The day after visiting Want Want Group, we went to the Shanghai Futures Exchange and Amway. The SHFE was probably my least favorite of the three just because I had no idea how trading of futures was carried out. We got to see their trading room, but because it is all electronic, it wasn't too interesting to watch. At Amway, we learned all about how their company worked and why they had become successful in China. Since its a direct selling company, its a little pyramid schemey but still interesting.
The following day was our first day at the World Expo. Because it happened to be the first day of school for kids in China, the lines were relatively short. The first pavilion we went to was Australia. They had a really cool movie/presentation at the end which was a good way to start the day. We went to some other interesting countries like Singapore, North Korea, and Iran. There was a section where we pretty much hit up all the countries that hate the U.S. My friend and I had heard the Japan pavilion was really cool, so we decided to wait 3 hours to see it. It was well worth the wait. I wasn't allowed to take any pictures, but they have some really cool technology they are developing like an amazing camera by Canon, a touch screen you can put on your wall, and smaller personalized "cars". Overall that day we visited about 16 countries getting stamps in our fake passports for most of them.
The following day the lines were a bit longer. Thankfully, Amway was one of the sponsors of the USA pavilion, so we were able to skip the line completely. It was nice to get a little taste of America after being gone for so long. We had a couple hours to ourselves then had to meet at the China pavilion. We got incredibly lucky by getting reservations to go inside. It is easily the hardest pavilion to get into having to wait multiple hours to get a ticket to then wait in the actual line. The pavilion itself was pretty good. They had a short ride inside which was one of the coolest things.
Our last day in Shanghai was a free day. We ended up going with a couple of the CUHK kids to a kinda touristy place a bit outside of town. We went on a gondola type boat ride through the canal that last about 15 minutes. We then walked around and looked at shops. At one cart, they were selling pets, and you could get a rabbit for less than $6. They also had a chipmunk which I'm fairly certain they captured off the side of the road and put in a cage to sell. Saturday, we headed back to Hong Kong and our trip was over. Coming soon, I'll be talking about my life at CUHK now that real classes have started up.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
Clarke,
ReplyDeleteI continue to enjoy your posts. Commodity exchanges are not nearly as much fun to watch as earlier ones without the electronics. The jumping, yelling, and throwing papers always seemed chaotic.
Clarke,
ReplyDeleteDid you go back to Hong Kong with a monkey for you-know-who?
The trading floor was much different than that. They had people with their heads on desks almost asleep.
ReplyDeleteI don't think the monkey is going to be much of an issue. Some of my friends have seen monkeys on campus. Another friend went to Kowloon Reservoir and was overwhelmed by the amount of monkeys there.