Expotia, the official hotel reservation site for 2010 Shanghai Expo, is now offering Shanghai Family readers a free night stay at Hangzhou’s Friendship Hotel!
To secure your chance to win, simply answer a few travel related questions here.
Click HERE to access the questionnaire.
The survey will take you less than a minute. Your input will help us design better service for travelers visiting China!
We will have the WINNER by October 31st!
Good luck!
We first saw this video in CNReviews when they narrated their reasons for wanting to get hold of the China Pavilion reservation.
Because we believe that the China Pavilion is one of the stars of the Shanghai World Expo, we asked the creator of the video Janek Żdżarski on his thoughts on the Expo and working on the video.
Janek Żdżarski
Janek: I am a China corespondent for the Polish news television station Network Polsat News and have been based in Beijing for 4 years now. Most of the time I am a one-band-man in my TV reports: I am a journalist, I shoot, and I edit. I mostly work using Canon 7d as my camera.
Expotia: What’s up with the video? It looks fantastic, by the way.
Janek: I did this video for SeeChina.org.cn and Danwei.tv. But I also used some excerpts from my TV report. I shot it on a Canon 7d. For time-lapses I’ve also used Hero GoPro camera. For filming inside the Pavilion my equipment was limited to only one lens (50mm), as my 16-35mm zoom fell out of my pocket and broke while entering the Pavilion…
Expotia: Yikes. Well, the video still looks great though. What do you think of the Expo then?
Janek: It is a huge event which shows how China is growing. And also, strangely enough, it resembles another event in history: when leaders of Western countries, centuries ago, were coming to China to kowtow and to bring gifts for the Emperor. Now, with the Shanghai Expo, it seems that history has repeated itself.
Expotia: Any tips for those going to the Expo?
Janek: For sure, wear good and comfortable shoes; because the distances are huge. Also, bring a camera and capture moments where Chinese crowds see the International Exhibitions.
That, Janek, we will definitely keep in mind. Sorry we cannot do anything about the lens though. All for the love of art.
Janek has shot another Expo short piece (also for SeeChina and Danwei). It is a review of 14 Pavilions.
Go see Janek Żdżarski’s photo/video blog. Follow him on Twitter @zdzarski.
We got the buzz on the new video made by Seppe Van Grieken on the German Pavilion.
Here is the lowdown on The Making of the German Pavilion Video as told by Seppe himself.
So tell us something about this video.
This is the third video in a row and the first one for which I contacted the pavilion up front. I did this piece with the consent of the pavilion–not on commission, but with a massive support and green light to all my plans and ideas. The Germans clearly take the Expo very seriously and everything is taken cared of in a very thorough and professional way.
It is by far the biggest pavilion I have done. Maybe even on the Expo in general? And the shooting took me a very intense week and a half. I tried to use some new technical options, like slow motion–60p on a Canon 7D–and less conventional presentation of the time lapses in the edit.
What do you like best among the videos you have made for the Expo?
The German Pavilion is in many ways very different from the previous two buildings. It is much more a pavilion that does its thing on the inside, rather then on the outside–which is absolutely so for the UK pavilion, and maybe as well for the Danish one.
Why choose the German Pavilion?
Inside they have done a very thorough design of what is to be said about Germany, and all the aspects they represent are presented, often in separate exhibition halls. One of the reasons I picked this pavilion to be the next, was the fact that it is full of moving elements–escalators, wheelchair escalators, conveyer rails, etc. Also, for my dolly time lapses, I need clean edges to position myself against, and if something, they have got some amazingly clean edges in the German pavilion.
What was the biggest challenge in shooting the video?
The main challenge was the Manufactory Room, where I mounted the camera onto the conveyer rails. I spent an entire day assembling the little contraption–attaching my camera onto the rail. Then I did a morning of tests, which was very time-, battery-, and memory- consuming, but finally I got all the parameters right and could start shooting in all the different angles.
The light source–the final room–is an amazing concept, that can be made very visual. I have to stress the amazing support I got from the people at the pavilion, who went as far as keeping a large part of the room empty for a number of shows, so I could do my thing.
