In brief: Taxis in line for facelift at Expo

Volunteers lend a hand

Over 35,000 volunteers have provided assistance at the Expo Garden over the past 100 days since the event began, including more than 200 overseas volunteers from over 20 countries and regions, organizers said at the weekend.

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Among them, there are 36 volunteers from Japan and 87 from the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, who came to Shanghai together in groups specifically to serve as Expo volunteers.

There are now more than 6,000 volunteers to help visitors at the Expo Garden every day.

High demand for stamps

Thousands of visitors queued up on Sunday to get the 100-day Expo memorial stamp in their Expo passports at the London Zero-carbon Pavilion and Beijing's Urban Best Practices Area Pavilion.

Seven Olympic torchbearers including Jin Jing, who is regarded as China's "angel in a wheelchair" for shielding the Olympic torch from protesters two years ago in Paris, placed the signet in visitors' passports.

Taxis in line for facelift

The 4,000 new Expo taxis will be repainted like ordinary taxis and continue to be used after the Expo ends, major taxi company executives said. The price of a journey in the vehicles will be the same as ordinary taxis.

According to statistics released by the taxi call-in service centre, Expo taxis ferried passengers on more than one million journeys around Shanghai as of August 5.