TOMIYO YAMADA became widely known as “Expo Grandma” due to her love and passion for world expo.She's showing old photos to other participants.(Photo:Cao Jun)

Shanghai, Jan.13- Expo Grandma recently came back to Shanghai and attended Tea Reception with the theme of World Expo. Twenty or so related people participated in the reception and discussed together expo friendship, expo heritage as well as post-expo development.

TOMIYO YAMADA became widely known as “Expo Grandma” due to her love and passion for world expo. She once broke the world record (2010) with 243 entries in total during 185-day Aichi Expo.

The nickname of “Expo Grandma” became official during Shanghai World Expo and was even written in to summary report of expo by the former prime minister Wen Jiabao.

 “China is my second home,” Yamada expressed her expo passion, “the minute I saw a piece of news about Shanghai Expo on Nikon Keizai Shimbun, I decided to visit Shanghai. And now it’s the 28th time I came to this city.”

The expo area will become one of the most dynamic and bustling city centers in the future, Yuan Wenjiong, deputy director of the office of Shanghai World Expo Bureau of Shanghai FTZ, introduced the current post-expo development.

The Expo site will become a new CBD with more than 10 centrally-administered SOEs locating here in the coming days. “And we are launching a smart expo project to establish a world-class central urban area, making use of advanced technology during the expo time,” said Yuan.

Yamada is going to introduce the plan of Shanghai’s post-expo development to her friends back to Japan.