be at the Asian section of the Expo. At West Gaoke Road where [Line 7] interchanges with Line 6, there are buses that go between it and the entrance at Bailianjing.
Metro Line 8 interchanges with Line 4 at South Tibet Road [also known as South Xizang Road]. Exiting that station is the largest World Expo entrance on the Puxi side—-South Xizang Road Entrance. Whereas getting off [the metro] at the Yaohua Road station where Line 8 interchanges with Line 7 is the World Expo’s largest Pudong side entrance Shangnan Road entrance.
Line 9 interchanges with the special World Expo Line 13 at Madang Road station, where you can go through the safety check directly within the metro station and enter the Expo site directly through the metro.
Line thirteen is the Expo’s own dedicated line. Your Expo entry ticket entitles you to ride on line thirteen free of charge. There are only three stations: Madang Road, Lupu Bridge, and the Expo Site. At the intersection of Madang and Xujiahui roads is the Expo’s only gate accessible from the metro, and it has approximately five hundred ticket gates. The station at Lupu Bridge is within the fenced area, and is mostly for visitors that wish to cross the river to visit the banks on either side.
To visit the Expo from outer suburbs like Jinshan, Fengxian, Qingpu and Chongming, visitors can take special buses to stations along lines 7, 8 and 9, and then transfer to other metro lines.
The Expo sites are also serviced by almost 90 of Shanghai’s bus routes, some of which have been specially created for the purpose. The main ones are routes 17, 18, 43, 45, 65, 66, 82, 89, 96, 253, 610, 614, 733, 802, 806, 869, 871, 910, and the Zhounan line.
From every major transport hub, the Ministry of Transport will create 16 routes that go to the gates at Houtan Rd, Shangnan road, and Bailianjing.
If you’re with a designated tour group there are also tour buses. Buses of all kinds and levels leave for the Expo site from all major Shanghai tourism centres, such as the F1 racetrack. Travel agencies can also enter the Expo site through river gates [water entrances] like Qichangzhan, Qinhuangdao, and Shiliupu. Visitors that aren’t part of a travel group can enter through the water gate at Dongchang Road. Please note that the price of boat tickets aren’t included in entry to the Expo.
Here I’d like to remind everyone that unless you have special permission, private cars and taxis aren’t allowed to go within 500 to 1.5km of the Expo site. There are 4000 taxis that have been given special permission to enter this exclusion area; after 9pm these areas are opened up to all taxis.
Well, having said so much, everyone should know a lot more about the opening times and transportation of the World Expo now! Now let me formally share the World Expo 3-day itinerary.
Next: Day 1 itinerary & walk-through.
Please share this guide with anyone who is visiting the World Expo!
A Shanghai 2010 World Expo promotional video:
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