Unofficial Japanese Tea Ceremony with Rotary

When I went to Nagoya in June for the Aichi World Expo, I had met the Vice-President of one of the many Tokyo Rotary clubs, Hiro Sakamaki. He is also the president of his own Environmental Engineering consulting firm. We chatted quite extensively so he gave me his card and told me to contact him when I arrive in Tokyo.

So a couple of weeks ago (day of Oktoberfest) I went out to lunch with him and his fiancee. They were extremely kind. I had thought it would be some type of formal/business oriented type thing so I dressed up fairly decently. Then when I arrived at the restaurant, him and his financee were dressed in casual clothes. He was in a baseball cap, with torn jeans and stuff so I was so overdressed hahahahaa. But it was quite a delicious lunch. Nepalese and Indian food..mmmmm... Then we went back to his place to have coffee. His toilet... get this... when you sit down on it, it starts playing music (Destiny's Child - Bootylicious... very suitable) and in the bowl are spinning disco lights... I was so surprised... it was quite humerous.

So yesterday he invited me out again, this time with his Rotary club, to a Japanese tea ceremony. So I also got to meet the other Vice-President and the President. Supposedly every season or so, in Japanees culture they are suppose to go through the tea ceremony. And its very very orchestrated with strict rules. The ladies serving the tea have to walk a certain way and are suppose to enter and exit a certain way. I experienced it when I went to the Japan Tent conference, but this was more formal. Quite an educational experience indeed.

Akikawa Valley - Nippon Koei Social Outting

So my entire department, not just my ITS team, went out for a company social outting in Akikawa Valley, located east of Tokyo. It was a lot of fun.

At first when we arrived, Tsushima and Hamada, the two freshman who live in the dormitory with me, organized a scavenger hunt. Lucky me, I was put on a team with my supervisor Fujitaka, the big boss of the department Ishibashi, and some other dude I don't know the name of. Basically what we had to do was to hike around Akikawa and take pictures of specific landmarks. Along the way we also got to stop to eat a Japanese delicacy called "Konyaku" a type of sea jelly. It was super yummy.

My boss/supervisor, Fujitaka, and I

Me, the other dude, and Ishibashi enjoying our konyaku

Me being silly with my Konyaku

Me, Fujitaka, and Ishibashi enjoying our Konyaku

Hamanaka, the other ITS manager, taking a picture of his scavenger hunt team

The fall colours in the leaves were starting to come in so it was absolutely gorgeous. After the scavenger hunt, all the teams ended up near the shore of a river where Matsuzaki and Ishikawa, both from my ITS team at work, were preparing a HUGE BBQ for everyone. I aboslutely love Japanese barbeques. Unlike the boring hamburger and hotdog bbqs we have at home in Canada, Japanese BBQs have EVERYTHING. They dump everything on the grill and its super yummy. I always over eat at Japanese BBQs.

mmmm Japanese BBQ

After the BBQ, I went into a car with Hamada and Tsushima back to the dormitory.
I enjoyed myself. I got to know a lot of my coworkers better.

"24" Marathon

So my friend James introduced me to the American TV show "24" (on FOX) starring Kiefer Sutherland. We watched season 4 of the show. I watched the first 4 episodes at his place the first time (we had to rent from Tsutaya - Japan's Blockbuster). I was immediately hooked. Its such an exciting and suspenceful show. Its TOTALLY addictive. For those of you who are not familiar the show, each season of 24 takes place in a day and the each of the twenty-four episodes in each season represents an hour.

I went to rent the next 6 episodes myself because we were both busy. But for the rest of the 14, my friend Hiro kindly lent me his DVD set he had bought over the internet. I went back to James' place and we watched 14 hours of 24 spread out in two days. The DVD's ended up being in PAL format (UK format) so it was in black and white on James' Japanese DVD player. But we were so addicted we didnt really care. We ate KFC while watching.. I havent had KFC in ages... It was finger lickin good.

EARTHQUAKE!!!

So I was just working at my desk diligently when all of a suddent the room started shaking. I was like holy shit. Its an EARTHQUAKE!!!! I ve always joked with people ever since I arrived here in Japan that I want to experience at least one earthquake before I leave. And that wish came true. It was like a Disneyland ride. It was nuts. The hanging lamp in my room started swaying back and forth back and forth. While it was happening, I had to message someone on MSN and Emily Johnston and Laura from my class happened to be online so I was chatting with them about it.

I'm very impressed with Japanese infrastructure cause the power didnt go out, the internet didnt go out and the phone lines were all working perfectly. I guess they experience them enough here that its kinda like a snow blizzard is to us.

Even though it wasn't a heavy one, I was quite shaken up afterwards. Like having the entire building shake back and forth on you is quite frightening, especially if you havent experienced before. I grew up in Toronto, where NOTHING happens other than snow storms.

