FOND FAREWELL: Volunteers for the Shanghai World Expo wave goodbye to the last group of visitors on the evening of October 31, the last day of the Expo (WANG XIANG)

According to a sample survey on visitors during the last three days of the Expo by Zhang Jijiao, an urban expert from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, 97 percent were satisfied with facilities and bus services in the Expo site and 98 percent are happy with services provided by the 80,000 volunteers.

The Expo has also given beautiful memories to staff members from the pavilions and the volunteers at the Expo site. Fatima Alshaer, a woman from the United Arab Emirates (UAE), worked in the UAE Pavilion for the last two months of the event. "I will definitely come back to China," she said. "I want to bring my family to China as well; I hope that we can visit as many places in China as possible."

Luo Yu, a volunteer at the Expo, expressed her feelings about leaving the Expo site. "Now, we can finally relax after all of our hard work. But now that the last day is really here, I feel sad to say goodbye to this beautiful park," said Luo. After watching the closing ceremony, she gathered with other volunteers outside the Expo Culture Center to sing a Chinese song to commemorate the friendship they built at the Expo.

The Expo has laid out new criteria for the urbanization process. Developed countries brought their high-end technologies to the Expo, including intelligent cars, clean energy, nanotechnology and smart medical devices.

The Awards Ceremony of the Expo in Shanghai was held on the evening of October 30. Thirty-four pavilions, including the Germany Pavilion, stood out above the rest and were awarded World Expo prizes at the ceremony.

POSTMODERN STRUCTURE: Tourists leave the Germany Pavilion on the Expo site on September 19 (GUO XIAOYONG)

The 34 prize winners were decided by an international jury of nine experts in architecture, the World Expo, city planning and other fields. The World Expo prizes were divided into three categories, pavilion design, creative display and theme development. Each category had three levels: gold, silver and bronze. In addition, the pavilions were also classified into four categories according to their sizes. Gold award winners are the Germany Pavilion, Saudi Arabia Pavilion, UK Pavilion, Chile Pavilion, Sweden Pavilion, Finland Pavilion, Slovenia Pavilion, Portugal Pavilion, Algeria Pavilion, Mauritania Pavilion and Pacific Joint Pavilion.

The BIE-COSMOS Prize was given to the organization Chain Reaction, a Chinese private non-profit organization for the protection and promotion of the indigenous culture in China's Guizhou Province. The MeteoWorld Pavilion, the first of its kind in the World Expo, was awarded the Special Jury Prize.

The organizers also said they gained experience in public governance by interacting with visitors over the Expo-period.

At the beginning of the Expo, just 200,000 visitors had caused headaches for the organizers. But they successfully dealt with a record single-day attendance of 1.03 million on October 16.

With more umbrellas, fences, fans, signs and wheelchairs, facilities and services at the Expo site greatly improved.

"The changes were made in response to visitors' complaints and suggestions," said Qian Bojin, Director of the Expo visitors' service center.