Yesou World Expo 2012

     Hello again and welcome to another much belated blogpost. More so belated than the last. So one of the major events happening in South Korea during our time was the World Expo. This is an evolution of the worlds fair that is held every 4-5 years or so (I think). South Korea was very excited to host this event and went all out. It was held in the city of Yesou on the south central cost and only a few hours from Mokpo. They essentially built a little city for this event. What they will do with it afterwards, I have no idea. We headed down to Yesou World Expo 2012 to see what all the commotion was about!

We arrived in Yesou and hoped a ride on one of the several free shuttles buses the city has running and got to the expo right away. It is right on the water and looks like it was built in the year 3030. All the buildings are enormous and silver. Not really having much of an idea what to see in the expo we headed for the this giant building in front of us as we walked in. 

This is the International Pavilion (where we end up spending most of our time). The theme of this years expo is the ocean. Particularly, how countries are working to save the ocean and preserve it. The international pavilion had, well, smaller pavilions, from loads of different countries showcasing their relationship with the ocean as well as their culture. Some were really fun, informational, or interesting while others (I'm looking at you Brunei) where incredible boring. Some pavilions even had restaurants which was awesome. 

We spent the majority of the day just cruising along to different pavilions. It was fun to see different countries and talk to the people working there. Every country had people sent out to represent them here so it wasn't all Koreans manning the ship.

Pakistan's pavilion really focused on how they are not all the evil fundamentalists the western media portrays them as.  I actually really want to go to Pakistan. 

Lindsey posing with the cast of the Bollywood version of Finding Nemo

This was a Buddhist shine built in the Sri Lankian Pavilion 

Our very delicious and expensive Belgium waffle. Thanks Belgium. 

The Expo looking like the set of The Jetsons

Man using his smartphone as a sign, they can do everything.

Within an hour of so we had been to India, Egypt, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and more. We were traveling at a record setting pace. None of those countries were sporting lines to enter though. So when we saw that Kazakstan had a good sized one, we asked why. It was because they had a performance with dancers and music. Given most of the line went in for the next show we hoped in the que. As we walked in we were greeted with this hallway.

Yeah. Awesome.

Dance part in Kazakstan!

Kazak dancers

The Kazakstan performance was really nice and we enjoyed it a lot. It was one of the most unique pavilions. This may or may not be due to the fact that they are hosting the next Expo in Asanta, Kazakstan in 2015 or so. So if you find yourself in Kazakstan around that time, go check out the Expo. It will hopefully have lots of dance party hallways. 

We then headed to Denmark. Although we have no pictures Denmark was one of our favorites. They had a circular room explaining, in detail, what programs they had in place to protect the ocean and their environment. They plan to be fossil fuel free in 20 years. The pavilion was more informational than most. Most talked about their love for the ocean and protecting it while never really mentioning what they were actually doing. Denmark, on the other hand, provided programs and goals that they are following through with. It was nice to see. Argentina also had a great pavilion but aside from the wave-like shape of the room they pretty much decided to ignore the ocean theme in lue of what they really care about: dancing and wine. They had a big stage with a live band and dancers putting on a great show with a bar selling Argentinian wines. Considering the monotony that set in after a while this was a welcome change.  France we didn't quite understand but it looked awesome!

Not sure what the point of this room was aside from looking really cool. 

We were getting hungry so we headed to Germany because we knew they had a restaurant. We order a sampler of different sausages with mashed potatoes and sauerkraut. Oh, and beer. Because when a German asks if you want a beer it is really hard to say no. We meant to take a picture before we ate but we were pretty hungry and didn't even think about pictures until we had destroyed half of this. The restaurant was pumping out these meals because everyone was ordering the same thing and we finished ours so fast that a waiter brought us over a second plate. We could have eaten it for free no problem but we try to keep good karma so we told the truth. 

This is what half-eaten German food looks like.

Cambodian band covering 'Mary had a Little Lamb' - literally

I actually could have listened to these guys play for at least an hour. 

Wall in the Philippines

The Philippines pavilion 

Creepy manikin in Australia 

Just whitewater rafting with some kangaroos in Australia

We eventually got really tired of the International Pavilion and headed outside again facing the problem of what to do at World Expo 2012. We knew of 2 main attractions: the aquarium and the Big O Show (which we will get to momentarily). We headed over toward the aquarium but there was a line as long as the US-Canada boarder and we were unwilling to participate in that so we just wondered. This being our plan until The Big O Show started that night (I can't even begin to count the euphemisms in that sentence). Anyway, we saw these little Koreans playing in a fountain. 

The Big O didn't start for several hours but thousands of people had already begun to gather and get seats for the show. We just figured we would push our way to a good spot when the time came.

The side of a building

What Lindsey would look like as a turtle

Kids in da club fountain

And here we go to The Big O Show!

