Discover Lithuania from hot air balloon
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The first thing what visitors see in Lithuania pavilion is a composition of well known artist Vytautas Karciauskas named "I can". The idea is taken from famous painting of Leonardo da Vinci "Vitruvian Man". It symbolizes harmony and balance – people can climb on and swing on a little bit with hands wide open for universe. And this is only a little piece of the artist's intentions – he is planing to build a huge economic and cultural center in a shape of this model.
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| Visitors enjoy their tour of Lithuania Pavilion at Shanghai Expo Park. [China.org.cn/K M Rehan Salahuddin] |
The next point is our info terminals – the so called database of Lithuania – here visitor can find general and particular information about Lithuania,for example nature, culture, economics and investment, science, sport, leisure and even games.
The theme of our pavilion is Discover Lithuania from hot air balloon. The reason why we have chosen hot air balloon is simple: Vilnius is one of a few capitals in Europe over which flights in hot air balloons are available. You can even take off from the center of Vilnius. The hot air balloon sport is becoming more and more popular and Lithuania has the biggest amount of hot air balloons in comparison with the number of our population. Lithuania is among first countries in the world which has mostly women pilots.
When you are inside the hot air balloon you can enjoy images of Vilnius. Here is also another interesting point – the wish stone called "Stebuklas" ("The Magic"). As The Netherlands brought the statue of Mermaid, we took our original magical stone from the cathedral square of Vilnius. All you need to do is to climb on it, make a wish, turn around and your wish will come true. And we also offer for our visitors to write their wishes down and throw into the box.
We are proud of our national heritage food and we brought it here – we have national heritage restaurant. We are offering for our visitors to taste our national food and of course our national beer - which they really enjoy.
Souvenir shop mainly sells amber and stamps – we brought the post stamp, especially made for EXPO. Visitors can buy a postcard and a stamp and throw it into the special postbox. All letters will be taken to Lithuania,stamped and will come back to China for the recipients.
And the last but not least – our basketball corner. Basketball is the second religion in Lithuania and visitors here are attracted to try their throwing skills. Chinese people mostly know only a little about Lithuania and mainly as a country of basketball because a few years ago the coach of China national men basketball team was Lithuanian - Jonas Kazlauskas. And in 2011 Lithuania will host Europe basketball championship.
The author is currently studying as a PhD student in China.
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