Mobility Portal, Expo 2020
A big fat climate summit is happening in town! It’s the COP28, or the 28th United Nations Climate Change Conference. (COP stands for ‘Conference of Parties’. No, not the Parties where you drink yourself silly and boogie till you drop, the Parties who signed the climate agreement! Duh!) The whole world is in Dubai and it’s in the Expo 2020 site. Our company has a booth there, and we’re invited to go have a look. But I ain’t going. Too busy (…preparing for our holiday next week, hehe).
Anyway, here’re some throw-back photos of the Dubai Expo 2020. It was a fabulous event. We bought a discounted monthly ticket for the first month of the Expo, which was Oct 2021 (oh, if you’ve forgotten, Expo 2020 was pushed to 2021 because of the pandemic), which we then extended for the entire Expo season (there was an offer for that at that time). And we’re glad we did it. We spent many weekends and holidays in it (we’ve paid for it after all). There were free concerts and children’s playgrounds. We'd typically packed our food and drinks from home and had it at the many parks and rest areas at the Expo! Your typical cheapskate family, haha.
Flags of the nations at Expo 2020, Dubai, Oct 2021
The main Al Wasl Plaza at Expo 2020. This was where many of the main events were held. It could be spectacularly lit up!
One of the many stages for performances and concerts… I think this is the Jubilee Stage, and we’ve just finished a Portuguese music festival
A UB40 concert in front of Terra, the Sustainability Pavilion. Expo 2020 is divided into the 3 main Expo theme districts, Sustainability, Opportunity and Mobility, with 2 other districts Jubilee and Al Forsan in between them
Is that a phoenix? In front of the Opportunity Pavilion, Mission Possible
There’s even a waterfall feature where you can waddle in! It’s called the Fire Falls
Now, you know why it’s called the Fire Falls!
Play time! The boys at a children’s playground (Rashid’s Adventure), Jubilee Park, Expo2020, with the ‘Garden in the Sky’ feature behind (it's a platform with a garden which could go up and down)
The UAE’s Pavilion is shaped like the wings of a falcon
Family pic, inside the UAE Pavilion
The Vision Pavilion, a pavilion dedicated to the Ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum. He loves horses
Inside the Women’s Pavilion. Yup, there is a Pavilion dedicated to women
One of the common features throughout the Expo 2020 grounds
See you! Expo 2020, Dubai
I do hope they come up with some real action on climate this time. It’s the 28th such conference, and I still don’t see any improvement in climate. Instead, every year I hear more and more floods happening, forest fires, temperatures reaching their record high… God save us.
Oh, and I hope they talk about Gaza, and put a stop to the mindless bombing and destruction that Israel is still inflicting. C’mon, if we’re talking about justice, justice is when Israel stopped killing at a thousand or 2. That’s what I call an eye for an eye. This is like, he killed your brother, and you go ahead and wipe out his family, his friends, his village, destroy everything in sight, heck, anybody and anything that's around him? That is pure insanity. An act of an unrestrained bully. And I ask the West, especially the US, the so-called defender of justice. Is this justice? I’ve always advocated for the recognition of Israel. I’ve always thought that some of the Muslim nations were being irrational not to have this stand. Israel and Palestine must agree of each other's existence to move ahead, to have peace. But this time, I stand for Palestine. Israel, if you want peace, you need to change your mindset… You need to treat others as equals, people as people, not like master and slave. If you are so high and mighty and have no regard for others, others will have no regard for you. God save Palestine. God save Israel.
