Another site not to be missed is the Expo Museum Pavilion where The Opening of the Great Exhibition created by British painter Henry Courtney Selous is on display. Visitors can take in scenes from the 1851 London Great Exhibition, the progenitor of all expos.

Dates with Famous Sculptures

The Luxemburg Pavilion has erected on its approach a statue of a young lady on the top of a three-meter-tall pedestal, dressed in a golden robe, leaning forward and holding an olive garland in her hands. This is Luxemburg’s most precious Golden Lady, produced by Claus Cito in memory of the thousands of Luxembourgers who volunteered to serve in armies during World War I. Before making its overseas debut, the statue was placed on a 12-meter-tall pedestal at Constitution Square, a height at which it couldn’t fully be appreciated. Visitors to the Luxemburg Pavilion will be fortunate enough to see it up close.

Not far from The Golden Lady is Denmark’s iconic Little Mermaid, a bronze statue fashioned in 1912 by Danish sculptor Edvard Eriksen and inspired by Hans Christian Andersen’s fairytale of the same name. After the statue was revealed in Shanghai, a video monitor was activated in the Denmark Pavilion to make sure the famous mermaid could be seen by her countrymen on a digital screen erected at her usual resting place in Copenhagen harbor.

The other statue of titanic fame is a Brussels icon, The Manneken Pis, known to commemorate a little boy named Julianske who urinated on a package of explosive charges placed at the city wall by attackers, thus saving the city. The brave act gained him everlasting fame and the enduring gratitude of Brussels’ citizens. The little naked boy has been given a wardrobe of over 600 costumes, 160 of which were presented by the likes of visiting Scottish dancers, Texan cowboys, Japanese warriors, Canadian hockey players, and fishermen from Newfoundland. Julianske’s new costume is a Chinese traditional garment.

For fans of Auguste Rodin, The Age of Bronze is not the only work that made it to the Shanghai Expo. In the Expo Museum Pavilion, admirers can also enjoy the seven sterling sculptures Rodin created for the 1900 Paris World Fair. They are Invocation, Andromeda, Woman Sleeping on a Knoll, The Thinker, The Kiss, Balzac, and Ugolino and His Sons.

The Venerable

The Shanghai Expo also offers the chance of a lifetime for people to make a pilgrimage to see sacred religious relics. The one attracting most eyeballs is the genuine sariras of Sakyamuni which is likely to be shown in the Nepal Pavilion this September.

All Buddhist sects regard the sariras as the most sacred and supreme equivalent of the Buddhist spiritual master Sakyamuni, and are extremely gratified to see it themselves. In Nepal, the birthplace of Sakyamuni, the sariras always remain veiled to Buddhist followers except on some significant festivals.

The sariras will be housed in the spire of the stupa at the end of the spiral staircases which lead the faithful and the curious to this venerable holy relic. Tens of other wooden, copper or gilded Buddhist figurines will also be unveiled to the public.