I could have easily worked on it for a couple more weeks and made a 30-minute piece on it, but time was limited, unfortunately.
Oh, Seppe, that short video is good enough as it is. Nice touch on 00:43.
We found another video in Vimeo, and this time it is an interactive installation art designed by 2 French dudes that reacts to human behavior like glowing insects…umm…fireflies.
We tracked Vincent and Kkristen down, and this is what we got from them.
1. How did you become a part of the Shanghai World Expo?
Firefly has been commissioned by ERAI (Entreprise Rhône-Alpes International), Ingelux and Cobalt. Our customers were responsible for the global lighting of the Urban Best Practices Area (UBPA) and mandated Kkristen and me to design a part of this huge project.
2. Can you tell me more about this technology?
Firefly is an interactive lighting that reacts in response to the motion of visitors around.
The set is quite simple:
Our goal was to create a poetic space where people could have an instinctive interaction. Thus, when people move, the glowing insects wriggle, light up and scatter! It was meant to be a funny and magical experience in which technology is not visible.
3. What are your plans next?
Firefly is a concept that we developped before the Expo and for which we have a lot of ideas! Firefly is really evolutive, not only because the swarm can take any shape, but because it can be adapted to any context. Our plan is to develop the concept through many forms, kind of interactions and places! For instance a curator recently called us to exhibit Firefly, and we are adapting it to the new constraints to be relevant with another issue. We are actually searching any opportunity to make the project alive. We don’t want it to be frozen but continually in movement.
There is a Belgian Getty images photographer whose works have been making the rounds in the Internet (noticed by Shanghaiist here and here as well). Introducing Seppe Van Grieken, a Beijing-based photographer who is in Europe at the moment but will be back in China mid-July for more fabulous art (we hear it has something to do with a TV channel for an hour episode on the Expo–but it’s all hush-hush for now).
Seppe Van Grieken
Even if Seppe is in Europe, Expotia had the chance to get to know this talented artist and just snoop around on his goings ons and thoughts on the Expo.
Expotia: Who are you? And what do you do?
Seppe Van Grieken: I am a Belgian Photographer, based in Beijing, who works mainly for Getty images. I combine shooting news with video and timelapse.
Expotia: Why did you decide to make the videos?
Seppe: I’ve gone to the Expo initially for news, and then met two Peruvians who were making bubble photography to present to the pavilions after they were done. (It is a technique in which you make pictures with fisheye lens in all directions from one point and then stitch them up so they become a globe.) They gave me the idea to use what I have been doing elsewhere–timelapses–on the Expo.
Expotia: What is your impression of the Expo?
Seppe: The Expo is a great place to get to know how a people see themselves and like to present themselves. The typical national attitudes a people can have become so apparent in a mass event like this. Although very tiring and intense at tines, I really enjoy the way the world and China–quite often very rural or local China–meet in such a full way.
Expotia: What are your tips for those heading out to the Expo?
Seppe: As a tip, I would say go when the weather is bad, start after noon, and save some energy for the last couple of hours when there is fewer people.
Expotia: What are your plans in the future?
Seppe: The Expo is a very unique event in time, and as a sinologist, my larger plan is to document China’s developments in this era full of change and challenge.
Self-taught, Seppe Van Grieken is certainly going places. The Danish video was not commissioned, but they still bought it afterwards. We’re looking forward to the German and EU videos which are soon to come!
Picture take from DSLR News Shooter. Technical info on the videos can also be found in the same blog.
Here is a video blog by Malcolm Moore on the 10 pandas loaned to Shanghai for the whole duration of the World Expo. China is known to give panda gifts to signify warm relationships with other countries. These pandas on tour are extremely special and historical too.
And yes, the kids are just cute!
Malcolm Moore is the UK Telegraph’s Shanghai correspondent. Read more of his works at the Telegraph here. His other blog can be found here. He also writes at the China Economic Review. Follow him on Twitter @malcolmmoore.
We found this great blog called Scholars and Rogues on the internet. From their about page–
Scholars & Rogues is a diverse band of thinkers, social analysts, activists, grousers, jesters, and troublemakers. We’re different in many ways, but we share a general belief in progress, a conviction that smarter is better, and a passionate distaste for convention.
