The World Expo, which is held every 5 years, was this year in Aichi, Japan, which is near Nagoya. It opened on March 25, and will be closing on September 25. They are expecting 15 million people to visit the expo during the 180 days that it is open, and so far (as of September 19), they have had 20.7 million visitors. On the day that I visited, September 17, there were 224,538 people there.

Knowing that there was going to be many lines to wait in, a group of 5 of us (Cassidy, Lulu, Clare, Khalifah, and me) set out from JCMU at 6:40am. We rode our bikes to Hikone train station, paid 170yen to park our bikes, and bought a 180yen ticket to Maibara (thinking that we’d then be buying another ticket for a limited-express train to Nagoya). Being Nikki “the Navigator” and all, I pretty much led everyone around the train stations, and we didn’t have too much trouble finding our way, though we didn’t get on the train at Maibara that I thought we would be on. Instead of the limited-express, we got on some other type of train, which dead-ended at one point and we had to follow the crowds to figure out the correct way to go. Still, we made it to Nagoya around 9am, the time that I had estimated that we would arrive. At Nagoya, we were able to follow the signs to the express shuttle train to the expo site. Arriving around 9:45am, we got off the train and walked through the expo venue station and got onto a shuttle bus that would take us to the north gate of the expo site. We quickly bought our 4600yen tickets and got into the looooong line to get into the expo. After standing under the very hot sun for at least 45 minutes, we finally made it into the expo around 11am.

The first thing we did after grabbing an English language map was to head to the US pavilion. This was situated at the end of Global Commons 2, which was for North and South America. The US pavilion was located at the very end of Global Commons 2, and once we got there we had to search for the end of the line of people waiting to go inside. By the time we found the end, it was a 40 minute wait. We were determined to go in no matter what, and at the end of the line was an American guide. Remembering that all the US guides were trained at JCMU, we remembered that we had a card from one of the guides to use as a ‘pass’. We told the guide that we were from JCMU, and he talked to someone over his headset and then directed us to the handicapped entrance for the pavilion. Once there, we talked to another guide and he let us cut in front of about 1000 people!! Yes, it was a good day to be a gaijin. Once inside, we watched a short film about Ben Franklin, and then went into the larger theater room and watched a longer, slightly interactive, film about Benjamin Franklin, the things that he invented, and the important inventions and achievements made by the US since his death. At one point it rained in the show and it also ‘rained’ inside the theater, and the hydrogen fuel cell powering the pavilion was ‘plugged into’ our seats, which caused them to vibrate. It was all a little bit cheesy (especially seeing Benjamin Franklin speaking Japanese (we did have English-language headsets, though)), but altogether quite fun. When the show was over, we went out into the exhibit space and wandered around a bit. I ended up talking to more of the guides, asking them what other pavilions were fun to go into, etc. One of them told us that if we stuck around until the crowds left, we could ride on their Segway!! So, we did. Only rode on it for about a minute, it was fairly difficult, but fun.

After leaving the US pavilion, we went to ‘Route 66′ a less-than-averagely Japanified American food stand. For 1000yen (~$10) I had a 18″ or so hotdog, and a small drink. After eating, we wandered around some more, and passed by the Canadian pavilion, and found this guy dressed full out as a Mounty. Bear in mind, it was probably 85 degrees in the sun, and this poor guy is standing there directing the line. Cassidy and Lulu both took pictures with him, and we started to chat with him a bit (us being the only 5 white people in the sea of Japanese). Eventually he asked us if we were going into the Canada pavilion, and eying the long long line, we told him we were only going to be there for the day, and so we didn’t have enough time to go in. He then told us to “hang on one second”, and then led us through the back gate, allowing us to, for the second time in the day, cut in front of the masses and get into a country pavilion! Unfortunately, the Canada pavilion sucked…a lot. We walked in, watched a show on a bunch of screens (all music, no talking), and then walked into the main theater area where they showed the exact same program…..again. Luckily, we didn’t stand in line for 2 hours to find out that it sucked.

Thinking that we might be able to get the same treatment at the China pavilion since one member of our company was an international student, we headed over to Global Commons 1, which is where all the Asian country pavilions were. At this point, there was just four of us together, and Clair and Lulu decided to head to the restrooms. Cassidy and I headed into the China pavilion, since it (curiously) didn’t seem to have a line. Once we got in, we found that it was just an open room without any kind of set programs, which allowed people to come and go as they wanted, making the line much shorter. We waited around for Lulu and Clare to catch up, but weren’t able to find them again. Since we had set up a time to meet at the end of the expo incase anyone got lost/wanted to wander on their own, we set off to look at some of the other pavilions.

