Expo 2010

Standing in an epic line to see the world's largest IMAX screen, you get the impression that the entire Chinese population of 1.3 billion has had the same idea. On a crowded day, lines have stretched more than two miles, with wait times of up to nine hours, for the Saudi Arabian pavilion, the most popular exhibit at Shanghai's Expo 2010. It usually takes at least six hours to see the Japanese pavilion, with a wildly popular exhibit of robots, including one that plays the violin.

China won the right Tuesday to host the World Exposition in 2010, the first time a developing country will do so since the fair began 151 years ago in London. The victory is a feather in the cap of the world's most populous country, which recently realized its dream of being chosen to host the 2008 Olympics. The selection also confirms the growing influence of the bidding city, Shanghai, China's thriving economic powerhouse. "It's been our wish for many years to bring home the World Expo.

The year is a fresh slate before you, so it's time to start filling in those blanks. Here are five ideas for places to be or places to see that will turn your 2010 into a year to remember. And if you have something you think should be on readers' radars, write to us at travel@latimes.com. Oberammergau Passion Play, Germany It happens only once every 10 years and has been going on since 1634. The people of Oberammergau in the Bavarian Alps, fearing that bubonic plague would sweep the village, promised they would reenact the Passion every decade if God spared them.

What does a pavilion say about your country? Thomas Heatherwick, designer of the British pavilion at Shanghai's Expo 2010, figured that foreign visitors would expect Britain to conjure images of "bowler hats, black taxis and rain." Instead, he gave them an extraordinary objet d'art ( "a building which is an exhibit, or an exhibit which is a building," as he calls it) that resembles a giant dandelion head with thousands of seeds embedded in 60,000 acrylic rods that sway in the breeze.

Paul Tchen, general manager of Shanghai's Peninsula Hotel, was catching his breath. The hotel, which had had its soft opening only a month earlier, was running smoothly, Tchen a little less so: He had just noticed that his suit jacket and pants didn't match. Tchen, a Cal Poly Pomona graduate formerly with the Beverly Hills Peninsula, had more important things on his mind: the challenge of opening a luxury property amid the global recession and the high expectations for this Peninsula, the first new structure on Shanghai's storied riverfront Bund since the Bank of China in 1927.

American homeowners wondering what follows a housing bubble can look to China's largest city. Once one of the hottest markets in the world, sales of homes have virtually halted in some areas of Shanghai, prompting developers to slash prices and real estate brokerages to shutter thousands of offices. For the first time, homeowners here are learning what it means to have an upside-down mortgage -- when the value of a home falls below the amount of debt on the property.

In little more than a year on the job, Stanley Cheung, Disney's chief in China, can lay claim to this: "The Lion King" is coming to Shanghai this summer. Cheung, 47, considered bringing the Broadway musical here such a feat that he made the announcement recently to 400 guests in Shanghai's Grand Theater in People's Square, heralding what would be one of his company's biggest productions in China since "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" played here nearly 70 years ago.

China's powerful economic machine is losing steam, raising significant concerns for many businesses that are counting on the Asian nation to help them ride out the global financial crisis. The Chinese government said Monday that economic growth in the third quarter slowed sharply from a year earlier to 9%, the lowest level in more than five years. China's economy expanded by 11.9% in all of 2007. But weakening demand for Chinese factory goods from U.S.