S&R isn’t a current news blog, exactly. There are some fantastic sites out there where you can get quick, first-on-the-scene takes, and if you explore the blogroll you’ll see what we mean. We’re more like the editorial desk. We see our mission as comment, analysis, informed opinion, deep insight. We try to figure out what things mean, and in passing that perspective on to our readers we hope to foster a greater tendency toward critical thinking in society.
But what really caught our eye is a series of blog posts by Chris Mackowski on China and Shanghai (and the World Expo ofcourse!) We love his descriptions from the Shanghai weather to how Facebook is blocked by the GFW.
Here are some excerpts from his blog–
The air is thick as soup, though. Shanghai’s climate is similar to Savannah, Georgia’s: hot and humid. Our luggage, tucked away in the plane’s sub-zero fuselage for so many hours, comes to us coated in a thin layer of condensation.
The closer we get to Shanghai proper, the taller the buildings grow. Companies advertise their names in Chinese and English. The neighborhoods look more crowded and labyrinthine. Suddenly a Ferris wheel appears in a clearing carved out of the towers, with smaller rides scattered around its base, a disparate site amidst the other urban clutter.
Steph, of course, wants to explore—but first things first. She plugs in the computer, jumps on the internet, and checks her e-mail. She tries to update her Facebook status, too, but the site is blocked. One of my students later tells me he’s able to access Facebook on his Blackberry, but he can only read and can’t post.
Outside, as we walk through the neighborhood, people stare at Steph unabashedly. She’s blonde and blue-eyed and beautiful—and at five-seven, she stands taller than most Chinese. They don’t consider it rude to stare, so it takes Steph a few blocks of walking before she stops feeling self-conscious. By the time we make our way back to the hotel, we’re having a good laugh about it.
“I don’t notice that much difference between communism and democracy so far,” Steph says.
On the World Expo–
“Welcome to Shanghai,” the banners along the highway say. “Better city, better life.”
At first I mistake it for propaganda promoting some kind of urban improvement program. After all, when I visited Shanghai last year, the city was one huge construction zone in preparation for this year’s World Expo. But the highways have been built, the downtown buildings have been facelifted, the greenspaces trimmed and tidied. Shanghai has its best face forward.
“Better City, Better Life,” it turns out, is the theme for the Expo.
On the China Pavilion–
Standing monolithic-like over the entire Expo, like a king surveying his Middle Kingdom, loomed the Chinese pavilion—a mammoth red structure as tall as a small skyscraper, as substantial as a small mountain, and as elegant as a water garden.
It would prove to be the most captivating pavilion of all.
We won’t spoil Chris’ blog here on Expotia. Check his blog out for yourself and all his really awesome posts on China.
Chris Mackowski is a college professor at St. Bonaventure University’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication.
If you have been living under the rock for the past year or so, here is a fact–that 140-character microblog called Twitter? It is actually banned in China. But with the real-time nature of Twitter, it is a handy tool for getting updates and fast information on the Shanghai World Expo 2010.
So if you are planning to go to the Expo soon or have just started tweeting or both, here are a few tips on how to follow Shanghai World Expo on Twitter.
That number or pound (#) sign you see is called the hashtag. It is Twitter’s tagging system and is helpful if you are looking for specific topics that people have been tweeting.
Currently, #expo tag is in the lead with #worldexpo not far behind. Though there are others who tag differently, so some tweets will be under #expo2010 or #shanghaiworldexpo or #exposhanghai.
Start searching with the hash tag at the search box in the right side found below your name.
However, if you are a bit lazy to search, some lists with World Expo resources can also be found on Twitter. Twitter users love organizing the people they follow through lists.
The following are notable lists on the Shanghai World Expo:
@technoChina/shanghai-world-expo-2010
@Viewsflow/shanghai-world-expo
Lastly, you have the option of making your own Shanghai World Expo list by just compiling all the Expo twitterers you know. You can get all the Expo feed from the following twitterers:
Actually, many of the pavilions have their own Twitter accounts. Take for example the USA Pavilion and the Israel Pavilion. And they also have their own lists. Look them up and start following!