I checked online earthquake reports afterwards and it was a 6.4 magnitude at the hypocenter near the coast of Honshu, Japan. And we felt the earthquake here in the greater Tokyo area at a magnitude of 3. A 3 was already that crazy, I could only imagine what a 6.4 feels like since the severity grows exponentially as the magnitude increases.

I have attached a picture of the earthquake report below

Mommy and Daddy comes to Japan

So my parents decided to take a vacation to Hong Kong and come visit me in Japan along the way (October 13- 16). So I took Friday off work and met them at their hotel in the Ikebukuro area of Tokyo. I haven't seen them for almost 7 months. So it was very very nice to see them again.

And knowing the stress monkey that I am, I was super stressed out in planning their visit here. Basically I had to plan all the sightseeing. I wanted to give them the best visit of Tokyo but considering they only had two full days in the city I had to cram a lot in. And since I haven't done much sightseeing myself in the city, I was kinda learning in the process myself. Thank goodness for my friend James who has lived in the city for almost two years to give me some sightseeing suggestions.

There's a lot of photos of places I dont have cause theyre on my parent's camera. So heres where we went in the four days.

Day 1- October 13th (after meeting them at their hotel)

• Shibuya - Dinner and browsing

• Roppongi Hills (giant skyscraper with a 360 degree view of Tokyo and a contemporary art museum)

Day 2 - October 14th

• Sensoji Temple (Asakusa Kannon Temple)

• Boat Cruise along the river running

• Hama Rikyu Gardens

• Odaiba area (with a stunning view of the Tokyo skyline)
• My Dormitory

• Yokohama Harbour front

Day 3 - October 15th

• Nikko (in a city about 1.5 hours away from Tokyo with gorgeous temples)

• Akihabara Electric Town (with all the Japanese electronics)
• Ginza

• Shinjuku
• Dinner at a traditional rotating sushi bar restaurant in Shinjuku

Day 4 - October 16th

• Tsukiji-Shijo Fish Market
• Yasakuni Shrine (the controversial Japanese soldier shrine)

Most of the trip was taken up by transportation. The tourist attractions are all located at points far away from each other. But that's all part of living in Tokyo: the commuting. So my parents got to experience the different forms of transportation here and the complete madness of pulic transit in the densest city in the world. But one amazing that came out of the commuting was that we got to have a lot of wonderful conversations about what's happening at home and what I have been up to. It was defintely, as my father puts it, a family reunion.

My dad sitting next to old ladies on the JR train

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The Yasakuni Effect
A special part of the trip I would like to talk about is the trip to the infamous Yasakuni Shrine. For those of you who don't know, Yasakuni Shrine is the shrine that commemorates the Japanese war dead (all the wars, not just WWII) and happens to contain a few war criminals from WWII. And this is the controversial shrine that upsets China and South Korea everytime Prime Minister Koizumi visits it. My dad is a very knowledgeable and educated individual and is extremely interested, like myself, in history and politics. So he really enjoyed this part of the trip.
So I want to talk about something that I experienced during our visit to Yasakuni Shrine I call the Yasakuni Effect. Being from Chinese origin, this was the very first time I had felt awkward being in Japan. It started when we first entered the shrine and my mom commented on how she felt slightly uncomfortable being there due to the war crimes against our ancestors. My dad, on the other hand took this visit more as an educational experience and decided to look past the controversial history. Parts of me agreed with both their stances. I unexpectedly felt offended being in the shrine. I never thought I would actually feel this way since I've been living and educated in Canada for most of my life and being the third generation in my family since World War II ended. It was a feeling that hit me by surprise. I studied all this stuff in high school, and I usually just took it as an event in history, and like my dad, looked past the controversy. But I couldn't help but feel angry at what the Japanese did to my ancestors. For the first time I felt sympathetic toward the remarks made by the Chinese and Korean governments. The shrine also contained a really extensive museum that took the visitor throughout the history of the wars that Japan has engaged in. So me and my dad went in and thank goodness the displays contained English. I actually learned A LOT from the museum. And my dad, being Chinese and our family's history (mostly my grandfather) with Japan, my dad finally got to see what "the other side" had to say and how the "other side" interpreted history. I didn't really blame my mom for not wanting to go in cause I completely understood her feelings. But my curiosity and extreme interest in history and politics kind of overpassed my anger and discomfort.
The interesting thing was that the very next day after our visit, on October 17th, Prime Minister Koizumi made a trip to the shrine. And as expected, China and Korea made a lot of noise in international news.

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Overall, I could have organized their vacation better. I was really upset at myself as there were a lot of places I wanted to take them to ended up being closed. They kept telling me that the purpose of their trip was to come visit me. But I was still really disappointed at myself. Considering that they payed so much just to fly here and that it was my dad's first time in Japan, I wanted to give them the best experience possible.

I can't wait to see them, the rest of my family, and my friends again when I return to Canada in late December. Japan has definitely become part of my life, but I miss Canada!!!