UK and South Korea pavilions at Expo

I waited with about 100,000 other people in line to get into Expo today. Lately on Saturdays attendance has been at 1,000,000 people. I was given a ticket last week and I secured reservations at two pavilions, the UK and the South Korea Pavilions. The children in the line enternained me with their smiles and laughter. It was raining all day. The only sad moment for me was having my compass taken from me at the security checkpoint. It had a whistle. I used it daily on my recent trip. Apparently it was against regulations to bring a whistle. They had not taken it from me in my previous visits. I gave it to the security volunteer because the option was to leave it in a security area. Imagining I would have to wait another hour to get back in, I gave it to her. When I returned after my visit I inquired about it but it was not found.

My first stop was the UK pavilion. It was the day off for the lady that was supposed to let me in but after some discussion about my firm's work on the structure, I was allowed in. It really is a cool pavilion, a non-building building. UK residents have commented that isn't anything there, which is true; the pavilion assumes you know who the UK is. To me it has the feeling of a shiny pearl in a sandy beach.

Next stop was the Korea Pavilion. The main feature is a movie which is entertaining, geared towards young people, and very energetic. It's a fable about the relationship between the two countries of South Korea and China, about how it is hurt and will spring back in anticipation of a bright future.

I tried going to the India pavilion while heading back to the metro to return home. But the lines at the adjacent Saudi Arabia pavilion made it difficult to get to it. It appeared that the India pavilion had longish lines of its own. So instead I headed to Masala Arts restaurant in town to eat a big Indian lunch of palak paneer, nan with potato, salad and cucumber raitta. Expo closes on Halloween.