Over the course of the next 5 hours or so, we made it to every major area of the expo, including Global Commons 3-5 (Europe, Africa, Oceania), the Interactive Fun Zone, and the Forest Zone. We didn’t really have much time to go into any of the other pavilions because of the lines, but we had a lot of fun walking around and seeing everything. I’m not sure how many miles I walked on Saturday, but near the end of the day my legs were killing me. After we had made a visit to the Forest Zone (with its Japanese garden, and house from My Neighbor Totoro), we had about 45 minutes left before having to meet up with the rest of our group. There was a gondola that went from the southern part of the expo up to the north gate, so we decided that we would like to go on it instead of having to walk back. According to the guide it was a free ride, but when we got there it turned out to be 600yen. We went anyway, and luckily the line (which was said to be 30 minutes long) was only 15. We got a great aerial view of the park, which by that time had quite a few people in it, especially in the amphitheater area.

When we got back to the north gate, we met up with everyone a little bit early, and decided that we should head into the gift shop. This was the MOST INSANE part of the entire expo. First, there was a line to get into the gift shop. Then, once we were inside, it was WALL TO WALL people. Words cannot express how many people were shoved into such a tiny store. It was like a feeding frenzy, with everyone shoving their way past and trying to grab as much merchandise as possible. It had been a really hot day so of course everyone was also quite smelly….ew. I grabbed a few t-shirts, pins, and some other assorted memorabilia, and attempted to make my way out of the store. Once we left the store, there was a 40 minute line to get to the cashier. This was the longest line we had to stand in all day! Unfortunately, after getting all my stuff home, I found that 2 of the t-shirts I got were not the sizes that I wanted. Ah well…

Around 5:45pm Cassidy and I met up with the rest of our group and we left the expo. We were taking a different way back to JCMU than that which we came, since I wanted to go to the Hard Rock Cafe in Nagoya. Luckily, the HRC was one stop on the line bound for Nagoya station, the station we had to get to to go back to JCMU anyway. Getting off at Fushimi station, we had to walk 2 blocks to find the HRC, and by that time we were all starving. A hamburger for 1400yen (~$14) is pretty damn steep, but it sure tasted good. (I would have gotten the spring rolls, which are killer (and which I get every time I go to a HRC), but 1500yen for 4 spring rolls is a little too outrageous for my wallet). Bought a few things from the gift shop (their selection was slightly pathetic), and just enjoyed the American music for a while, and then left around 8pm. Got back on the subway at Fushimi station and rode to Nagoya, where we got out and where Lulu tried to find a shop she had been advertised in a magazine, but unfortunately it had already closed for the night.

Nagoya station is the largest subway station in Japan, so navigating it was slightly more complex than other stations, but we only had to follow the signs (that were in English) to find the ticket counters for the JR Lines and the Shinkansen. Being about 8:30pm, we decided to ask how much Shinkansen tickets would be, just to see if we could afford it. Unfortunately they turned out to be about 3000yen, with the regular JR Line tickets being about 1300…..so the decision was obvious. In Japan, there are a lot of different train lines, with the Shinkansen being the fastest train around, and JR Lines (privately owned) making up a majority of the semi-long distance express and limited trains, and then the regular subways and elevated trains. The more you pay, the faster you get there, is pretty much the rule of thumb. Every train is always on time, without fail, and from what I’ve read if a train does for some reason become late, the train company will give you a note if you are late for work (since otherwise, no one would ever believe you).

So after about a 1.5hr journey on the trains back to Hikone, we had to then ride our bikes back (which was oh so fun). We arrived back at JCMU around 10:15pm, at which time I promptly took a shower, then spent the rest of the night looking at my expo loot as well as exchanging pictures with Cassidy. All in all, I thought it was a really really awesome day. I wish that I had more money and time to have spent more than one day at the expo, since there was just so much to see in such little time. I can understand why local people probably bought year long memberships. My only regret about the whole experience is that I didn’t know months in advance that I would have been going on that day, since I could have then entered into the lottery to try and get a ticket to the house from My Neighbor Totoro, probably the most famous attraction at the expo (for the Japanese, anyway). It was also too bad that we couldn’t get over to the other expo site (Seto area, we were at the Nagakute area) where the Japanese pavilion, along with the Aichi pavilion was housed. Its also too bad that the HRC limited edition expo pins had sold out in one day, but that would have just been one more expense if they were still up for sale. It was an experience almost like going to the Olympics, with all the different country pavilions being represented. While the diversity of the actual crowd present wasn’t very wide (according to the site, only about 5% of daily visitors are foreigners), we did see people from lots of different countries (especially from African and from some northern European countries). If you ever have the opportunity to go to a World’s Expo, do it!