The Expo (Day 2)

It felt like our second day at the expo went a lot smoother, considering we now knew where to go and we had our badges (fewer lines to wait in). Being exhausted from the first day, we woke up later than expected and decided to take a taxi straight to the expo (as opposed to walking to the metro station from the hotel). Also, because it was a bit later in the morning, we assumed the traffic would be lighter (spoiler: nope!).

One of the first booths we stopped at sold luxury bathrobes, so we purchased a couple of them (or placed and order for some? I'm not entirely sure). We realized we had entered the Expo from a different door, so we had to find our way back to the main hall to get to where all the medspa machine vendors were. Our goal was to focus on these medspa machines (e.g. hair removal lasers) so we could have a better sense of which factories to visit after the Expo was finished.

One thing I noticed in this "new" area of the Expo was vendors were way more aggressive trying to talk with me in English. It felt like I was being swarmed every time I walked to a new area, with tons of vendors getting in my face and happily yelling "Hello!". I'm not sure who that works on, but it's not me.

One thing that stood out to me was the amount of men testing the products and equipment while looking uncomfortable the whole time. There was a booth selling lipstick, and several men were trying on the lipstick, looking in a mirror to examine it, and then quickly wiping it all off. Spoiler: I try an "eye cleaner" treatment on the 3rd day! To be clear, I don't think there's anything wrong with men trying on makeup. What I found interesting was the business-focused almost-mechanical? whatever-it-takes-to-make-a-sale feel of it. That "it's only business" feel really embodied this Expo, and I think that is partially due to the immense size of the Expo. There is simply no time for small talk.

At one point during the day, I noticed police officers gathering around a booth and taking photos of it while they spoke with a vendor. My wife had noticed it, too, but didn't seem worried by it. Obviously, I couldn't understand what they were saying, but I pieced together what had happened: Vendors pay a lot of money to get a booth at the Expo (tickets for the general public are free, but vendors pay a ton to show their latest products and equipment). One of the vendors was letting people sit down and try their new skincare product, but it was overflowing into another vendor's space. That vendor then complained to the police that their space was being invaded by another vendor, and that is grounds for police action! I didn't get to stick around to see what the result was, but I counted around 20 police officers responding to this.

My wife booked a few "appointments" for treatments while speaking with vendors to test their stuff, which gave me a chance to sit down for a few minutes (I haven't felt this much foot pain since I worked in retail!). While she was having treatments, I spent time taking important photos.

As Day 2 was wrapping up and the police were going around on their loud speakers playing the "we're already closed, please leave!" announcement, I learned that we had two options for after the Expo: 1) we could attend a dinner hosted by one of the large vendors, or 2) we could go to a hotel room and my wife could try a microneedling treatment by a different vendor. We ended up going with Option 2, so we walked 20 minutes to the vendor's hotel (one of the super-fancy hotels close to the Expo center).

But first, we needed to eat something. We decided to go with McDonalds after finding Subway was closed, primarily to compare their new food options with what we have back in the U.S.

Extremely Important Sidenote: While at one of the booths, I saw a Timmy's coffee cup on a table. I asked about it, of course, and they told me they weren't sure where it was from, but that one of their colleagues had purchased it that morning. I looked on "AMap" (like Google Maps) and found there is, in fact, a Tim Horton's in Guangzhou. Unreal.

It took a bit of trial-and-error to find the ultra-fancy hotel, so in the middle of us walking around our various mazes I took a picture of their parking garage. You're welcome.

At one point during my wife's treatment, I heard (and then saw) a helicopter taking off from the roof of the hotel we were in. However, I was more impressed by the facial-scan security system in the lobby. Apparently you don't get a hotel key card there. Everything there uses facial recognition.

It wouldn't be a complete trip without me finding the most important things to photograph, so here's the safety reminder stickers in the hotel elevator:

I've noticed the safety signs often use the words "rely on" instead of "lean on". Regardless, I will never rely on an elevator door or window.

We took a taxi back from the fancy hotel to our still-fancy-but-not-as-fancy hotel about two? miles away. I have noticed that every taxi we take is electric, from brands like BYD and Aion (sp?). We are planning to visit a car dealership at some point during this trip.

Finally, I decided (foolishly) to adventure out to grab some milk for myself after we returned to our hotel room. My wife decided to try installing AliPay (a payment app) on my phone so I could pay for things myself (a lot of places simply don't take cash anymore).

While attempting to pay for the small milk, the AliPay app scanned my face and then threw up a Security Error message! My wife then called me asking what I had done, as her account was now locked out (big problem if we can't pay for anything here, including taxis and metro). Shocker: the payment app, like so many other things here now, uses facial recognition as an extra security measure. We had installed AliPay on a new device, so it went into "extra security mode" and required extra scans. Yikes. Don't worry, though; my wife was able to unlock her account the next morning.

That's it for Day 2. Stay tuned for Day 3 where I cover the exciting tear-down operation of the Expo!