Happy Tweeting!
At any given time, there are between 30,000 to 40,000 staff on-hand at the Shanghai World Expo, including the management, service staff and volunteers. Then there’s all the staff employed by the 242 participants including 192 countries and 50 international organizations.
Plus you have 10,000 registered members of the press and media, many of whom have been virtually living at the Expo since May 1, providing valuable tips and guiding us to the better pavilions and shows. So it’s really hard to shortlist people for the title of ‘Best Expo Job’ but we’re going to try and pick a few winners from each of these categories.
Steven Weathers
The first candidate in the media category is Steven Weathers (www.StevenWeathers.tv) - a regular host on ICS’s Expo 360 and Shanghai A-Z. Steven moved from the United States to China in 2005 and in the last five years has become a fixture of Shanghai’s media industry.
He has appeared in dozens of TV commercials, as an actor in TV serials and also directs and hosts a web video series called Foreigner Perspective.
Moving to the present, Steven’s Expo gig as host of Expo 360 began at the opening ceremonies where he appeared with stars including Jackie Chan. He can now be found at the Expo almost every day, showing us around one pavilion or the other.
If you’ve seen his Expo coverage, you’ll notice that Steven is not only doing a good job, but also enjoying being at the Expo.
Take for instance, this video of the theme pavilion, where Steven walks up the road of crisis, spotlighting the perils facing the planet and then leads viewers down the road of solutions.
Steven Weathers in Theme Pavilion at Expo
You have to visit the Expo in-person to feel the full impact, but if you see the video and listen to Steven’s commentary, you’ll at least realize that it’s well worth a visit and something you shouldn’t miss if you’re going to be at the Expo.
Steven Weathers has visited 30 countries. Within China, he has been to over 60 cities. Now he’s traveling the world inside the Expo and getting paid for it, not to mention all the attention and exposure he’s getting on ICS.
Does Steven Weathers deserve to be the winner of the ‘Best Expo Job’ title? Take a look at some of his Expo videos, and let us know what you feel in the comments.
Australia Pavilion: A Giant Sandstone Rock
http://www.icshanghai.com/html/2010/06/09/1449.html
Australia Pavilion: Scuba Diving in the Air
http://www.icshanghai.com/html/2010/06/09/1450.html
Philippines Pavilion: Performing Cities
http://www.icshanghai.com/html/2010/06/10/1484.html
Thailand Pavilion
http://www.icshanghai.com/html/2010/06/07/1383.html
Thailand Pavilion: A Gourmet’s Diary on Thai Food
http://www.icshanghai.com/html/2010/06/07/1384.html
Italy: A Journey through Fashion
http://www.icshanghai.com/html/2010/06/03/1284.html
Italy Pavilion: Craftsmanship at its Best
http://www.icshanghai.com/html/2010/06/03/1285.html
Portugal Pavilion: A Square for the World
http://www.icshanghai.com/html/2010/06/08/1422.html
Portugal Pavilion: Energy for the World
http://www.icshanghai.com/html/2010/06/08/1423.html
Vancouver Pavilion
http://www.icshanghai.com/html/2010/06/01/1204.html
Norway: A Pavilion of 15 Trees
http://www.icshanghai.com/html/2010/05/31/1156.html
Brazil Pavilion: Pulsing Cities
http://www.icshanghai.com/html/2010/06/04/1327.html
Germany Pavilion: Created in Germany
http://www.icshanghai.com/html/2010/05/21/894.html
Germany Pavilion: Exploring Green Spaces
http://www.icshanghai.com/html/2010/05/20/857.html
Germany Pavilion: Discover German Culture
http://www.icshanghai.com/html/2010/05/21/895.html
Netherlands Pavilion: A Happy Street at Both Ends
http://www.icshanghai.com/html/2010/05/19/830.html
Poland Pavilion: Paper-Cutting Across Cultures
http://www.icshanghai.com/html/2010/05/25/989.html
Sichuan Pavilion: Heritage & Technology
http://www.icshanghai.com/html/2010/05/13/663.html
Switzerland Pavilion
http://www.icshanghai.com/html/2010/05/17/721.html
