Shanghai Expo 2010

A shout out to my friend Yolanda, who sent these incredible postcards from the Shanghai Expo 2010.  It appears the Shanghai Expo is kind of like a World's Fair, with pavilions and activities from countries all over the world.

These postcards are attempts at effecting public behavior, with the blue one above reading "Law & Order is the top priority.  It is the foundation of all wonderful things,"  and the green one saying "With passionate and orderly participation, let's support Shanghai Expo to make history".   One has to wonder, is it the translation that makes the phrase sound so stilted and formal or is it just a cultural thing?

Everybody Loves a Panda

As the Postcrosser who sent this from China said, "Everybody loves a panda".

From the Wiki, a couple things I didn't know about pandas:

1.  Their name is "Giant Panda", not "just plain panda".

2.  There is a "Red Panda", which looks more like a cat.

3.  The giant panda has the second longest tail in the bear family.

4.  Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. was the first Westerner to shoot a giant panda, on an expedition in the 1920s funded by the Field Museum of Natural History.

5.  The first giant panda in a US zoo was brought to the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago in 1936.

Now you know!

Great Squares of the World

I have visited some of the great squares of the world - Red Square in Moscow and Trafalgar Square in London - but I've never been to Tiananmen Square. It's definitely on my list of want-to-sees. The picture is my mind's eye is very specific, but neither Red Square (much bigger) and Trafalgar Square (smaller) didn't match what I expected. There must be other great squares of the world, but none comes to mind at the moment. If I can generate a list, I might make it a check list.

We tried this once with the great prisons of the world. It's not a long list, but start with Alcatraz, Tower of London, Lubyanka (I didn't really visit Lubyanka but I did drive by it), and the Bastille. Okay, the Bastille doesn't still exist but there is a sign on a street corner in Paris marking the spot.

Additions:

1. Adding squares without searching the Internet as they come to mind: Union Square (San Francisco), Pershing Square (Los Angeles).
2. Duh! How could I forget Times Square?

Terracotta Warriors, Xi'an, China

It's probable a picture of these terracotta warriors doesn't do justice at all to what they look like or the impact they have when you are looking at them in person. I'll have to ask my friend who sent the postcard.

A Happy Buddha in Hangzhou, China

Even when the sender writes a brief note, there's still a bit of their personality in every word. I can picture my friend, Paula, giggling as she wrote the note about the beer belly. While she's traveled to China on business a million times, this was the first time she was a tourist only. I can tell she had fun!