The theme of the Milan World's Fair, running through October 31, is food. But the real action is in the temporary buildings. While each nation's pavilion pays varying degrees of lip service to the local agricultural and culinary traditions, for most, the effort clearly went into creating photo-ready architectural ambassadors, to infiltrate a little soft-power propaganda into the Facebook pages and Instagram feeds of tourists around the world.

A walk down the Expo 2015 midway is a parade of the striking, the surreal, and the downright tacky, each pavilion twisting and vaulting in an effort to out-impress the others. As the world's temporary Main Street, the Expo midway vividly illustrates that the world is a weird town. Here are just a few examples that caught my eye:

It's a long, long way to Polynesia. The dusty hills of the province of Toledo, Spain are almost as far from the South Pacific, both geographically and culturally, as you can get. No frothy surf, thatched huts, or gently swaying coconut palms here. The town of Borox, high on the Castilian plain, runs more to tall thin evergreens and low, severe, sun-baked buildings with red tile roofs.

But one of those squat buildings on the outskirts of town might just be the center of the tiki universe.