Category: Nagoya

Long Distance

Thursday, I had AS try out the SlingBox using the new PocketPC version of the viewer software from Taipei. After some fiddling, it seems to work just as well as the laptop version, but it fits in the palm of your hand. Rats, only one person can register their PocketPC with SlingBox to use it.

Friday, saw Man of the Heart, which I described on Thursday. Nominally, it is an attempt to bring back awareness of Bengali mystic Lalon Pkokir, who is an original source of Bengali culture, and have been used as a focus of a nonsectarian Indian way of life. However, the subtext is a conjoining of John Lennon’s utopian song “Imagine” and something of a gnostic Islamic-Hindu belief system (gnostic Christianity being more familiar to the public from the DaVinci Code and the Matrix movie series). The play takes a lot of getting your mind wrapped around. The singing is extraordinary, and it immediately brings the impressions and thoughts into feelings, even though it is sung in the Baoul caste style. (The projected supertitles help out, too). The work toured through Southern California, and will journey to India after this run.

Saturday was the 150 mile round trip journey to Mommonth, New Jersey for P-‘s friend’s wedding. Very simple – 15 minutes for the actual ceremony, where the groom’s brother managed to get ordained from some church to be able to preform the multidenominational wedding. The area was beautiful, and the DJ did his best to get Hava Nagila blended with Pulp Fiction and Motown.

Sunday we helped P-‘s other friend move to Long Island City. The place is really starting to take off, development wise. Afterwards, we went to the 25th annual Sakura Festival at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden, which was sponsored by Inuyuama Council Member and Brooklyn son Anthony Bianchi. We visited him last year at this time, and the NY Times covered this year’s tour. To celebrate the anniversary, he brought a 60 person contingent of cultural performers, a calligraphy expert and an artisian tofu maker. Families who had recently sent their children to Inuyuama offered homestays to the Japanese visitors, completing the circle of cultural exchanges. Anthony wants to use his good offices to formalize these exchanges into a two year cycle between Brooklyn and Inuyuama, which are similarly situated to cities such as New York and Nagoya. He is up for re-election next year, and he looks like he has a good shot – he’s done all of the right things and brought transparency to the way government works in his area.

7 countries in 7 hours, real and virtual

At Canada PavillionWe went to Expo 2005 today, the successor to the World’s Fair series. Close to 50 years since the Flushing World’s Fair, there is still a number 7 type train, but it’s a magnetic levitation train, and there is still a big globe, but it’s made of living flowers. The car exhibit is just as big, but there is a big ferris wheel which was incredibly smooth. We focused most of our time in the Pacific Rim countries area, mostly asian countries. The Philippines had these essential oils displays which facinated me. Malaysia had a projection of a girl in a sarong, which looked something like Princess Leia if she was malay and was being projected from R2D2 in a jungle. Singapore had a huge pavillion — the main attractions were an indoor rain forest (not that we needed it – it was seriously raining all day) and huge bookcases of keepsake boxes which showed little aspects of daily life.

Prices were really expensive. Roti canai = $10 US, Pizza = $4 US. We got a lot of magnets.

Canada was the best visually because of its multifaceted video presentation. The picture is from the Canada pavillion’s website – they had people with big flat screen displays walk around and take people’s pictures.

The most advanced thing that we saw were a variety of robots. There is a robot receptionist called “Actroid” that can respond to questions in four languages, and looked somewhat plastic but relatively real young lady. It’s a step up from Disney World anamatronics. They had another one that was standing and in a race queen uniform at the “Robot Center” while they were demoing a T. Rex robot. P- and I thought it was real freaky. It was also really freaky that they also had a live Japanese lady in a similar but red uniform, and it was kind of hard to tell them apart.

Before that, we spent the morning exploring the local department store’s food court at Nagoya Station. We stood outside for the 10 am opening, where the female attendants came out and literally did some sort of mechanical song and dance before they opened the doors. You kind of almost couldn’t tell that they weren’t robots either.

We spent like US$30 down there on so many foods it was not funny. Pork cutlet bento, salmon sashimi, fried gyoza dumplings, crossants, ham buns, chestnut buns, brioche, salmon roe sushi, square box sushi, yoghurt drink, assorted nuts, mochi. But it was so delicious and fresh, we could not resist. That seemed like a lot, but we saved a ton of money not eating at the expo.

Onward to Kyoto tomorrow, returning to Tokyo and flying to Taiwan.

Getting to the Church On Time

We stayed one night at the New Otani Hotel in Tokyo. Wow, what an amazing place! Their premier restuarant is Le Tour d’Argent, that I know only as one of the few restaurants that defeated the French Iron Chef. Their orange duck menu is close to $200 for two. Obviously, we didn’t eat there. Instead, we wandered the surrounding streets, filled with pachincko parlors, and found this restaurant called An An, which specialized in dishes made with home-made tofu. Menu: Fresh yuzu (tofu skins), shashimi, roast beef medallion and asparagus appertizer, fried tofu, house salad with crumbled tofu, chicken skewers. Their food was amazing, and we were stuffed at US$30 a person.

The next day was the mad dash to make it to meet up with Anthony Bianchi. His name is in full despite the house rules because he’s an elected city councilman in the city of Inuyama. He is originally from Brooklyn and had gone to my high school. Sunday he was hosting the high school’s band and chorus at Meiji Mura, an architecture theme park; as landmarking is virtually impossible in Japan, the alternative has been to bring these old buildings to this park where they can be cared for. Bianchi hosted Easter Sunday service at the moved St. Francis Xavier Cathedral, followed by a musical and choral performance. Afterwards, there was a party held at the Inuyama International Center, aka “Freude”, where we ate our fill of homemade Japanese foods made by the group’s host families.

Trains: we took the red circle “M” line to Tokyo station. Took the Shinkensen Bullet Train to Nagoya. The bento boxes on board were great. Took the regional railroad to Inuyama. Took a bus to the theme park. Took a tour trolley to Area 51 where the church was. It was pretty amazing what kind of efficiency is required to make public transport work here.

We’re going to the Expo 2005 aka the World’s Fair tomorrow. I’ve been calling my mom daily using Skype; it works very well when you have a good Internet connection.