Shipbuilding Pavilion
http://www.icshanghai.com/html/2010/05/12/631.html
Chinese Hand-pulled Noodles: A Juggler’s Show
http://www.icshanghai.com/html/2010/06/03/1283.html
A Tasty Treat in the Sweden Pavilion
http://www.icshanghai.com/html/2010/05/26/1016.html
South Korea Pavilion: Technology Improves Lives
http://www.icshanghai.com/html/2010/05/27/1058.html
South Korea Pavilion: China Cultural Exchange
http://www.icshanghai.com/html/2010/05/27/1059.html
Israel Pavilion: Blend of Tradition and Modernity
http://www.icshanghai.com/html/2010/05/07/510.html
MeteoWorld Pavilion
http://www.icshanghai.com/html/2010/05/14/695.html
MeteoWorld Pavilion: Forecasters from Different Country Present the Weather
http://www.icshanghai.com/html/2010/05/14/694.html
Future Pavilion
http://www.icshanghai.com/html/2010/05/06/485.html
Theme Pavilion: Urbania
http://www.icshanghai.com/html/2010/05/06/476.html
Theme Pavilion: Urban Planet
http://www.icshanghai.com/html/2010/05/06/475.html
China Green Hotel
One year ago, China announced a big push to reach a goal of 10,000 hotels green by 2012, leading to a reduction in water consumption by 20%, electricity consumption by 20% and CO2 emissions by 45,000 tons over four years.
The World Expo has speeded up things even more in Shanghai, given the sustainable ‘Better City, Better Life’ theme of the Expo, which hotels are trying to match by adopting green practices. Listed below are some of these green hotels in Shanghai.
1. Grand Mercure Hongqiao Shanghai - Recently voted as a “China Green Hotel” for green design and energy conservation, the Grand Mercure Hongqiao Shanghai has a unique way of encouraging conservation – they pledge to plant one tree for every five towels that are reused by guests.
2. URBN Shanghai - Touted as China’s first carbon-neutral hotel, this 26-room boutique hotel was retro-fitted from an old post office using 100% local materials and recycled wood.
They’re not averse to reminding guests about how green they are, as the liberal use of wood and bamboo and the wall of old suitcases behind the reception proves.
But being green isn’t everything. Guests need a certain degree of comfort and luxury, which URBN offers in the classy themed studios with elevated beds, walk-in rain showers and stone bathtubs. You also get complimentary broadband wireless. The location two blocks from Nanjing Road is another plus.
3. Jin Jiang Inns - The Jin Jiang Inn chain has 480 economy-scale hotels in 126 cities, and they’re going green in a novel way. In addition to the usual cutbacks in electricity and water usage reductions, Jinjiang Inn is also offering a RMB10 bonus to guests who do not use disposable items.
Tracy Guo, market manager at Jinjiang Inn, explains that “Many of the larger hotels seem to focus on the large infrastructure projects when trying to go green. We have thought a bit more laterally, and discovered many ways that we can be ecologically responsible while maintaining great value for money.”
Whatever Jinjiang Inn is doing seems to be working, because their hotels in Shanghai have scored high on the official green-o-meter, with 4-leaf green ratings for the Hongqiao, Pudong Airport and Zhangjiang hotels, while Lujiazui, Huamu and their Expo hotel have 3-leaf ratings.
4. L’otel Shanghai - Also earned “China Green Hotel” from the China Tourist Hotel Star-rating Committee in Nov 2009. Like URBN, L’otel is also a revitalized property which was formerly an industrial complex from the 1950’s, now turned into a boutique hotel with a 4000 sq metre garden.
L'otel Shanghai
5. Radisson Hotel Pudong Century Park - Great location near the Int’l Expo Centre, with 362 brightly lit rooms with floor-to-ceiling windows and large plasma televisions. Offers four restaurants, a pool, tennis court, fitness centre, car park, 24-hour room service and complimentary broadband and wireless Internet.
But also important to note that this Radisson has a ‘Benchmarked Bronze Status’ achievement from Green Globe.