THE MOON BOAT RIDE, THE EXPO SITE, AND PUDONG AND THE RAINY SEASON

June 22.   I'm back at the Expo grounds, where I visited the China Art Expo last month.   When Expo opened, apparently one of the big hits was the Saudi Pavilion's Moon Boat.  People stood in line for hours.  Ding Yaping tells me her sister stood the whole day to spend 10 minutes in the Pavilion. Ding Yaping has never seen the pavilion, so she has volunteered to guide me through the metro maze.  We arrive with no expectations but what we get is something like Koyaanisquatsi, in full color to music richer than that of Philip Glass. If  you haven't seen this film, you may have seen Samsara, a more recent film clearly influenced by Koyaanisquatsi.   The show here is related to the films but is a full body experience, with a screen that wants to be 360 degrees, but makes almost 180 degrees. both horizontally and vertically so at all times you feel surrounded by sound and visual images or darkness.

After entering the Pavilion we walk around the outer wall of the pavilion in a slow ascent to the performance floor at the top level.  Here, in the dark we move forward.  There is a moving walkway that takes one through at a measured pace.  We step off and stand through the performance maybe four times.  I take some video, but the sections I take are too dark, and the images move too fast, ranging from midnight darkness to under the seas to the deserts and oil rigs of the desert nations and up into the stars.  It's a rich collage.  Moving on the walkway feels like being on the bridge of a moon ship (not a star ship). It's dark, the only light comes from the film itself, and sometimes it feels as if the ship is bobbing on a wave.

Trying to upload a second video, but it seems as if blogger does not want any more videos. Click the READ MORE button if it is showing.

Exiting the show/boat, we walk up to the roof, where all of Pudong seems to lie before us.   Beyond lies the rest of Shanghai.   It's best to see this view like this:

When we leave the former Saudi Pavilion,  we wander over to these interesting buildings. with the cones lifting up to the sky.  When we get inside, it looks as if the cones are built to funnel water down to the ground in an area where plants are growing.

 Inside, we find these cones, I want to call them waffle cones, too large to photograph, but one of them is undergoing window cleaning. This does not look like an entertaining task to be doing from morning until night.   There are four or five window cleaners working hard on the inside of the glass. \

 

Except for the waffle cones, the buildings are one long extended mall with high-end clothing and accessory stores and little food shops like the bread shop and the toast shop.  Toast?  Someone's selling toast?  Yes, I could smell the toast as I walk by.

  

  Back outside, we are faced by the huge back side of the China Pavilion,

but we turn left and head for the metro station, our journey for the day complete.

Two days before we were in Pudong but it was raining. Originally farmland, Pudong (East Bank) was designated to be the Financial Center of Shanghai in 1993, so I would assume these magnificent buildings, the tallest of which will rise above 565 meters by next year, are all less than 21 years old.   Standing on the street can be breathtaking even when the clouds are low and the rain swirls.  Luckily this day it was most just damp.

We'll close here. Guess what store this is.   Of course.