February 2022
After a three-month trip in Mexico, I visited the World Expo 2020 in Dubai. Here are the pictures.
Various artistic performances took place in the evening.
One of my favorite beers, an Australian Pale Ale from the brand ‘Little Creatures’, was available at the Australia Pavilion. However, it was very expensive because of the United Arab Emirates ‘sin’ tax.
A heart from Syria. Each country presented itself friendly and open to the world.
The Russian Pavilion
The theme of the Russian Pavilion was science (in the picture a giant brain). However, all the scientists presented were from the previous centuries. Lately, it seems that the country has not produced any top scientists.
Thailand Pavilion
The Thais showed their traditional dances every evening.
Hotel of the future in space
The Expo site with the huge dome over Al Wasl Plaza, the center of the exhibition
on which fantastic patterns were projected
The Swiss Pavilion was disappointing for me as a Swiss.
The Chinese Pavilion with hundreds of lanterns
The Pavilion of Luxembourg, my favorite!
The long slide in the Luxembourg Pavilion was very popular. Childhood memories come to mind.
The Schengen Lounge in the Luxembourg Pavilion was clearly the best restaurant on the Expo site thanks to Luxembourg chef Kevin de Dood, who gained experience at various Michelin-starred restaurants. I was a regular guest at the Schengen Lounge.
But I also visited restaurants in other country pavilions, such as the Afghan restaurant, where I enjoyed a saffron chicken.
In the Czech Pavilion, hearty food was served, of course with Pilsen beer, which was invented in the Czech city of Pilsen.
The Pakistan Pavilion was an eye-catcher with its colorful and shiny facade.
The pavilion of the host country United Arab Emirates
These Chinese surveillance robots look cute.
One day I took a break from Expo and visited the Dubai Marina area.
Of course, Dubai is also home to the world’s largest Ferris wheel, at 250 meters. The London Eye reaches a mere 154 meters.
And we are already ascending.
View of the artificial islands of ‘The Palm Jumeirah’
A mosque at Dubai Marina surrounded by skyscrapers.
Another good restaurant at the Expo was Mudrá.
The US Pavilion was disappointing.
A reusable rocket from Elon Musk’s space company SpaceX.
The Kazakhstan Pavilion had a great show with a human interacting with a giant robotic hand. I liked the performance so much that I returned another day.
The best pavilion was definitely that of Germany. The country presented itself with great effort as a place of innovation, culture and as a tourist destination. It was therefore also the pavilion with the longest queue at any time of day. I waited 1.5 hours.
Expo 2020 was supposed to take place in 2020/21, but because of the Covid 19 pandemic, it was postponed for a year. 192 countries presented themselves with a pavilion. In addition, there were theme pavilions. The motto of the Expo was ‘Opportunity, Mobility and Sustainability’ and of course every country showed its sustainable side! Autocratic countries, whose borders are closed to tourists, presented themselves as open to the world and invited visitors to travel to their country.
I was at the Expo for seven days and walked many kilometers every day to visit all the pavilions. It was an experience to meet people from all over the world and watch the way each country presented itself.
You can find the link to the travel reports of my previous three trips to Dubai here.
Afterwards, I traveled to the Maldives.
This text is an automatic English translation from the German original by deepl.com