The glitzy, glamorous city of Shanghai is currently hosting its biggest party in the form of the Shanghai World Expo which was inaugurated on April 30, 2010 at a glittering opening ceremony, attended by several world leaders. This opening ceremony also featured lasers, fireworks and performances by world famous artists like noted Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli and Hong Kong cine superstar Jackie Chan amongst others. The Shanghai expo is a six month extravaganza which is due to terminate on 31st of October 2010 and during its six month existence it hopes to attract nearly 70 million visitors.
The Shanghai expo whose central theme is "Better City – Better Life" aims to showcase Shanghai as a leading world city and to achieve this aim, the city fathers have spent nearly US $ 48 billion to stage this extravaganza which extends over 5.28 sq kilometers on both banks of the Huangpu River. As far as the sizes of World fairs go, this massive Shanghai expo, which features 240 pavilions set up by 190 countries and 50 organizations is one of the largest and the most expensive ever.
Shanghai won the bid to host the Expo in 2002 and almost immediately began the task to transform the Nanpu Bridge-Lupu Bridge area in the center of the city as it was chosen to be site of Expo. The cleaning-up operations involved the relocation of both residents and businesses from the area as the city was determined that nobody would stand in its way of putting up a spectacular show.
Aside from the various country specific pavilions, the Expo also has five central themed pavilions which explore the different aspects of urban development in the form of Urban Footprints, Urban Planet, Urban Dwellers, Urban Beings, and Urban Dreams in addition to pavilions set up by companies and organizations like China Railway, the China State Shipbuilding Corporation, Coca-Cola and Cisco. In addition to these pavilions the expo site also features fantastic sculpture gardens, shops, a sports and performance arena.
Ever since the Shanghai-Expo opened it has been attracting huge crowds of almost 200,000 people a day though on certain days the number has exceeded 500,000 people most of whom are willing to queue up for hours to witness this grand Shangainese spectacle which aims to wow the world.
If you have always dreamed of visiting China then the Shanghai World Expo presents an ideal opportunity to visit this fascinating, rapidly developing country and if you are traveling to Shanghai from anywhere in the US you can expect your journey to be long schlep which extends over 14 to 16 hours if you don’t stop en route to Shanghai.
An ideal way to undertake such a long journey and conserve your strength for sight-seeing in Shanghai and elsewhere is to find Cheap business class airfares for your trip. Discount Business Class flights are not a myth and if you are clever with your planning you can snag Cheap Business class seats by purchasing your tickets in advance from an airfares consolidator so that you can enjoy luxurious lounge access, unimaginable hospitality and superior in-flight amenities like wireless internet, fully flat beds, onboard massages and spa services which are routine privileges normally associated with most Business flights.
