Too crowded.

Way, way, way too crowded.

The Idaho tour group decided against attending the Shanghai World Expo on Saturday as scheduled, on account of record crowds at the international fair.

Marilee Wallace with the Coeur d’Alene Chamber of Commerce gathered the 60-member group for a vote to decide on Saturday morning.

“It’s already at a record amount (of visitors), at 700,000,” Wallace said at noon, just after the group’s early morning flight from Beijing to Shanghai. “We could either make it 700,060, or we could continue on.”

Two voted for the Expo (one of them this reporter) and the group collectively agreed to move on to the two-hour bus ride to Suzhou.

The World Expo, which consists of hundreds of pavilions containing restaurants and elaborate displays from different organizations and countries, has usually only seen about 200,000 visitors per day since it opened in May.

Saturday’s tour guide reasoned that attendance exploded on Saturday because of the mild weather, the Chinese holiday that day and the Expo’s approaching finale on Oct. 31.

”The group that went before us, they’re not even in yet,” Wallace said of a tour group that had left for the short drive to the Expo four hours prior. “Traffic is two hours just to park the bus.”

The Idaho group won’t have another chance to attend the Expo.

None seemed to mind.

“I really am fine we’re not going,” said Coeur d’Alene resident Kathy Quinn. “Just because we’d be standing in line most of the time. Our time here is limited, and I would rather do other things.”

The substitute activity was a visit to Tiger Hill, located in the midst of squalid housing in Suzhou.

The serene garden and marshy hill offered a stark contrast to what the Expo would have delivered: A peaceful calm amongst an expanse of trees and pathways, cut by a placid stretch of the Grand Canal.

It is also offered a short climb of steps — much easier than the Great Wall, all agreed — to the Tiger Hill Tower, a mammoth pagoda built in 960 A.D. The weathered, 141-foot tower, like its Italian counterpart, has suffered foundation problems and leans perpetually to one side.

Tour members were free to rove around the lush park, where Chinese families picnicked and giggly children blew bubbles.

Sharon Hanson noted that visitors were on the sparse side.

“Probably because everyone’s at the Expo,” the Coeur d’Alene woman said with a chuckle.

Sue and Gene Harrison craned their necks to stare up at the crooked tower.

“It’s amazing. And I’ve never heard of it before,” Sue murmured.

Gene wasn’t disappointed by the tweaked schedule, he said.

“We didn’t do much today, but that’s all right,” said Gene, a Redmond, Ore., resident on the tour with Coeur d’Alene friends. “It would have been a jungle, to go to the Expo.”

Sue added that these were the kinds of crowds she could tolerate.

“These are people enjoying a Saturday, and not just tourists,” she said. “These are local folks just visiting.”

Pat Crabtree, a Missouri resident on the tour with Kootenai County friends, said she was just happy to gain time for a nap at the Suzhou hotel.

“We really haven’t had any time for ourselves on this trip,” she said. “We need time to reflect on what we’ve seen and soak it in.”