The Big O Show is the nightly highlight of the Yesou Expo just as a big O is a nightly highlight for most. The difference being this is a large scale public performance. Our plan to just push our way to a good view worked, although we got yelled at a bit, but we also stumbled into some dumb luck, literally. The shows amphitheater had 2 decks and we made our way round to the top deck about 45 minutes before the show began. Since bumping into people or pushing your way through crowds is much more common here in Korea just started to make our way. Fortunately, there were 2 older men who had the same idea and we just drafted behind them as they trailblazed through the crowd. We eventually got to a decent spot. Half of the deck was sitting while the other half was standing and we reckoned sitting would be more enjoyable than standing in the crowd.

We got to the front of the standing crowd and took a minute to evaluate the best place to sit and almost immediately some guy started hitting Lindsey's bag (it probably would have been her if he could have reached her) while yelling, "NO!" I yelled back and told him not to do that in Korean (hajuma! = don't do that) and just looked at me seemingly appalled that I dare use Korean. Once we got a seat (and yelled at a second time, this time because I am tall) it began to drizzle but no one seemed to care because they were testing the Big O prior to the show and everyone was snapping pictures non-stop. I thought it was funny because the show hadn't started but no one else seemed to care. So much so that when they stop testing it about 15 minutes before the show started everyone just got up and started leaving! I couldn't believe it! We immediately took advantage of this and made our way to the very front of the center of the top deck. We officially had the best stop in the house.

As the show started people still yelled at me to sit but we just had to ignore them. Some woman stood directly behind me, about 2 feet away, while there was plenty of space elsewhere and just started poking me in the back and commanding me to sit. The show was really fun though. It was certainly a highlight. There was a smaller intro set to some U2 and Band of Horses but then the real show began. There was lights and water and fire, all big and impressive. There was some story to the show but since it was in Korean it was hard to follow. There was a little girl and some sea people of sorts. There was a bad guy made out of oil I think, but we just enjoyed the show. Here some pictures. I have some videos that I will try to post. Our blog doesn't seem to like videos.

This is after half of the people left

After the show finished thousands of people headed outside to try and get on the free shuttle buses back to their accommodations. The woman at information told us this would be very easy and she would have been right had there not been a line stretching for several city blocks of thousands of people. After a little while of trying to figure out how to avoid this line we just decided to walk to our destination. We were told it would take a little over a half hour so this was the clear choice. After a little bit stopped to ask a police officer if we were still on the right track and he informed us it would take at least an hour from where we were and he then made it his mission to get us a taxi. It took a little bit of time but pretty much ran into traffic and forced this taxi to take us so that was pretty awesome. 

Our destination was Manseong Beach. We had heard that we could just set up camp here for the night and it worked out great. We certainly weren't the only ones there though. The beach was a big local party beach and about as classy as Hampton Beach. So not that classy. It was rather ironic that not to far down the coast was a large international expo about protecting and valuing the ocean yet here we were at a dirty beach with trash lining the street. We made camp and took a walk along the road. We found a stop with picnic tables and chairs and had a couple beers before heading off to sleep. It was very satisfying and relaxing to sit by the ocean, drinking a beer, listening to the waves with the salt in the air.

After a couple Hite we headed to bed because it was late and we had had a long day but we were the only ones in town to be in bed so "early" it seemed. Until at least 4 in the morning there were people yelling and lighting off fireworks on the beach. Not the best night of camping but it was free and it worked so that is pretty good in our book.

Our spot on the beach

A relaxing night at the beach in Yeosu



Guys shooting things to win bottles of booze

The next morning we woke up early to get back to the Expo and get in line for the aquarium. They built a giant aquarium for this expo. It has a tank with 2 baluga whales! I repeat, 2 baluga whales. 1 tank. 2 whales. This thing is huge. Unfortunately, we were not the only ones with this plan. There were already hundreds of people in line when we arrived. You could enter the expo at 8 and the buildings opened at 9. When we got to the aquarium at 8:20 there was already a 5 hour line!!! In 20 minutes there was a 5 hour line! This was the major problem most had with the expo and we must agree. Aside from the International Pavilion every building had at least a 2 hour line so you would spend most of your day just standing around. Also, the information on the different pavilions was non-existant in English so we had no reason to wait 2 hours to go to the Samsung, SK, or Hyundai pavilions if we didnt know what we were waiting for.

In the end, we just said screw it and headed home. It was rainy and waiting in line for hours on end was not a welcoming thought. With a little help from a British fellow we got back to the bus terminal and ran into our friend Miranda. We chatted the whole way back on the bus and the bus driver yelled at us a lot because Korean buses should be quite (despite there being 5 people on the bus and we were 3 of them). 

Prohibited Items include Hot Air Balloons

Samsung and Hyundai Pavilions - what is inside, no one knows

In the end, the expo was fun but I wouldn't urge anyone to go if they weren't already going. It was fun and I got to eat some kebabs but we didn't need a weekend for it. The international pavilion was fun because we got to visit one country after another and it got us excited for our year of travel next year. I will talk about that in the next post though. As always, thanks for reading!