In South Korea, All Roads Lead to Yeosu, Host of the World Expo Jean Chung for The New York Times Inside the new aquarium at the World Expo. UNTIL five years ago, Yeosu was an unremarkable, out-of-the-way city on the southern coast of South Korea. Despite a temperate climate, scenic islands and a spicy local cuisine, the city was, among tourists, virtually off the map. A largely rural municipality spread out over a peninsula and 317 islands, it has three commercial and residential hubs that used to be the only places to find anything resembling bustle. Then fate smiled on the city. Yeosu (pronounced YUH-sue) was chosen to host the 2012 World Expo, the smallest city in a generation to have the honor. A multimedia show at the 134-foot Big-O. Since then, this place of 300,000 residents has gone on a building binge. The sprawling Expo site, which stretches along the waterfront on the eastern edge of the city, has sprouted 22 new futuristic buildings and structures that would seem more suitable for fast-paced Seoul. And large portions of Yeosu have undergone major infrastructure upgrades, including road improvements and new transport links, in part to accommodate the 10 million visitors the city initially expected to attend the Expo from the time it started, last month, through its end, on Aug. 12. "Yeosu has grown 20 years" worth in just a few years," said Moon Ha-Na, a representative for the Yeosu World Expo organizing committee, during a tour of the Expo site in March. Its improvements are being explored by the more than one million visitors to the Expo who are taking in its ambitious environmental, cultural and educational exhibitions from 104 countries and 10 international organizations (including the United Nations). For South Korea's part, it has created a spectacular structure called the Big-O, which uses lights and lasers to project kaleidoscopic shows on a giant screen of water, and the Korea Pavilion, whose design suggests a huge silver wave. It also has installed a new aquarium, the largest in Korea, that is spacious enough to comfortably house 200 animal species, including a beluga whale. Two former silos have been repurposed as a desalination plant outfitted with a rooftop observation deck and an enormous pipe organ. And across the bay, the glittering, sail-shaped MVL Hotel - a scaled-down imitation of Dubai's Burj Al Arab - has a gleaming facade that dazzles with digital lights after dark. All of these new attractions are now easy to reach from major cities. A high-speed KTX train line from Seoul completed in October stops at a new train station at the Expo site, cutting travel time from the capital to Yeosu to three and a half hours from about five hours. And in May, a new port at the Expo site began welcoming ferries arriving directly from other South Korean ports and destinations in Japan. Despite these large-scale developments, just months in advance of the Expo, Yeosu was still the sort of place where Western faces were novel enough that children would run up to me on the street with a "Hello" before giggling and scurrying away. This is in part because of its relative isolation. "In some ways this was considered a backwater region," Commissioner Lee Joon-hee, a government representative, said in an interview at his office across the street from the Expo site. But now, he said, the government is focused on making sure that Yeosu remains on tourists" radars long after the Expo has ended. It plans on highlighting its attractions (like the aquarium) and using its improved infrastructure to host events like international conferences and yachting competitions. "The goal is that this could be a hub of marine resorts on the southern coast," he said. Still, the Expo may have exposed some of Yeosu's growing pains. The influx of so many visitors in a small city with a very new tourism infrastructure has caused a strain, especially when it comes to places to stay. While several hotels were built or renovated to accommodate foreign tourists, including the HS Tourist Hotel, where my husband, Dave, and I stayed, there is still a shortage of available rooms. According to the Expo's accommodations and tourism department, on an average day during the Expo in May, there was demand for more than 35,000 rooms, but there are only 9,941 rooms in Yeosu. The Expo organizing committee has been encouraging visitors who cannot find lodging locally to stay in neighboring towns and take buses to the Expo site. Alternative accommodations have also been opened in community centers, temples, churches and campgrounds. The off-site lodgings may be just the push visitors need to explore the handful of sights around Yeosu that weren't created for the Expo. To find out what they were, I met Ron Anderson and Corrie Hulse, two American expatriates who teach English at the Yeosu campus of Chonnam National University, for coffee. After suggesting a few nearby attractions - such as Odongdo, a camellia-covered island connected to the mainland by a wide walkway - Mr. Anderson conceded, "There's nothing you can point your finger at and say "This is what Yeosu is famous for." Except the food.